Excerpt from Clever Stories of Many Nations Clever Stories II. There lived near the town of Bologna A widow of virtuous fame, Alone with her only daughter, - Madonna Lucrezia by name. III. A lady whom changing fortune Had numbered among the poor; And she kept an inn by the wayside, For the use of peasant and boor. IV. One day at the door of the tavern Three roving banditti appeared, And one was a wily Venetian, To guess by his curious beard. V. And he spoke to the waiting hostess In phrases exceedingly fine, And sat himself down with his fellows, And called for a flagon of wine. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.