the head and body of the maxims did not continue in their tail, but that
they all agreed together very accurately in their lower extremity, all
ending in the same fashion, seeing each and all terminated in these
words, _Such is Truth_.

And he said in his heart:

"These mottoes are like the flowers young men and maidens pluck in the
water-meadows by the Arno, to make them into posies. For these flowers
are readily gathered together by the tails, while the heads keep
separate and fight amongst themselves in hue and brilliancy. And it is
the same with the opinions of human beings."

And the holy man found in the devices a host of contradictions regarding
the origin of sovereignty, the fountains of knowledge, pleasure and
pain, things lawful and things unlawful. And he discovered likewise
mighty difficulties in connection with the shape of the Earth and the
Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by reason of the Heretics and Arabs
and Jews, the monsters of the African desert and the Epicureans, who all
had their place, a scroll in their lips, on the wheel of fire.

And each sentence ended in this way, _Such is Truth_. And the holy man
Giovanni marvelled to see so many truths all diversely coloured. He saw
red, and blue, and green, and yellow, but he saw no white--not even the
one the Pope made proclamation of, to wit, "On this rock have I built my
Church and committed thereto the crowns of all the world." Indeed this
device was all red and as if blood-stained.

And the holy man sighed: