The messenger returned saying that the princess had refused to marry me. Then my dearest friend declared that if I had sent him to woo her instead of the other fellow, he would have won her heart. How dare he!

I was so angry (and jealous) that I threw him in prison and made him suffer. Now he tells me that he didn’t mean that he would win the princess for himself. He meant that he would have presented me so favorably that she could not have refused.

Ah, how I’ve tortured him with my jealousy! How I’ve tortured myself.

The Jealous King in The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, Blue Fairy Book. Illustration from Contes des Fees, (1, 1810)