was being embraced by her lover on top of a large chest or coffer.
Very suddenly and unavoidably for herself, she did swoon right off in
such wise that she did let herself slide behind the coffer with legs
projected in the air, and getting so entangled betwixt the coffer and
the tapestry of the wall, that while she was yet struggling to free
herself and her cavalier helping her, there entered some company and
so surprised her in this forked-radish attitude. These had time enough
to see all she had,—which was all very pretty and dainty however,—and
all the poor woman could do was to cover herself up as best she might,
saying so and so had pushed her, as they were playing, behind the
coffer, and declaring how that she would never like the fellow again
for it.
Cette dame courut bien plus grande fortune qu’une que j’ai ouï dire,
laquelle, alors que son ami la tenait embrassée et investie sur le bord
de son lit, quand ce vint sur la douce fin qu’il eut achevé et que par
trop il s’étendait, il avait par cas des escarpins neufs qui avaient
la semelle glissante, et s’appuyant sur des carreaux plombés dont la
chambre était pavée, qui sont fort sujets à faire glisser, il vint à
se couler et glisser si bien sans se pouvoir arrêter que, du pourpoint
qu’il avait, tout recouvert de clinquant, il en écorcha de telle façon
le ventre, la motte le cas et les cuisses de sa maitresse que vous
eussiez dit que les griffes d’un chat y avaient passé; ce qui cuisait
si fort la dame qu’elle en fit un grand cri et ne s’en put garder; mais
le meilleur fut que la dame, parce que c’était en été et faisait grand
chaud, s’était mise en appareil un peu plus lubrique que les autres
fois, car elle n’avait que sa chemise bien blanche et un manteau de
satin blanc dessus, et les caleçons à part e si bien que le gentilhomme.
The lady told the story to one of her female friends, and the gentleman
to one of his comrades. So the thing came to be known, from being again
repeated over to others; for indeed ’twas a right good tale and very
meet to provoke mirth.
And no doubt but the ladies, whenas they be alone, among their most
privy bosom-friends, do repeat merry tales, everywhit as much as we
men-folk do, and tell each other their amorous adventures and all their
most secret tricks and turns, and afterward laugh long and loud over
the same, making fine fun of their gallants, whenever these be guilty
of some silly mistake or commit some ridiculous and foolish action.
Yea! and they do even better than this. For they do filch their lovers
the one from the other, and this sometimes not so much for passion’s
sake, but rather for to draw from them all their secrets, the pretty
games and naughty follies they have practised with them. These they do
then turn to their own advantage, whether still further to stir their
ardour, or by way of revenge, or to get the better one of the other in
their privy debates and wranglings when they be met together.
In the days of this same King Henri III. was made that satire without
words consisting of the book of pictures I have spoke of above, of
sundry ladies in divers postures and connections with their gallants.
’Twas exceeding base and scurrilous,—for the which see the above
passage wherein I have described the same.
Well! enough said on this matter. I could wish from my heart that not
a few evil tongues in this our land of France could be chastened and
refrain them from their scandal-making, and comport them more after
the Spanish fashion. For no man there durst, on peril of his life, to
make so much as the smallest reflection on the honour of ladies of
rank and reputation. Nay! so scrupulously are they respected that on
meeting them in any place whatsoever, an if the faintest cry is raised
of _lugar a las damas_, every man doth lout low and pay them all honour
and reverence. Before them is all insolence straitly forbid on pain of
death.
Whenas the Empress,[82] wife of the Emperor Charles, made his entry
into Toledo, I have heard tell how that the Marquis de Villena, one
of the great Lords of Spain, for having threatened an alguasil, which
had forcibly hindered him from stepping forward, came nigh being sore
punished, because the threat was uttered in presence of the Empress;
whereas, had it been merely in the Emperor’s, no such great ado would
have been made.
The Duc de Feria being in Flanders, and the Queens Eleanor and Marie
taking the air abroad, and their Court ladies following after them,
it fell out that as he was walking beside them, he did come to words
with an other Spanish knight. For this the pair of them came very nigh
to losing their lives,—more for having made such a scandal before the
Queen and Empress than for any other cause.
The same befell Don Carlos d’Avalos at Madrid, as Queen Isabelle of
France was walking through the town; and had he not sped instantly
into a Church which doth there serve as sanctuary for poor unfortunate
folk, he had been straightway put to death. The end was he had to fly
in disguise, and leave Spain altogether; and was kept in banishment all
his life long and confined in the most wretched islet of all Italy,
Lipari to wit.
Court jesters even, which have usually full license of free speech,
an if they do assail the ladies, do get somewhat to remember. It did
so fall out one time to a Fool called Legat, whom I once knew myself.
Queen Elizabeth of France[83*] once in conversation speaking of the
houses at Madrid and Valladolid, how charming and agreeable these were,
did declare she wished with all her heart the two places were so near
she could e’en touch one with one foot and the other with the other,
spreading her legs very wide open as she said the words. The Fool, who
heard the remark, cried, “And I should dearly wish to be in betwixt,
_con un carrajo de borrico, para encarguar y plantar la raya_,”—that
is, “with a fool’s cudgel to mark and fix the boundary withal.” For
this he was soundly whipped in the kitchens. Yet was he well justified
in forming such a wish; for truly was she one of the fairest, most
agreeable and honourable ladies was ever in all Spain, and well
deserving to be desired in this fashion,—only of folk more honourable
than he an hundred thousand times.
I ween these fine slanderers and traducers of ladies would dearly
love to have and enjoy the same privilege and license the vintagers
do possess in the country parts of Naples at vintage time. These be
allowed, so long as the vintage dureth, to shout forth any sort of vile
word and insult and ribaldry to all that pass that way, coming and
going on the roads. Thus will you see them crying and screaming after
all wayfarers and vilifying the same, without sparing any, whether
great, middling or humble folk, of what estate soever they be. Nor
do they spare,—and this is the merry part on’t,—the ladies one whit
neither, high-born dames or Princesses or any. Indeed in my day I did
there hear of not a few fine ladies, and see them too, which would make
a pretext to hie them to the fields on purpose, so as they might pass
along the roads, and so hearken to this pretty talk and hear a thousand
naughty conceits and lusty words. These the peasants would invent and
roll off in plenty, casting up at the great ladies their naughtiness
and the shameful ways they did use toward their husbands and lovers,
going so far as to chide them for their shameful loves and intimacies
with their own coachmen, pages, lackeys and apparitors, which were of
their train. Going yet further, they would ask them right out for the
courtesy of their company, saying they would assault them roundly and
satisfy them better than all the others could. All this they would
let out in words of a fine, natural frankness and bluntness, without
any sort of glossing or disguising. The ladies had their good laugh
and pastime out of the thing, and there an end, making their servants
which were with them answer back in the like strain and give as good as
they got. The vintage once done and over, there is truce of suchlike
language till another year, else would they be brought to book and sore
punished.
I am told the said custom doth still endure, and that many folk in
France would fain have it observed there also at some season of the
year or other, to enjoy in security the pleasure of their evil
speaking, which they do love so well.
Well! to make an end of the subject, ’tis very meet all ladies be
respected of all men, and the secret of their loves and favours duly
kept. This is why Pietro Aretino said, that when lovers were come
to it, the kisses that man and maid did give each other were not
so much for their mutual delight as for to join connection of the
mouths together and so make signal betwixt them that they do keep
hid the secret of their merry doings. Nay, more! that some lustful
and lascivious husbands do in their wantonness show them so free and
extravagant in words, as that not content with committing sundry
naughty profligacies with their wives, they do declare and publish
the same to their boon-companions, and make fine tales out of them.
So much so that I have myself known wives which did conceive a mortal
repugnance to their husbands for this cause and would even very often
refuse them the pleasures they had erst afforded them. They would not
have such scandalous things said of them, albeit ’twas but betwixt
husband and wife.
M. du Bellay, the poet, in his book of Latin epitaphs called _Les
Tombeaux_, which he hath composed, and very fine it is, hath writ one
on a dog, that methinks is well worth quoting here, for ’tis writ much
in our own manner. It runneth thus:
Latratu fures excepi, mutus amentes.
Sic placui domino, sic placui dominæ.
(By my barking I did drive away thieves, with a quiet tongue I did
greet lovers. Thus I did please my master, and thus my mistress.)
Well! if we are so to love animals for discreetness, how much more must
we not value men for holding silence? And if we are to take advice on
this matter of a courtesan which was one of the most celebrated of
former days, and a past mistress in her art, to wit Lamia, here it
is. Asked wherein a woman did find most satisfaction in her lover,
she replied ’twas when he was discreet in talk and secret as to what
he did. Above all else she said she did hate a boaster, one that was
forever boasting of what he did not do, yet failing to accomplish
what he promised,—two faults, each as bad as the other. She was used
to say further: that a woman, albeit ready enough to be indiscreet,
would never willingly be called harlot, nor published abroad for such.
Moreover she said how that she did never make merry at a man’s expense,
nor any man at hers, nor did any ever miscall her. A fair dame of this
sort, so experienced in love’s mysteries, may well give lessons to
other women.
Well, well! enough said on these points. Another man, more eloquent
than I, might have embellished and ennobled the subject better far. To
such I do pass on hereby mine arms and pen.
[Illustration: Decorative scrollwork above chapter start]
SEVENTH DISCOURSE[84*]
Concerning married women, widows and maids,—to wit,
which of these same be better than the other to love.
INTRODUCTION
One day when I was at the Court of Spain at Madrid, and conversing
with a very honourable lady, as is the way at Kings’ Courts, she
did chance to ask me this question following: _Qual era mayor fuego
d’amor, el de la biuda, el de la casada, o de la hija moça_,—“which of
the three had the greater heat of love, widow, wife or maid?” After
myself had told her mine opinion, she did in turn give me hers in some
such terms as these: _Lo que me parece d’ esta cosa es que, aunque
las moças con el hervor de la sangre, se disponen á querer mucho, no
deve ser tanto como lo que quieren las casadas y biudas, con la gran
experiencia del negocio. Esta razon debe ser natural, como lo seria la
del que, por haver nacido ciego de la perfeccion de la luz, no puede
cobdiciar de ella con tanto deseo como el que vio, y fue privado de la
vista._—“What I think on the matter is this: that albeit maids, with
all that heat of blood that is theirs, be right well disposed to love,
yet do they not love so well as wives and widows. This is because of
the great experience of the business the latter have, and the obvious
fact that supposing a man born blind, and from birth robbed of all
power of vision, he can never desire the gift so strongly as he that
hath sweetly enjoyed the same a while and then been deprived thereof.”
To which she did presently add this further remark: _Con menos pena
se abstiene d’ una cosa la persona que nunca supo, que aquella que
vive enamorada del gusto pasado_—“How that one could with a lesser ado
refrain from a thing one had never tried, than from one already known
and loved.” Such were the reasons this lady did adduce on this moot
point.
Again the respected and learned Boccaccio, among the questions
discussed in his _Filicopo_,[85*] doth in the ninth treat of this same
problem: Which of these three, wife, widow or maid, a man should rather
fall in love with, in order the more happily to carry his desire into
effect? The author doth answer by the mouth of the Queen he doth there
introduce speaking, that although ’tis of course very ill done and
against God and one’s own conscience to covet a married woman, which
is in no sense another’s, but subject to her husband, it is natheless
far easier to come to the point with her than ever with maid or widow,
albeit such love is dangerous,—seeing the more a man doth blow the
fire, the more he rouseth it, whereas otherwise it dieth down. Indeed
all things do wane in the using, except only wantonness, which doth
rather wax. But the widow, which hath been long without such exercise,
doth scarce feel it at all, and doth take no more account of love than
if she had never been married, and is more heated by memory of the past
than by present concupiscence. Also the maid, which hath no knowledge
nor experience of what it is, save by imagination, hath but a lukewarm
longing therefor. On the other hand the married woman, heated more
than the others, doth oft desire to come to the point and enjoy this
pleasure, in spite of its sometimes bringing on her her husband’s sore
displeasure manifested in words and eke blows. For all this, fain to
be revenged on him (for naught is so vengeful as a woman), as well as
for sake of the thing itself, doth the wife make him cuckold right out,
and enjoy the desire of her heart. Beside, folk do soon weary of eating
ever of the same meat, and for this cause even great Lords and Ladies
do often leave good and delicate viands for to take others instead.
Moreover, with girls, ’tis a matter of overmuch pains and consumption
of time to tame them and bring them round to the will of men; nay! an
if they _do_ love, they know not that they do. But with widows, the old
fire doth readily recover its vigour, very soon making them desire once
more what by reason of long discontinuance they had forgot the savour
of. Thus they be not slow to come back again to the old delights, only
regretting the time wasted and the weary nights of widowhood passed all
alone and uncomforted in their cold beds.
In answer to these arguments of the Queen, a certain gentleman named
Faramond doth make reply. Leaving married women aside altogether, as
being so easy to get the better of without a man’s using any great
reasoning to persuade them to it, he doth consider the case of maids
and widows, maintaining the maid to be more steadfast in love than the
widow. For the widow, who hath experienced in the past the secrets
of passion, doth never love steadfastly, but always doubtfully and
tentatively, quickly changing and desiring now one, now another
gallant, never knowing to which she should give herself for her
greater advantage and honour! Nay! sometimes so vacillating is she in
her long deliberations she doth choose never an one at all, and her
amorous passion can find no steadfast hold whatever. Quite opposite is
the maid, he saith, and all such doubts and hesitations be foreign to
her. Her one desire is to have a lover true, and after once choosing
him well, to give all her soul to him and please him in all things,
deeming it the best honour she can do him to be true and steadfast in
her love. So being only too ardent for the things which have never yet
been seen, heard or proven of her, she doth long far more than other
women which have had experience of life, to see, hear and prove all
such matters. Thus the keen desire she hath to see new things doth
strongly dominate her heart; she doth make enquiries of them that
know,—which doth increase her flame yet more. Accordingly she is very
eager to be joined with him she hath made Lord of her affections,
whereas this same ardour is not in the widow, seeing she hath passed
that way already.
Well at the last the Queen in Boccaccio, taking up the word again and
wishing to give a final answer to the question, doth thus conclude:
That the widow is more painstaking of the pleasure of love an hundred
fold than the virgin, seeing the latter is all for dearly guarding her
precious virginity and maidenhead. Further, virgins be naturally timid,
and above all in this matter, awkward and inept to find the sweet
artifices and pretty complaisances required under divers circumstances
in such encounters. But this is not so with the widow, who is already
well practised, bold and ready in this art, having long ago bestowed
and given away what the virgin doth make so much ado about giving. For
this cause she hath no fear of her person being looked at, or her
virtue impugned by the discovery of any mark of lapse from honour; and
in all respects she doth better know the secret ways for to arrive at
her end. Beside all this, the maid doth dread this first assault of her
virginity, which in many women is sometimes rather grievous and painful
than soft and pleasant, whereas widows have no such fear, but do submit
themselves very sweetly and gently, even when the assailant be of the
roughest. Now this particular pleasure is quite different from many
others, for with them a man is oft satisfied with the first experience
and goeth lightly to others, whereas in this the longing to return once
more to the same doth ever wax more and more. Accordingly the widow,
which doth give least, but giveth it often, is an hundred times more
liberal than the maid, when this last doth at length consent to abandon
her most precious possession, to the which she doth direct a thousand
thoughts and regrets. Wherefore, the Queen doth conclude, ’tis much
better for a man to address himself to a widow than to a maid, as being
far easier to gain over and corrupt.
[Illustration: Decorative scrollwork above chapter start]
ARTICLE I
OF THE LOVE OF MARRIED WOMEN
Now to take and further consider these arguments of Boccaccio, and
expand them somewhat, and discuss the same, according to the words I
have heard spoke of many honourable gentlefolk, both men and women,
on these matters,—as the result of ample knowledge and experience, I
declare there can be no doubt that any man wishing quickly to have
fruition of love, must address him to married ladies, an if he would
avoid great trouble and much consumption of time; for, as Boccaccio
saith, the more a fire is stirred, the more ardent doth it grow. And
’tis the married woman which doth grow so hot with her husband, that an
if he be lacking in the wherewithal to extinguish the fire he doth give
his wife, she must needs borrow of another man, or burn up alive. I
did once know myself a lady of good birth, of a great and high family,
which did one day tell her lover, and he did repeat the tale to me,
how that of her natural disposition she was in no wise keen for this
pleasure so much as folk would think (and God wot this is keen enough),
and was ready and willing many a time to go without, were it not that
her husband stirring her up, while yet he was not strong or capable
enough to properly assuage her heat, he did make her so fierce and hot
she was bound to resort for succour in this pass to her lover. Nay!
very often not getting satisfaction enough of him even, she would
withdraw her alone, to her closet or her bed, and there in secrecy
would cure her passion as best she might. Why! she declared, had it
not been for very shame, she would have given herself to the first she
met in a ballroom, in any alcove, or on the very steps, so tormented
was she with this terrible feeling. Herein was she for all the world
like the mares on the borders of Andalusia, which getting so hot and
not finding their stallions there to leap them and so unable to have
satisfaction, do set their natural opening against the wind blowing
in these plains, which doth so enter in and assuageth their heat and
getteth them with foal. Hence spring those steeds of such fleetness we
see from those regions, as though keeping some of the fleetness and
natural swiftness of the wind their sire. I ween there be husbands
enough would be right glad if their wives could find such a wind as
this, to refresh them and assuage their heat, without their having to
resort to their lovers and give their poor mates most unbecoming horns
for their heads.
Truly a strange idiosyncrasy in a woman, the one I have just
adduced,—not to burn, but when stirred of another. Yet need we be in
no way astonished thereat, for as said a Spanish lady: _Que quanto
mas me quiero sacar de la braza, tanto mas mi marido me abraza en el
brazero_,—“The more I am for avoiding the embers, the more my husband
doth burn me in my brazier.” And truly women may well be kindled that
way, seeing how by mere words, by touching and embracing alone, even
by alluring looks, they do readily allow themselves to be drawn to it,
when they find opportunity, without a thought of the consideration they
owe their husbands.
For, to tell the real truth, what doth most hinder every woman, wife
or maid, from taking of this pleasure again and again is the dread
they feel of having their belly swell, without eating beans,—an event
married ladies do not fear a whit. For an if they do so swell, why!
’tis the poor husband that hath done it all, and getteth all the
credit. And as for the laws of honour which do forbid them so to
do, why! Boccaccio doth plainly say the most part of women do laugh
at these, alleging for reason and justification: that Nature’s laws
come first, which doth never aught in vain, and hath given them such
excellent members to be used and set to work, and not to be left idle
and unemployed. Nature neither forbiddeth the proper exercise of these
nor imposeth disuse on these parts more than on any other; else would
the spiders be building their webs there, as I have said in another
place, unless they do find brushes meet to sweep them away withal.
Beside, from keeping themselves unexercised do very oft spring sore
complaints and even dangers to life,—and above all a choking of the
womb, whereof so many women die as ’tis pitiful to see, and these
right fair and honourable dames. All this for sake of this plaguey
continence, whereof the best remedy, say the doctors, is just carnal
connection, and especially with very vigorous and well provided
husbands. They say further, at any rate some of our fair ones do, that
this law of honour is only for them that love not and have got them
no true and honourable lovers, in whom no doubt ’tis unbecoming and
blameworthy to go sacrifice to the chastity of their body, as if they
were no better than courtesans. But such as truly love, and have gotten
them lovers well chosen and good, this law of honour doth in no wise
forbid them to help these to assuage the fires that burn them, and
give them wherewithal to extinguish the same. This is verily and indeed
for women to give life to the suppliant asking it, showing themselves
gentle-hearted benefactresses, not savage and cruel tyrants.