laugh at what our ass just now said to our ox. The rest is a
secret, which I am not allowed to reveal. And what hinders you
from revealing the secret, says she? If I tell it you, answers
he, it will cost me my life. You only jeer me, cried his wife;
what you tell me now cannot be true. If you do not satisfy me
presently with what you laugh at, and tell me what the ox and ass
said to one another, I swear by Heaven that you and I shall never
bed together again.

Having spoken thus, she went into the house in a great fret, and,
setting herself in a corner, cried there all night. Her husband
lay alone, and finding next morning that she continued in the
same humour, told her she was a very foolish woman to afflict
herself in that manner, the thing was not worth so much; and that
it concerned her as little to know the matter, as it concerned
him so much to keep it secret; therefore I conjure you to think
no more of it. I shall still think so much of it, says she, as
never to forbear weeping till you have satisfied my curiosity.
But I tell you very seriously, replied he, that it will cost me
my life, if I yield to your indiscretion. Let what will happen,
says she, I do insist upon it. I perceive, says the merchant,
that it is impossible to bring you to reason; and since I foresee
that you will occasion your own death by your obstinacy, I will
call in your children, that they may see you before you die.
Accordingly he called for them, and sent for her father and
mother, and other relations. When they were come, and heard the
reason of their being called, they did all they could to convince
her that she was in the wrong, but to no purpose: she told them
she would rather die than yield that point to her husband. Her
father and mother spoke to her by herself, and told her that what