17
After this day came, and we had already climbed many mountains. They muzzled us so that we might not browse along the road for our breakfasts and thus be caught; so for that day, too, I remained an ass. At high noon we halted at a sort of farm-house belonging to people who were friends of the robbers, to judge from what happened, for they greeted each other with kisses, and the owners of the house bade the others halt, and set breakfast before them and gave us animals barley. The others breakfasted, but I fasted in misery. Since I had never at that time breakfasted on raw barley, I looked around to see what I could eat. I saw a garden there behind the court-yard, full of fine vegetables, and above these I saw roses. In the house they were all occupied with their breakfast, and I managed to give them the slip and get to the garden, partly to eat my fill of raw vegetables, and partly for the sake of the roses, for I calculated that if I ate those flowers I should certainly become a man again. When I had made my way into the garden I stuffed myself with lettuces, and radishes, and parsley, such vegetables as men are wont to eat raw; but those roses were not real ones, they were such as grow on the wild laurel. The plant is called rose-laurel, and it makes a poor breakfast for any ass or horse, for it is said that if they eat it they die on the spot.
