"Go home," said the fish. "She is emperor already."
So he went home again; and as he came near he saw his wife sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on her head full two yards high, and on each side of her stood her guards and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls: and the fisherman went up to her and said, "Wife, are you emperor?"
"Ah!" said the man as he gazed upon her, "what a fine thing it is to be emperor!"
"Husband," said she, "why should we stay at being emperor; I will be pope next."
"O wife, wife!" said he, "how can you be pope? There is but one pope at a time in Christendom."
"Husband," said she, "I will be pope this very day."
"But," replied the husband, "the fish cannot make you pope."
"What nonsense!" said she, "if he can make an emperor, he can make a pope. Go and try him."
So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging, and the sea was tossed up and down like boiling water, and the ships were in the greatest distress and danced upon the waves most fearfully. In the middle of the sky there was a little blue, but toward the south it was all red as if a dreadful storm were rising. At this the fisherman was terribly frightened, and trembled, so that his knees knocked together: but he went to the shore and said,
"O man of the sea! Come listen to me, For Alice my wife, The plague of my life, Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"
"Ah!" said the fisherman, "my wife wants to be pope."
"Go home," said the fish. "She is pope already."
Then the fisherman went home and found his wife sitting on a throne that was two miles high; and she had three great crowns on her head, and around stood all the pomp and power of the Church; and on each side were two rows of burning lights of all sizes, the greatest as large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no larger than a small rushlight. "Wife," said the fisherman as he looked at all this grandeur, "are you pope?"
"Well, wife," replied he, "it is a grand thing to be pope; and now you must be content, for you can be nothing greater."