The Naughty Boy

Look, the storm is over and the moon is shining!"

"Yes," the old poet said, "but I'm afraid the rain has spoiled your bow."

"That would be a shame," replied the little boy as he looked the bow over carefully. "No, it's already dry again, and the string is good and tight. No damage done. I guess I'll try it." Then he fitted an arrow to his bow, aimed it, and shot the good old poet right through the heart!

"Do you see now that my bow is not spoiled?" he said laughingly, and ran out of the house. Wasn't he a naughty boy to shoot the good old poet who had been so kind to him, taken him into his warm room, and given him his delicious wine and his best apple?

The good poet lay on the floor and wept, because he really had been shot right through the heart. "What a naughty boy that Cupid is!" he cried. "I must warn all the good children, so that they will be careful and never play with him. Because he will certainly do them some harm!" So he warned all the good children, and they were very careful to keep away from that naughty Cupid.

But he is very clever and he tricks them all the time. When the students are going home from the lectures, he runs beside them, with a black coat on and a book under his arm. They don't recognize him, but they take his arm, thinking he is a student, too, and then he sends his arrows into their hearts. And when the girls are in church to be confirmed, he is likely to catch them and shoot his darts into them. Yes, he is always after people!

In the theater he sits up in the big chandelier, burning so brightly that people think he's a lamp, but they soon find out better. He runs about the king's garden and on the rampart, and once he even shot your father and mother right through the heart! Just ask them, and you'll hear what they say.

Yes, he's a bad boy, this Cupid-you had better never have anything to do with him, for he is after all of you. And what do you think? A long time ago he even shot an arrow into your poor old grandmother! The wound has healed up, but she will never forget it.