--
Fra Rinaldo lies with his gossip: her husband finds him in the room with
her; and they make him believe that he was curing his godson of worms by
a charm.
--
Filostrato knew not how so to veil what he said touching the mares of
Parthia, but that the keen-witted ladies laughed thereat, making as if
'twas at somewhat else. However, his story being ended, the king called
for one from Elisa, who, all obedience, thus began:--Debonair my ladies,
we heard from Emilia how the bogey is exorcised, and it brought to my
mind a story of another incantation: 'tis not indeed so good a story as
hers; but, as no other, germane to our theme, occurs to me at present, I
will relate it.
You are to know, then, that there dwelt aforetime at Siena a young man,
right gallant and of honourable family, his name Rinaldo; who, being in
the last degree enamoured of one of his neighbours, a most beautiful
gentlewoman and the wife of a rich man, was not without hopes that, if he
could but find means to speak with her privately, he might have of her
all that he desired; but seeing no way, and the lady being pregnant, he
cast about how he might become her child's godfather. Wherefore, having
ingratiated himself with her husband, he broached the matter to him in as
graceful a manner as he might; and 'twas arranged. So Rinaldo, being now
godfather to Madonna Agnesa's child, and having a more colourable pretext
for speaking to her, took courage, and told her in words that message of
his heart which she had long before read in his eyes; but though 'twas
not displeasing to the lady to hear, it availed him but little.
Now not long afterwards it so befell that, whatever may have been his
reason, Rinaldo betook him to friarage; and whether it was that he found
good pasture therein, or what not, he persevered in that way of life. And
though for a while after he was turned friar, he laid aside the love he
bore his gossip, and certain other vanities, yet in course of time,
without putting off the habit, he resumed them, and began to take a pride
in his appearance, and to go dressed in fine clothes, and to be quite the
trim gallant, and to compose songs and sonnets and ballades, and to sing
them, and to make a brave shew in all else that pertained to his new
character. But why enlarge upon our Fra Rinaldo, of whom we speak? what
friars are there that do not the like? Ah! opprobrium of a corrupt world!
Sleek-faced and sanguine, daintily clad, dainty in all their accessories,
they ruffle it shamelessly before the eyes of all, shewing not as doves
but as insolent cocks with raised crest and swelling bosom, and, what is
worse (to say nought of the vases full of electuaries and unguents, the
boxes packed with divers comfits, the pitchers and phials of artificial
waters, and oils, the flagons brimming with Malmsey and Greek and other
wines of finest quality, with which their cells are so packed that they
shew not as the cells of friars, but rather as apothecaries' or
perfumers' shops), they blush not to be known to be gouty, flattering
themselves that other folk wot not that long fasts and many of them, and
coarse fare and little of it, and sober living, make men lean and thin
and for the most part healthy; or if any malady come thereof, at any rate
'tis not the gout, the wonted remedy for which is chastity and all beside
that belongs to the regimen of a humble friar. They flatter themselves,
too, that others wot not that over and above the meagre diet, long vigils
and orisons and strict discipline ought to mortify men and make them
pale, and that neither St. Dominic nor St. Francis went clad in stuff
dyed in grain or any other goodly garb, but in coarse woollen habits
innocent of the dyer's art, made to keep out the cold, and not for shew.
To which matters 'twere well God had a care, no less than to the souls of
the simple folk by whom our friars are nourished.
Fra Rinaldo, then, being come back to his first affections, took to
visiting his gossip very frequently; and gaining confidence, began with
more insistence than before to solicit her to that which he craved of
her. So, being much urged, the good lady, to whom Fra Rinaldo, perhaps,
seemed now more handsome than of yore, had recourse one day, when she
felt herself unusually hard pressed by him, to the common expedient of
all that would fain concede what is asked of them, and said:--"Oh! but
Fra Rinaldo, do friars then do this sort of thing?" "Madam," replied Fra
Rinaldo, "when I divest myself of this habit, which I shall do easily
enough, you will see that I am a man furnished as other men, and no
friar." Whereto with a truly comical air the lady made answer:--"Alas!
woe's me! you are my child's godfather: how might it be? nay, but 'twere
a very great mischief; and many a time I have heard that 'tis a most
heinous sin; and without a doubt, were it not so, I would do as you
wish." "If," said Fra Rinaldo, "you forego it for such a scruple as this,
you are a fool for your pains. I say not that 'tis no sin; but there is
no sin so great but God pardons it, if one repent. Now tell me: whether
is more truly father to your son, I that held him at the font, or your
husband that begot him?" "My husband," replied the lady. "Sooth say you,"
returned the friar, "and does not your husband lie with you?" "Why, yes,"
said the lady. "Then," rejoined the friar, "I that am less truly your
son's father than your husband, ought also to lie with you, as does your
husband." The lady was no logician, and needed little to sway her: she
therefore believed or feigned to believe that what the friar said was
true. So:-- "Who might avail to answer your words of wisdom?" quoth she;
and presently forgot the godfather in the lover, and complied with his
desires. Nor had they begun their course to end it forthwith: but under
cover of the friar's sponsorship, which set them more at ease, as it
rendered them less open to suspicion, they forgathered again and again.
But on one of these occasions it so befell that Fra Rinaldo, being come
to the lady's house, where he espied none else save a very pretty and
dainty little maid that waited on the lady, sent his companion away with
her into the pigeon-house, there to teach her the paternoster, while he
and the lady, holding her little boy by the hand, went into the bedroom,
locked themselves in, got them on to a divan that was there, and began to
disport them. And while thus they sped the time, it chanced that the
father returned, and, before any was ware of him, was at the bedroom
door, and knocked, and called the lady by her name. Whereupon:--"'Tis as
much as my life is worth," quoth Madonna Agnesa; "lo, here is my husband;
and the occasion of our intimacy cannot but be now apparent to him."
"Sooth say you," returned Fra Rinaldo, who was undressed, that is to say,
had thrown off his habit and hood, and was in his tunic; "if I had but my
habit and hood on me in any sort, 'twould be another matter; but if you
let him in, and he find me thus, 'twill not be possible to put any face
on it." But with an inspiration as happy as sudden:--"Now get them on
you," quoth the lady; "and when you have them on, take your godson in
your arms, and give good heed to what I shall say to him, that your words
may accord with mine; and leave the rest to me."
The good man was still knocking, when his wife made answer:-- "Coming,
coming." And so up she got, and put on a cheerful countenance and hied
her to the door, and opened it and said:--"Husband mine: well indeed was
it for us that in came Fra Rinaldo, our sponsor; 'twas God that sent him
to us; for in sooth, but for that, we had to-day lost our boy." Which the
poor simpleton almost swooned to hear; and:--"How so?" quoth he. "O
husband mine," replied the lady, "he was taken but now, all of a sudden,
with a fainting fit, so that I thought he was dead: and what to do or say
I knew not, had not Fra Rinaldo, our sponsor, come just in the nick of
time, and set him on his shoulder, and said:--'Gossip, 'tis that he has
worms in his body, and getting, as they do, about the heart, they might
only too readily be the death of him; but fear not; I will say a charm
that will kill them all; and before I take my leave, you will see your
boy as whole as you ever saw him.' And because to say certain of the
prayers thou shouldst have been with us, and the maid knew not where to
find thee, he caused his companion to say them at the top of the house,
and he and I came in here. And for that 'tis not meet for any but the
boy's mother to assist at such a service, that we might not be troubled
with any one else, we locked the door; and he yet has him in his arms;
and I doubt not that he only waits till his companion have said his
prayers, and then the charm will be complete; for the boy is already
quite himself again."
The good simple soul, taking all this for sooth, and overwrought by the
love he bore his son, was entirely without suspicion of the trick his
wife was playing him, and heaving a great sigh, said:--"I will go look
for him." "Nay," replied the wife, "go not: thou wouldst spoil the
efficacy of the charm: wait here; I will go see if thou mayst safely go;
and will call thee."
Whereupon Fra Rinaldo, who had heard all that passed, and was in his
canonicals, and quite at his ease, and had the boy in his arms, having
made sure that all was as it should be, cried out:--"Gossip, do I not
hear the father's voice out there?" "Ay indeed, Sir," replied the
simpleton. "Come in then," said Fra Rinaldo. So in came the simpleton.
Whereupon quoth Fra Rinaldo:--"I restore to you your boy made whole by
the grace of God, whom but now I scarce thought you would see alive at
vespers. You will do well to have his image fashioned in wax, not less
than life-size, and set it for a thanksgiving to God, before the statue
of Master St. Ambrose, by whose merits you have this favour of God."
The boy, catching sight of his father, ran to him with joyous greetings,
as little children are wont; and the father, taking him in his arms, and
weeping as if he were restored to him from the grave, fell by turns a
kissing him and thanking his godfather, that he had cured him. Fra
Rinaldo's companion, who had taught the maid not one paternoster only,
but peradventure four or more, and by giving her a little purse of white
thread that a nun had given him, had made her his devotee, no sooner
heard Fra Rinaldo call the simpleton into his wife's room, than he
stealthily got him to a place whence he might see and hear what was going
on. Observing that the affair was now excellently arranged, he came down,
and entered the chamber, saying:--"Fra Rinaldo, those four prayers that
you bade me say, I have said them all." "Then well done, my brother,"
quoth Fra Rinaldo, "well-breathed must thou be. For my part, I had but
said two, when my gossip came in; but what with thy travail and mine, God
of His grace has vouchsafed-us the healing or the boy." The simpleton
then had good wine and comfits brought in, and did the honours to the
godfather and his companion in such sort as their occasions did most
demand. He then ushered them forth of the house, commending them to God;
and without delay had the waxen image made, and directed it to be set up
with the others in front of the statue of St. Ambrose, not, be it
understood, St. Ambrose of Milan.(1)
(1) The statue would doubtless be that of St. Ambrose of Siena, of the
Dominican Order.