"Lovely Palaistra,” said I, “how gracefully you turn and sway your body and the kettle at the same time! My marrow melts at the sight. He is a lucky man who dips his finger in that dish." The girl was of a very lively humor and full of charming ways. "Fly, young man,” said she, “if you are in your senses and want to live. I am made of fire and smoke. If you should but touch me you will sit here covered with blisters, burned through by me. No doctor will heal you, not even a god, save only me who burned you. Strangest of all, I will make you suffer the more, and you will cherish the painful cure and cling to it, and you would be stoned rather than escape from your pleasant pain. Why do you laugh? You see before you a scientific cook of men. These trumpery eatables are not the only things I can prepare; no, I know well how to butcher and flay and carve that great and noble viand, man. My dearest pleasure is to lay hold of his very vitals and heart." "You are perfectly right," I said; "for even while I was at a distance, before I had come near you, you not only burned me, by Heavens! but set me all in a blaze. Through my eyes you flung your invisible fire into my vitals and are roasting me, though I never did you any harm. So, heal me, in the name of goodness, with those bittersweet remedies you speak of yourself. I am butchered already; take me and flay me as you will." At this she burst into a peal of sweet laughter, and after that she was a complete conquest.

I said to her one day, "My dear, get me sight of your mistress practising her mysteries or changing her shape. For a long time I have been eager to see this curious thing. Or, better still, if you know anything of the black art, exhibit it yourself, and show yourself to me in some other form than your own. I have a notion that you are not altogether ignorant of this science, and I know it from my own heart, not from hearsay; for I used to be adamantine, the women said, and I never cast these eyes tenderly on any girl before; but you laid hold of me by your arts and led me off, after our loving contest, as the captive of your spear." "Stop making fun of me," said Palaistra. "What incantation could charm Love, since he is lord of all sorcery? No, sweetheart; I swear by your head that I know nothing whatever of these things. I have never learned so much as my letters, and my mistress is very jealous of her art. But if I should have a chance, I will try to show her to you in the act of changing her shape."

A few days later Palaistra informed me that her mistress was intending to put on the guise of a bird and fly off to her lover. "Now is your time, Palaistra," said I, "to do me a kindness; for it is in your power to satisfy the long-cherished desire of your suppliant." "Never fear," said she. And when it was evening she came for me, and brought me to the door of the chamber in which her master and mistress slept, and bade me stand by a narrow chink in the door and watch what was going on within. Well, I saw the lady stripping off her clothes. When she was naked she advanced to the lamp, took two grains of incense and cast them on the flame, and, standing still, addressed a long speech to it. Then she opened a strong little chest with a great many boxes in it, lifted one of them and took it out. I do not know the nature of the contents, but from its appearance I judged it was oil. From this box she anointed herself completely, beginning with her finger-nails, and suddenly feathers sprang out on her, her nose grew horny and curved, and she displayed all the other properties and traits of a bird. She was nothing else than a night-hawk. When she was completely feathered she gave a harsh cry like a hawk's, stood up, and took her flight out of the window.

I thought I must be dreaming such a sight as this, and rubbed my eyelids with my fingers, not believing that I had seen with my own waking eyes. When I had at length with difficulty convinced myself that I was not asleep, I forthwith begged Palaistra to anoint me, too, with that drug, and feather me and let me fly; for I wanted to learn by experiment whether if my human shape was altered I should have the mind, too, of a bird. She stealthily opened the bedroom door and brought the box. I had already made haste to strip, and I anointed myself from head to toe. But alas, alack! I did not become a bird! No; a tail grew out on me behind, my fingers and toes disappeared somehow, my nails reduced themselves to four and were nothing more nor less than hoofs, my hands and feet became the feet of a beast of burden, my ears grew long, and my face enormous. When I surveyed myself all over I saw that I was an ass, but I had no human voice left wherewith to blame Palaistra. However, I stretched out my lower lip, and by my shape itself and by my sidelong asinine glance I reproached her as well as I could for having made me an ass instead of a bird.

She smote her face with both hands. "Wretched girl that I am," she cried, "what a dreadful thing I have done! In my hurry I blundered, because the boxes were so alike, and brought the wrong one, not the one that makes feathers grow. But cheer up, do, sweetheart! There is a very easy cure for this. You have only to eat some roses, and the beast will immediately fall from you and you will give me back my lover. Only stay this one night, dear, in the ass, and at daybreak I will run and fetch you some roses, and you will eat them and be cured." While she spoke thus she stroked my ears and the rest of my hide.