So after this brief discourse they had me with them across the street to the Governor’s quarters: a great crowd of boys following us, and inasmuch as they, like myself, all bleated loud like a calf, the very blind could have guessed by the hearing that a whole herd of calves was being driven past: whereas by our looks we might be likened to a pack of young fools and old.
Then was I by my two soldiers presented to the Governor, for all the world as if they had taken me as plunder: them he rewarded with a gratification, but to me he promised the best post that I could have about him. So I thought of the Goldsmith’s11 apprentice and answered thus: “Good, my lord, but none must clap me into goose-pens: for we calves can endure no such treatment if we are to grow and to turn into fine heads of cattle.” The Governor promised me better things, and thought himself a clever fellow to have made so presentable a fool out of me. “But no,” thought I, “wait thou, my dear master; I have endured the trial by fire and therein have I been hardened: now will we try which of us two can best trick the other.”
Now just then a peasant that had fled into the city was driving his cattle to drink. Which when I saw forthwith I left the Governor and ran to the cows, bleating like a calf, even as though I would suck: but they, when I came to them, were more terrified at me than a wolf, albeit I wore hair of their kind; yea, they were so affrighted and scattered so quickly from one another as if a hornet’s nest had been let loose among them in August, so that their master could not again bring them together at the same place: which occasioned pretty sport. And in a wink a crowd of folk ran together to see this fool’s jape, and as my lord laughed till he was fit to burst, at last he said, “Truly one fool maketh a hundred more.”
But I thought to myself, “Yea, and thou speakest this truth of thine own self.”
And as from that time forward each must call me the calf, so I for my part had a scoffing nickname for every one: which same, according to the opinion of all and especially of my lord, turned out most wittily; for I christened each as his qualities demanded. In a word; many did count me for a witless madman, while I held all for fools in their wits. And to my thinking this is still the way of the world: for each one is content with his own wits and esteemeth that he is of all men the cleverest.
The said jest which I played with the peasant’s cattle made a short forenoon still shorter; for ’twas then about the winter solstice. At dinnertime I waited as before, but besides that I played many quaint tricks: as that when I must eat no man could force me to take man’s food or drink: for I said roundly I would have only grass, which at that time ’twas impossible to come by. So my lord had a fresh pair of calfskins fetched from the butcher, and the same pulled over the heads of two little boys: and these he set by me at table, and for a first course set before us a dish of winter salad and bade us fall to lustily: yea, he commanded to bring a live calf and entice him with salt to eat the salad. So I looked on staring as if I wondered at this, but the thing gave me occasion to play my part the better.
“Of a certainty,” said they, when they saw me so unmoved, “ ’tis no new thing if calves do eat flesh, fish, cheese, and butter; yea, and at times drink themselves soundly drunk: nowadays the beasts do know what is good. Ay, and ’tis nowadays come to that, that but little difference is to be found between them and mankind. Wilt thou not play thy part therein?” And to that I was the more easily persuaded in that I was hungry, and not because I had before seen with mine own eyes how men could be more swinish than pigs, more savage than lions, more lustful than goats, more envious than dogs, more unruly than horses, more stupid than asses, more mad for drink than the brutes, craftier than foxes, greedier than wolves, sillier than apes, and more poisonous than asps and toads; yet all alike partook of men’s food, and only by their shape were discerned from the beasts, and specially in respect of innocence were they to be counted far below the poor calf. So I ate my fill with my fellow calves as much as my appetite demanded: and if a stranger had unexpectedly thus beheld me sitting at table, without doubt he had imagined that Circe of old had risen up again to turn men into beasts; which art my master then knew and practised. And as I took my dinner, so was I treated at my supper, and even as my fellow guests or parasites fed with me, so must they with me to bed, though my lord would not permit that I should pass the night in the cow-byre. Now all this I did to befool
