t, weaving them the
goodliest garlands of the various leafage of the trees and hearkening
the while to the carols of belike a score of different kinds of birds,
that sang as if in rivalry one of other, they became aware of a
delectable beauty, which, wonderstricken as they were with the other
charms of the place, they had not yet noted; to wit, they found the
garden full of maybe an hundred kinds of goodly creatures, and one
showing them to other, they saw on one side rabbits issue, on another
hares run; here lay kids and there fawns went grazing, and there was
many another kind of harmless animal, each going about his pastime at
his pleasure, as if tame; the which added unto them a yet greater
pleasure than the others. After they had gone about their fill,
viewing now this thing and now that, the queen let set the tables
around the fair fountain and at her commandment, having first sung
half a dozen canzonets and danced sundry dances, they sat down to
meat. There, being right well and orderly served, after a very fair
and sumptuous and tranquil fashion, with goodly and delicate viands,
they waxed yet blither and arising thence, gave themselves anew to
music-making and singing and dancing till it seemed good to the queen
that those whom it pleased should betake themselves to sleep.
Accordingly some went thither, whilst others, overcome with the beauty
of the place, willed not to leave it, but, abiding there, addressed
themselves, some to reading romances and some to playing chess or
tables, whilst the others slept. But presently, the hour of none being
past and the sleepers having arisen and refreshed their faces with
cold water, they came all, at the queen's commandment, to the lawn
hard by the fountain and there seating themselves, after the wonted
fashion, waited to fall to story-telling upon the subject proposed by
her. The first upon whom she laid this charge was Filostrato, who
began on this wise:

[Footnote 149: _i.e._ half _before_ (not half _after_) tierce or 7.30
a.m. _Cf._ the equivalent German idiom, _halb acht_, 7.30 (not 8.30)
a.m.]

[Footnote 150: _i.e._ as a whole (_tutto insieme_).]

THE FIRST STORY

[Day the Third]

MASETTO OF LAMPORECCHIO FEIGNETH HIMSELF DUMB AND BECOMETH
GARDENER TO A CONVENT OF WOMEN, WHO ALL FLOCK TO LIE WITH
HIM

"Fairest ladies, there be many men and women foolish enough to believe
that, whenas the white fillet is bound about a girl's head and the