I am a fool, Jack.

What! have I gone all these years free-heart to love a chimera in the end?
Verily I am an ass.

She is a Princess; she has riches; she has a principality; she is the ward of a King.

What has she to do with such as I?
Three months in the year she dwells in her petty palace; the other months find her here and there; Paris, St.Petersburg, or Rome, as fancy wills.

And I, I love her! Is it not rich?
What am I?
A grub burrowing at the root of the tree in which she, like a bird of paradise, displays her royal plumage.
'Masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.' The father of this Princess once rendered the present King's father a great service, and in return the King turned over to his care a principality whose lineal descendants had died out.