rugged and cross-grained, and black as the devil. Others are blessed
with great dangling bosoms, hanging down worse than a cow’s giving its
calf milk. Very sure am I these be not the fair breasts of Helen, who
one day desiring to present to the Temple of Diana an elegant cup in
fulfilment of a vow, and employing a goldsmith to make it for her, did
cause him to model the same on one of her lovely breasts. He did make
the goblet of white gold and in such wise that folk knew not which to
admire the most, the cup itself or its resemblance to the beautiful
bosom which he had taken for his pattern. It looked so round and sweet
and plump, the copy only made men the more to desire the real thing.
Pliny doth make especial mention thereof,[129*] in the place where he
treateth of the existence of white gold. ’Tis very strange, but of
white gold was this goblet made.
But who, I should like to know, would care to model golden cups on the
great ugly breasts I speak of and have seen. We should be bound to give
the goldsmith a big supply of gold, and then all our expense would but
end in laughter and mockery, when we should cry, “Look! see our cup
wrought on the model of so and so’s breasts.” Indeed they would not
so much be like drinking cups at all as those great wooden puncheons,
round and big-bellied, we see used for feeding swine withal.
Others there be the nipples of whose breasts are for all the world like
a rotten pear. Others again whose bodies are all rough and wrinkled,
that you would take them for old leathern game-bags, such as troopers
and innkeepers carry. This cometh to women which have borne children,
but who have not been properly seen to by the midwives. On the contrary
there be others which have the same sweet and smooth and polished, and
their bosom as plump and pretty as if they were still maids.
* * * * *
Other women there be have their parts so pale and wan you would say
they had the fever. Such do resemble some drunkards, which though they
do drink more wine than a sucking pig, are yet always as pale as the
dead. Wherefore do men call them traitors to their wine, as in contrast
with such tipplers as are rosy-faced. In like fashion women that are
pale in this region might very well be spoke of as traitors to Venus,
were it not for the proverb which saith, “a pale whore and a red-faced
scamp.” Be this as it may, there is no doubt their being pale and wan
is not agreeable to see; and is very far from resembling that of one of
the fairest ladies of our time, and one that doth hold high rank (and
myself have seen her), who they used to say did commonly sport three
fine colours all together, to wit scarlet, white and black. For her
mouth was brilliant and as red as coral, her hair pretty and curly and
as black as ebony. So should it ever be, for indeed this is one of the
chiefest beauties of a woman. Then the skin was white as alabaster,
and was finely shadowed by this dark hair. A fair sight in truth!
I have heard Madame de Fontaine-Chalandray, known as _the fair
Torcy_,[130*] relate how that her Mistress, Queen Eleanor, being robed
and dressed, did appear a very beauteous Princess, and indeed there be
many which have seen her looking so at our King’s Court, and of a good
noble figure. But being stripped, she did seem a very giantess in body,
so long was it and big; whereas going lower down, she seemed but a
dwarf, so short and small were her thighs and legs and all those parts.
Another great lady I have heard speak of was just the opposite. For
whereas in body she looked a dwarf, so short and diminutive was it, for
the rest down below she was a perfect giantess or colossus, so big,
long and high-forked were her thighs and legs, though at the same time
well-proportioned and fleshy.
There be many husbands and lovers among us Christians which do desire
to be in all respects different from the Turks, which last take no
pleasure in looking at women closely, because they say, as I have
stated above, they have no shape. We Christians on the other hand do
find, ’tis said, great contentment in regarding them carefully and do
delight in such. Nay! not only do men enjoy seeing them, but likewise
in kissing, and many ladies have shown their lovers the way. Thus a
Spanish lady did reply to her lover on his quitting her one day with
the words, _Bezo las manos y los pies, Señora; Senor, en el medio esta
la mejore stacion_.
Other women have their thighs so ill proportioned, so unattractive
looking and so badly made that they deserve not to be regarded or
desired at all; and the same is true of their legs, which in some be
so stout and heavy you would say the thick part thereof was a rabbit’s
belly when it is with young. In others again they be so thin and tiny
and so like a stork’s shanks, you might well deem them flute pipes
rather than a woman’s thighs and legs. What the rest is like, I will
e’en leave you to imagine!
If I were to detail all the other beauties and deformities women are
subject to, truly I should never have done. Now all I do say hereanent,
or might say, is never of low-born or common women, but always of
high-born, or at least well-born, ladies, which by their fairness of
face do set the world on fire, but what of their person is hid doth but
ill correspond.
_2_
It is no long while agone since in a certain district of Guyenne
a married dame, of very good station and descent, had a strange
adventure. As she was overlooking her children’s studies, lo! their
tutor, by some madness or frenzy of the brain, or maybe from a
fierce access of love that did suddenly master him, did take a sword
belonging to her husband and which lay on the bed, and did assail her
so furiously as that he did transpierce her two thighs and her two
labia from the one part to the other. Whereof she did after all but
die, and would have right out but for the help of an excellent surgeon.
She might well say of her poor body how that it had been in two divers
wars and assailed in two different ways. The sight thereof afterward
was, I imagine, scarce agreeable, seeing it was so scarred and its
_wings_ so torn. I say _wings_, for while the Greeks do call these
labia _hymenaea_, the Latins name the same _alae_ (wings), the moderns
_labia_, or lips, and sundry other names. For truly there is no beast
or bird, be it falcon, raw and untrained, like that of our young girls,
or hawk, whether haggard or well practised, as of our married women and
widows, that doth go more nimbly or hath the wing so active.
Other women, for dread of colds and catarrhs, do smother themselves in
bed with cape and mufflers about the head, till upon my word they do
look more like old witches than young women. Yet once out of bed, they
are as smart as dolls. Others again be all rouged and painted up like
images, fine enough by day; but a-nights the paint is off, and they are
as ugly as sin.
It were well to examine suchlike dames before loving, marrying and
enjoying the same, as Octavius Caesar was used to do.[131*] For along
with his friends he did have sundry great ladies and Roman matrons
stripped naked, and even virgins of marriageable age, and did examine
them from head to foot, as if they had been slave-women and purchased
serfs. The said examination was carried out by a certain horse-jockey
or dealer by name Toranus, and according as this man did approve and
find them to his liking, and unspoiled, would the Emperor take his
pleasure with them.
This is precisely what the Turks do in their slave-market at
Constantinople and other great towns, when they buy slaves, whether
male or female.
Well! I will say no more of all this; indeed methinks I have already
said over much. So this is how we be sore deceived in many sights
we at the first imagine and believe very admirable. But if we be
thus deceived in some good ladies, no less are we edified and well
satisfied in other some, the which are so fair and sweet and clean,
so fresh and plump, so lovable and desirable, in one word so perfect
in all their bodily parts, that after them all sights in this world
are but mean and empty. Whence it cometh there be men, which at such a
sight do so lose their wits they must at once to work. Moreover ’tis
often the case that such fair dames do find pleasure in showing their
persons and do make no difficulty so to do, knowing themselves as
they do without spot or blemish, to the end they may the better rouse
temptation and concupiscence in our manly bosoms.
One day when we were together at the siege of La Rochelle, the late
unfortunate Duc de Guise,[132] which did me the honour to hold me in
affection, did come and show me some tables he had just filched from
Monsieur the King’s brother,[132] our General in that enterprise, from
out the pocket of his breeches, and said thus: “Monsieur hath done me a
displeasure and mocked me concerning my love for a certain lady. Well I
would fain now take my revenge; look at these tables of his, and read
what I have writ therein.” With this he did hand me the tables, and I
saw writ therein in his hand these four verses following, which he had
just made up,—only that the word was set down outright in the first
line:
Si vous ne m’avez congeue,
Il n’a pas tenu à moy;
Car vous m’avez bien vue nue,
Et vous ay monstré de quoy.
(If you have not known me, this is no fault of mine. For indeed you
have seen me naked, and I have shown you all you need.)
After, he did tell me the lady’s name, an unmarried girl to say truth,
which I did already suspect. I said I was greatly surprised the Prince
had never touched or known her, seeing his opportunities had been very
ample, and he was credited by common report with being her lover. But
he did answer, ’twas not so, and that it was solely by his own fault.
To which I replied, “Then it must needs, my Lord, have been, either
that at the time he was so weary and so sated in other quarters he was
unable to bear the brunt, or else that he was so entranced with the
contemplation of her naked charms that he did give never a thought to
the active part.”—“Well! it may be,” the Prince answered, “he was good
to do it; but anyhow this time he failed to take his opportunity. So I
am having my fun of him, and I am going to put his tables back in his
pocket, which he will presently examine, as is his wont, and must needs
read what I have writ. And so I have my revenge.” This he did, and
never after did they twain meet without having a good laugh over it,
and a merry passage of arms. For at that period was great friendship
and intimacy betwixt these two, though after so strangely altered.
A lady of the great world, or to speak strictly a young maid, was held
in much love and close intimacy by a certain great Princess.[133*]
The latter was one time in her bed, resting, as was her wont, when a
gentleman did come to see the damsel, one which was deep in love with
her, albeit he had naught at all but his love to aid his suit. Then
the fair lady, being so well loved and on such intimate terms with her
Mistress the Princess, did come to her as she lay, and nimbly, without
any warning whatsoever, did suddenly drag away all the coverings from
off her, in such wise that the gentleman, by no means slow to use his
eyes, did instantly cast them on her, and beheld, as he did tell me the
tale afterward, the fairest sight ever he saw or is like to see,—her
beautiful body, and all her lovely, white, exquisite person, that did
make him think he was gazing on the beauties of Paradise. But this
scarce lasted an instant; for the moment the bed-clothes were thrown
off, the lady did snatch back the same, the girl having meanwhile run
off. Yet as luck would have it, the more the fair lady did struggle to
pull back the coverings, the more she did display her charms. This in
no wise spoiled the sight and the pleasure the gentleman had therein,
who you may be sure did not put himself about to help her,—he had been
a fool so to do. However, presently in one way or another she did
get her coverings over her again as before, chiding her favourite,
but gently withal, and telling her she should pay for her pranks.
The damsel, who had slipped away a little out of her reach, did only
reply, “Madam, you did play me a trick a while agone; forgive me if
that I have paid you back in your own coin.” And so saying, through the
chamber-door and away! But peace was not long a-making.
Meanwhile the gentleman was so content with what he had seen, and so
full of ecstasy, delight and satisfaction, I have heard him declare an
hundred times over he did wish for naught else his life long but only
to live and dream of this fair sight day by day. And in sooth he was
right for to judge by the fair face that is without a rival and the
beauteous bosom that hath so ravished mankind, there must indeed have
been yet more exquisite dainties. And he did affirm that among these
charms, the said lady did possess the finest figure, and the best
developed, ever he did set eyes on. And it may well be so, for she was
of a very rich and opulent figure, and this must needs be one of the
chief of all a woman’s beauties, and like a frontier fortress, one of
the most necessary and indispensable.
When the said gentleman had told me all his tale, I could only bid him,
“Live on, my friend, live on; with this divine sight to dream on and
this happy contemplation, you should never die. And heaven grant me
before I die, at least to see so fair a spectacle!”
The said gentleman did surely owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the
damsel, and did ever after honour and love her with all his heart. And
he did woo her right eagerly as lover, yet married her not at the last;
for another suitor, richer than he, did carry her off, for truly ’tis
the way of all women to run after the solid good things of life.
Sights like this be fair and right pleasant; yet must we beware they
work not harm, as the view of the beauteous Diana in her nakedness did
to poor Acteon, or yet another I am about to tell of.
A great King did in his day love fondly a very beautiful, honourable
and great lady, a widow, so that men did esteem him bewitched of her
charms.[134*] For little did he reck of other women, or even of his
wife, except only now and again, for this fair lady did always have
the pick of the flowers of his garden. This did sorely grieve the
Queen, for she knew herself as fair and lovable, as well deserving of
loyal service and as worthy to enjoy such dainty morsels as the other.
All this did both anger and surprise her much; wherefore having made
her moan to a great lady which was her chief favourite, she did plot
with her and contrive if there were no way whereby she might e’en
spy through some peep-hole the game her husband and the lady should
play together. And accordingly she did contrive to make sundry holes
in the ceiling of the said lady’s chamber, for to see it all and the
life they twain should lead with one another. So they did set them to
view the sight; yet beheld naught but what was fair to see, for they
did behold only a most beauteous, white and delicately made woman,
tender and sweet, half muffled in her shift, entertaining of her lover
with pretty, dainty caresses and most tricksome pranks, and her lover
performing the like to her. Then presently the twain would lie and
frolic together on the thick, soft carpet which was by the bed-side, so
to escape the heat and the better to enjoy the cool. For it was then
at the hottest of the year; and myself have also known another very
great Prince which was used to take his amusement with his wife in this
fashion, to avoid the heat brought on by the great warmth of the summer
season, as himself did declare.
The unhappy Queen then, having seen and observed it all, did of very
despite set to and weep, sob, sigh and make sore moan, thinking, and
saying too, how that her husband did never the like with her, nor ever
went through suchlike amorous follies as she had seen him perform with
his mistress.
The other lady, which was with her, did what she could for to comfort
her, and chided her for making so sad a moan, saying what was true
enough, that as she had been so curious as to spy out such doings, she
could scarce have expected else. To this the Queen did make no other
answer but only this, “Alas! yes, I was wilful, and fain to see a thing
I should never have beheld, for verily the sight thereof did hurt me
very sore!” Natheless did she find some comfort anon and resolution of
mind, and did leave off sorrowing.
I have heard yet another story of an honourable lady who when a girl
was whipped by her mother twice every day, not that she had done aught
wrong, but because, as she supposed, her mother did find a pleasure in
seeing her so wriggle.
I have heard even a worse thing of a great Lord and Prince, more than
eighty years agone, how that before going to cohabit with his wife, he
was used to have himself whipped, not being able to be moved nor to do
anything without this ridiculous remedy. I should greatly like some
competent physician to tell me the reason hereof.
That great and distinguished author, Pico della Mirandola,[135] doth
declare himself to have seen a gallant of his day, who the more he was
thrashed with heavy blows of a stirrup-leather, the more was he thereby
fierce after women. Never was he so valiant with them as after he had
been so leathered, though when it was once well done, he was as fierce
as any man. Truly here be some strange and terrible caprices! At any
rate to see others whipped is a more agreeable sort of humour than this
last!
_3_
When I was at Milan, I was one day told a diverting tale,—how the
late Marquis de Pescaire,[136] dead no long while agone, erst Viceroy
of Sicily, did fall deeply in love with a very fair lady. And so one
morning, believing her husband was gone abroad, he set forth to visit
her, finding her still a-bed; but in conversation with her, he did win
naught else but only to see her, gaze at her under the clothes at his
leisure, and touch her with his hand. While this was a-doing, lo! the
husband did appear, a man which was not of the high consideration of
the Marquis in any respect, and did surprise them in such sort that
the Marquis had no time to get back his glove, the which was lost some
way or another among the sheets, as doth frequently happen. Presently,
after exchanging a few words with him, he did leave the chamber,
conducted to the door by the husband. The latter on returning did,
as chance would have it, discover the Marquis’s glove lost among the
sheets, the lady not having noticed the same. This he did take and lock
up, and after, putting on a cold demeanour toward his wife, did long
remain without sleeping with her or touching her at all. Wherefore one
day she being alone in her chamber, did set hand to pen and write this
quatrain following:
Vigna era, vigna son.
Era podata, or piu non son;
E non so per qual cagion
Non mi poda il mio patron.
So leaving these verses writ out on the table, anon the husband came
and saw the lines; and so taketh pen and doth thus reply:
Vigna eri, vigna sei,
Eri podata, e piu non sei.
Per la granfa del leon,
Non ti poda il tuo patron.
These he did leave likewise on the table. The whole was carried to the
Marquis, who made answer:
A la vigna chez voi dite
Io fui, e qui restai;
Alzai il pampano; guardai la vite;
Ma, se Dio m’ajuti, non toccai.
This in turn was shown to the husband, who satisfied with so honourable
a reply and fair apology, did take his vine to him again, and did
cultivate the same as industriously as heretofore; and never were
husband and wife happier together.
I will now translate the verses from the Italian, that all may follow
the sense:
“I was a vine, and am so still. I was well cultivated; but am so no
more. And I know not for what cause my master doth not now cultivate me
as before.”
ANSWER:
“A vine thou wert, and art so still; thou wert well cultivated, and art
so no more. Because of the lion’s claw, for this cause thy master doth
not now cultivate thee as before.”
ANSWER OF THE MARQUIS:
“The vine you both do speak of I visited ’tis true, and tarried a
space. I lifted the cluster, and looked at the grape; but, so God help
me, touched not at all.”
By the “lion’s claw” the husband meaneth to signify the glove he had
found lost between the sheets.
A good husband this, which did not take umbrage overmuch, and putting
away his suspicions, did thus forgive his wife. And there is no doubt
there be ladies which do take such a delight in themselves they do love
to see themselves naked and gaze at their own beauty, in such wise that
they are filled with ravishment beholding themselves so lovely, like
Narcissus. What then, I ask, is it like we men should do, whenas we do
see and gaze at the same?
Mariamné, the wife of Herod,[137] a fair and honourable lady, when that
one day her husband was fain to sleep with her at full midday, and see
openly all her charms, did refuse flatly, so Josephus doth record. Nor
did he insist on his rights as a husband, as did a great Lord I knew
once with his wife, one of the fairest of the fair, whom he did enjoy
thus in open day, and did strip her stark naked, she protesting stoutly
the while. After, he did send her women to her to dress her again, who
did find her all in tears and filled with shame. Other dames on the
contrary there be which do make no set scruples of the sort at making
display of their beauty and showing themselves thus, the better to
stir their lovers’ passion and caprice, and draw them the more fondly
to them. Yet will they in no wise suffer them to enjoy their most
precious favour. Some indeed, ill liking to halt on so pleasant a
road, soon go further; but others there be,—I have heard tell of not a
few such,—which have long time entertained their lovers with such fair
sights, and no more.
Happy they which have patience so to bide their time, without yielding
overmuch to temptation. Yet must the man be fair bewitched of virtue
who seeing a beautiful woman, doth give his eyes no gratification.
So was Alexander the Great used to say at whiles to his friends how
that the Persian maids did much hurt the eyes of such as did gaze at
them. And for this cause, when he held prisoners the daughters of King
Darius, he would never greet them but with downcast eyes, and likewise
as seldom as ever he could, for fear he should have been overcome by
the excellence of their beauty.
Not in those times only, but likewise in our own days, among all the
women of the East, the Persian fair ones do bear the bell and prize of
beauty, and fine proportion of bodily parts, and natural charm, as well
as of becoming grace and fitness in dress and foot-gear—and above all
others, they of the ancient and royal city of Shiraz.[138] These last
be so commended for their beauty, fair skin, civility of manners and
sweet grace, that the Moors do say in an old and well-known proverb,
how that their Prophet Mahomet would never go to Shiraz, for fear,
had he once set eyes on its lovely women, his soul after death would
never have entered Paradise. Travellers which have been to that city
and writ thereof, do say the same. And herein observe the hypocrisy of
that same dissolute and rascal Prophet and his pretended continence;
as if it were not to be found writ down, as Belon doth tell us, in an
Arab work entitled “Of the Good Customs of Mahomet,” extolling the
Prophet’s corporeal vigour, how that he was used to boast of working
and satisfying all his eleven wives which he had in a single hour, one
after the other. To the deuce with the rascally fellow! Let us speak no
more of him. When all is said and done, I had as lief never have named
him at all!
I have heard this question raised concerning the behaviour of Alexander
which I have described above and that of Scipio Africanus,—to wit which
of the twain did merit the greater praise of continency?
Alexander, distrusting the strength of his chasteness, did refuse even
to look at the fair Persian maids. Scipio, after the taking of New
Carthage, did look at the beautiful Spanish girl his soldiers brought
him and offered him as his share of the booty, which maid was so
excellent in beauty and of so fair a time of life and flower of age,
that wheresoever she did pass, she would brighten and charm the eyes
of all that did behold her, and eke of Scipio himself. But he, after
greeting her right courteously, did make inquiry of what city of Spain
she was and of her family.