He went with the Princess to a high
secret place, and Alianora, crying sweetly, in the famous old fashion,
"Torolix, Ciccabau, Tio, Tio, Torolililix!" performed the proper
incantations, and forthwith birds came multitudinously from all quarters
of the sky, in a descending flood of color and flapping and whistling
and screeching.
The peacock screamed, "With what measure thou judgest others, thou shalt
thyself be judged."
Sang the nightingale, "Contentment is the greatest happiness."
The turtle-dove called, "It were better for some created things that
they had never been created."
The peewit chirped, "He that hath no mercy for others, shall find none
for himself."
The stork said huskily, "The fashion of this world passeth away."
And the wail of the eagle was, "Howsoever long life may be, yet its
inevitable term is death."
"Now that is virtually what I said," declared the stork, "and you are a
bold-faced and bald-headed plagiarist."
"And you," replied the eagle, clutching the stork's throat, "are a dead
bird that will deliver no more babies."
But Dom Manuel tugged at the eagle's wing, and asked him if he really
meant that to hold good before this Court of the Birds.
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