Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies/Volume II/Seventh Discourse Art. III.10
10.
ND to speak truth, suchlike harsh, chill medicines should be left to poor nuns and prescribed to them only, which for all their fasting and mortifying of the flesh, be oft times sore assailed, poor creatures, with temptations of the flesh. An if only they had their freedom, they would be ready enough, at least some would, to take like refreshment with their more worldly sisters, and not seldom do they repent them of their repentance. This is seen with the Roman courtesans, as to one of whom I must tell a diverting tale. She was vowed to take the veil, but before her going finally to the nunnery, a former lover of hers, a gentleman of France, doth come to bid her farewell, ere she entered the cloister forever. But before leaving her, he did ask one more gratification of his passion, and she did grant the same, with these words: Fate dunque presto; ch' adesso mi veranno cercar per far mi monaca, e menare al monasterio,—"Do it quick then, for they be coming directly to make me a nun and carry me off to cloister." We must suppose she was fain to do it this once as a final treat, and say with the Roman poet: Tandem hæc olim meminisse juvabit,—"'Twill be good to remember in future days this last delight." A strange repentance insooth and a quaint novitiate! But truly when once they be professed, at any rate the good-looking ones, (though of course there be exceptions), I do believe they live more on the bitter herb of repentance than any other bodily or spiritual sustenance.
Some however there be which do contrive a remedy for this state of things, whether by dispensation or by sheer license they do take for themselves. For in our lands they have no such dire treatment to fear as the Romans in old days did mete out to their Vestal virgins which had gone astray. This was verily hateful and abominable in its cruelty; but then they were pagans and abounding in horrors and cruelties. On the contrary we Christians, which do follow after the gentleness of our Lord Christ, should be tender-hearted as he was, and forgiving as he was forgiving. I would describe here in writing the fashion of their punishment; but for very horror my pen doth refuse to indite the same.
Let us now leave these poor recluses, which I do verily believe, once they be shut up in their nunneries, do endure no small hardship. So a Spanish lady one time, seeing them setting to the religious life a very fair and honourable damsel, did thus exclaim: O tristezilla, y en que pecasteis, que tan presto vienes à penitencia, y seis metida en sepultura viva!—"Poor creature, what so mighty sin have you done, that you be so soon brought to penitence and thus buried alive!" And seeing the nuns offering her every complaisance, compliment and welcome, she said: que todo le hedia, hasta el encienso de la yglesia,—"that it all stank in her nostrils, to the very incense in the church."
Now as to these vows of virginity, Heliogabalus did promulgate a law to the effect that no Roman maid, not even a Vestal virgin, was bound to perpetual virginity, saying how that the female sex was over weak for women to be bound to a pact they could never be sure of keeping. And for this reason they that have founded hospitals for the nourishing, rescuing and marrying poor girls, have done a very charitable work, no less to enable these to taste the sweet fruit of marriage than to turn them from naughtiness. So Panurge in Rabelais, did give much wealth of his to make such marriages, and especially in the case of old and ugly women, for with such was need of more expenditure of money than for the pretty ones.
One question there is I would fain have resolved in all sincerity and without concealment of any kind by some good lady that hath made the journey,—to wit, when women be married a second time, how they be affected toward the memory of their first husband. 'Tis a general maxim hereanent, that later friendships and enmities do always make the earlier ones forgot; in like wise will a second marriage bury the thought of the first. As to this I will now give a diverting example, though from an humble source,—not that it should therefore be void of authority and to be rejected, if it be as they say, that albeit in an obscure and common quarter, yet may wisdom and good intelligence be hid there. A great lady of Poitou one day asking a peasant woman, a tenant of hers, how many husbands she had had, and how she found them, the latter, bobbing her little country curtsey, did coolly answer: "I'll tell you, Madam; I've had two husbands, praise the Lord! One was called Guillaume, he was the first; and the second was called Collas. Guillaume was a good man, easy in his circumstances, and did treat me very well; but there, God have good mercy on Collas' soul, for Collas did his duty right well by me." But she did actually say the word straight out without any glozing or disguise such as I have thrown over it. Prithee, consider how the naughty wench did pray God for the dead man which was so good a mate and so lusty, and for what benefit, to wit that he had covered her so doughtily; but of the first, never a word of the sort. I should suppose many dames that do wed a second time and a third do the same; for after all this is their chiefest reason for marrying again, and he that doth play this game the best, is best loved. Indeed they do always imagine the second husband must need be a fierce performer,—though very oft they be sore deceived, not finding in the shop the goods they did there think to find. Or else, if there be some provision, 'tis oft so puny, wasted and worn, so slack, battered, drooping and dilapidated, they do repent them ever they invested their money in the bargain. Of this myself have seen many examples, that I had rather not adduce.
We read in Plutarch how Cleomenes, having wedded the fair Agiatis, wife of Agis, after the death of the latter, did grow fondly enamoured of the same by reason of her surpassing beauty. He did not fail to note the great sadness she lay under for her first husband's loss; and felt so great compassion for her, as that he made no grievance of the love she still bare her former husband, and the affectionate memory she did cherish of him. In fact, himself would often turn the discourse to her earlier life, asking her facts and details as to the pleasures that had erstwhile passed betwixt them twain. He had her not for long however, for she soon died, to his extreme sorrow. 'Tis a thing not a few worthy husbands do in the case of fair widows they have married.
But 'tis time now surely, methinks, to be making an end, if ever end is to be made.
Other ladies there be which declare they do much better love their second husbands than their first. "For as to our first husbands," some of these have told me, "these we do more often than not take at the orders of our King or the Queen our mistress, or at the command of our fathers, mothers, kinsmen, or guardians, not by our own unbiassed wish. On the other hand, once widowed and thus free and emancipated, we do exercise such choice as seemeth us good, and take new mates solely for our own good will and pleasure, for delight of love and the satisfaction of our heart's desire." Of a surety there would seem to be good reason here, were it not that very oft, as the old-time proverb saith,—"Love that begins with a ring, oft ends with a halter." So every day do we see instances and examples where women thinking to be well treated of their husbands, the which they have in some cases rescued from justice and the gibbet, from poverty and misery and the hangman, and saved alive, have been sore beaten, bullied, cruelly entreated and often done to death of the same,—a just punishment of heaven for their base ingratitude toward their former husbands, that were only too good to them, and of whom they had never a good word to say.
These were in no way like one I have heard tell of, who the first night of her marriage, when now her husband was beginning his assault, did start sobbing and sighing very sore, so that at one and the same time she was in two quite opposite states, cold and hot, winter and summer, both at once. Her husband asking her what cause she had to be so sad, and if he were not doing his devoir well, "Alas! too well, good sir!" she made answer; "but I am thinking of mine other husband, which did so earnestly pray me again and again never to marry afresh after his death, but to bear in mind and have compassion on his young children. Alackaday! I see plainly I shall have the like ado with you. Woe's me! what shall I do? I do think, an if he can see me from the place he now is in, he will be cursing me finely." What an idea, never to have thought on this afore, nor to have felt remorse but when 'twas all too late! But the husband did soon appease her, and expel this fancy by the best method possible; then next morning throwing wide the chamber window, he did cast forth all memory of the former husband. For is there not an old proverb which saith, "A woman that burieth one husband, will think little of burying another," and another, "There's more grimace than grief, when a woman loseth her husband."
I knew another widow, a great lady, which was quite the opposite of the last, and did not weep one whit the first night. For then, and the second to boot, she did go so lustily to work with her second husband as that they did break down and burst the bedstead, and this albeit she had a kind of cancer on one breast. Yet notwithstanding her affliction, she did miss never a point of amorous delight; and often afterward would divert him with tales of the folly and ineptitude of her former mate. And truly, by what I have heard sundry of either sex tell me, the very last thing a second husband doth desire of his wife is to be entertained with the merits and worth of her first, as though jealous of the poor departed wight, who would like naught so well as to return to earth again; but as for abuse of him, as much of that as ever you please! Natheless there be not a few that will ask their wives about their former lords, as did Cleomenes; but this they do, as feeling themselves to be strong and vigorous; and so delighting to institute comparisons, do cross-question them concerning the other's sturdiness and vigour in these sweet encounters. In like wise have I heard of some which to put their bedfellows in better case, do lead them to think their former mates were prentice hands compared with them, a device that doth oft times answer their purpose well. Others again will say just the opposite, and declare their first husbands were perfect giants, so as to spur on their new mates to work like very pack mules.