Jancofiore, surprised at first by Salabaetto’s disappearance from Palermo, waxed after a while suspicious; and, when she had waited fully two months, seeing that he did not return, she caused the broker to break open the store-rooms.  And trying first of all the casks, she found them full of sea-water, save that in each there was perhaps a hog’s-head of oil floating on the surface.  Then undoing the bales, she found them all, save two that contained stuffs, full of tow, and in short their whole contents put together were not worth more than two hundred florins.  Wherefore Jancofiore, knowing herself to have been outdone, regretted long and bitterly the five hundred florins of gold that she had refunded, and still more the thousand that she had lent, repeating many a time to herself:—­Who with a Tuscan has to do, Had need of eyesight quick and true.  Thus, left with the loss and the laugh against her, she discovered that there were others as knowing as she.

(1) Neither the Vocab. degli Accad. della Crusca nor the Ricchezze attempts to define the precise nature of this scent, which Fanfani identifies with that of the orange-blossom.

(2) I.e. with a sort of musical boxes in the shape of birds.

No sooner was Dioneo’s story ended, than Lauretta, witting that therewith the end of her sovereignty was come, bestowed her meed of praise on Pietro Canigiano for his good counsel, and also on Salabaetto for the equal sagacity which he displayed in carrying it out, and then, taking off the laurel wreath, set it on the head of Emilia, saying graciously:—­“I know not, Madam, how debonair a queen you may prove, but at least we shall have in you a fair one.  Be it your care, then, that you exercise your authority in a manner answerable to your charms.”  Which said, she resumed her seat.

Not so much to receive the crown, as to be thus commended to her face and before the company for that which ladies are wont to covet the most, Emilia was a little shamefast; a tint like that of the newly-blown rose overspread her face, and a while she stood silent with downcast eyes:  then, as the blush faded away, she raised them; and having given her seneschal her commands touching all matters pertaining to the company, thus she spake:—­“Sweet my ladies, ’tis matter of common experience that, when the oxen have swunken a part of the day under the coercive yoke, they are relieved thereof and loosed, and suffered to go seek their pasture at their own sweet will in the woods; nor can we fail to observe that gardens luxuriant with diversity of leafage are not less, but far more fair to see, than woods wherein is nought but oaks.  Wherefore I deem that, as for so many days our discourse has been confined within the bounds of certain laws, ’twill be not only meet but profitable for us, being in need of relaxation, to roam a while, and so recruit our strength to undergo the yoke once more.  And therefore I am minded that to-morrow the sweet tenor of your discourse be