“No, en verdad —dijo él—, no tenemos ninguna, mas cuando nos place podemos tomarnos una, o bien haceros ver que hemos tomado forma alguna vez como un hombre, o como un simio; o como un ángel puedo cabalgar o ir a pie; no es cosa maravillosa aunque así sea, un miserable tahúr puede engañarte, y a fe mía, aun sé yo más maña que él”.
«¿Por qué», dijo el Sompnour, «cabalgáis pues o vais En distintas formas y no siempre en una?»
—Pues nosotros —dijo—, de tal forma nos haremos, Que seamos más capaces de atrapar nuestra presa.
«¿Qué os mueve a tener todo este trabajo?»
“Full many a causë, levë Sir Sompnoúr,” Saidë this fiend. “But all thing hath a time; The day is short and it is passed prime, And yet have I won nothing in this day; I will intend to winning, if I may, And not intend our thingës to declare: For, brother mine, thy wit is all too bare To understand, although I told them thee. But for thou askest why laboúrë we: For sometimes we be Goddë’s instruments And meanës to do his commandëments, When that him list, upon his creatures, In divers acts and in divérs figúres: Withoutë him we have no might, certain, If that him list to standë thereagain. And sometimes, at our prayer, have we leave Only the body, not the soul, to grieve: Witness on Job, whom that we did full woe, And sometimes have we might on both the two— This is to say, on soul and body eke, And sometimes be we suffer’d for to seek Upon a man, and do his soul unrest And not his body, and all is for the best, When he withstandeth our temptatión, It is a cause of his salvatión, Albeit that it was not our intent He should be safe, but that we would him