In the Via del Gomitolo del Oro, or Street of the Golden Skein, was an old house in which there dwelt an old man who had a beautiful young wife. She had married him for love — truly not of himself, but of his vast fortune. This gave much cause for gossip to the neighbours. And she had a strange fancy for always braiding and playing with skeins of gold, tossing them about in caprice.

And when anyone said, "Thou wilt be unhappy some day from this marriage," she replied:

"When I was a child I always played with skeins of cotton; now I play with skeins of gold.
An old man is good to begin with; he may lead the way to a young one. I shall have a change.
The same soup every day at dinner, the same husband all the time, is tiresome.
Begin by marrying a poor young man — you will be poor, and not go to a ball nor live in great society.
For a few caresses and smiles the old husband gives me diamonds, which I keep, and then there are dresses meanwhile."

Beware," said her friends. Chi più abbraccia meno stringe — “Who grasps at too much gets least.”

"Chi si contenta, gode" — “Who is contented is happy,” she replied.

She began by love-affairs with lords; she wearied of them, and descended to vulgar intrigues with ruffians. At last she fell into the power of a rascal who robbed her of all her jewels; and when he could get no more, the villain went to her husband and, telling him all the story, said:
"Now give me a thousand crowns, or I will publish your disgrace everywhere."

The husband, in a rage, dismissed him, and then had his wife confined as a prisoner in an old house in the Gomitolo del Oro. And in scorn he gave her skeins of gold thread, saying:
"Thou didst once play with cotton, and then didst marry me to play with gold like a fool — so play with it."

So she sat there playing with the gold thread all day long, singing:

I was a foolish wife,
And I married a husband old;
I idled away my life,
To play with skeins of gold.
I thought it was jolly,
'Twas all but folly,
Playing with skeins of gold.

I braid them and I wind them
In many a shining fold,
All in my hair I've twined them,
The beautiful skeins of gold —
All idle sport
Of every sort,
Playing with skeins of gold.

So she sat for years playing with the skeins — and so she died. And from that time the street was called La Via del Gomitolo del Oro.