275] He is caught and hanged; but the Virgin
herself holds him up, and keeps him alive; he is taken down, and turns
monk.

Another tale, of a romantic turn, is at once charming, absurd, immoral,
edifying, and touching: "Celestinus reigned in the City of Rome. He was
exceedingly prudent, and had a pretty daughter."[276] A knight fell in
love with her, but, being also very prudent after a fashion, he argued
thus: "Never will the emperor consent to give me his daughter to wife, I
am not worthy; but if I could in some manner obtain the love of the
maiden, I should ask for no more." He went often to see the princess,
and tried to find favour in her eyes, but she said to him: "Thy trouble
is thrown away; thinkest thou I know not what all these fine speeches
mean?"

He then offers money: "It will be a hundred marks," says the emperor's
daughter. But when evening comes the knight falls into such a deep sleep
that he only awakes on the following morning. The knight ruins himself
in order to obtain the same favour a second time, and succeeds no better
than at first. He has spent all he had, and, more in love than ever, he
journeys afar to seek a lender. He arrives "in a town where were many
merchants, and a variety of philosophers, among them master Virgil." A
merchant, a man of singular humour, agrees to lend the money; he refuses
to take the lands of the young man as a security; "but thou shalt sign
with thy blood the bond, and if thou dost not return the entire sum on
the appointed day, I shall have the right to remove with a
well-sharpened knife all the flesh off thy body."

The knight signs in haste, for he is possessed by his passion, and he
goes to consult Virgil. "My good master," he says, using the same
expression as Dante, "I need your advice;" and Virgil then reveals to
him the existence of a talisman, sole cause of his irresistible desire
to sleep. The knight returns with speed to the strange palace inhabited
by the still stranger daughter of this so "prudent" emperor; he removes
the talisman, and is no longer overpowered by sleep.

To many tears succeeds a mutual affection, so true, so strong,
accompanied by so much happiness, that both forget the fatal date.
However, start he must. "Go," says the maiden, "and offer him double, or
treble the sum; offer him all the gold he wishes; I will procure it for
thee." He arrives, he offers, but the merchant refuses: "Thou speakest
in vain! Wert thou to offer me all the wea