"
The prince sighed as he recalled the different language of his
friend the dove. But this parrot, thought he, has lived about the
court, he affects the wit and the fine gentleman, he knows nothing
of the thing called love. Unwilling to provoke any more ridicule of
the sentiment which filled his heart, he now directed his inquiries to
the immediate purport of his visit.
"Tell me," said he, "Most accomplished parrot, thou who hast every
where been admitted to the most secret bowers of beauty, hast thou
in the course of thy travels met with the original of this portrait?"
The parrot took the picture in his claw, turned his head from side
to side, and examined it curiously with either eye. "Upon my honor,"
said he, "a very pretty face; very pretty: but then one sees so many
pretty women in one's travels that one can hardly- but hold- bless me!
now I look at it again- sure enough this is the princess Aldegonda:
how could I forget one that is so prodigious a favorite with me!"
"The princess Aldegonda!" echoed the prince; "and where is she to be
found?"
"Softly, softly," said the parrot, "easier to be found than
gained. She is the only daughter of the Christian king who reigns at
Toledo, and is shut up from the world until her seventeenth birth-day,
on account of some prediction of those meddlesome fellows the
astrologers. You'll not get a sight of her; no mortal man can see her.
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