บทที่ บทที่ 126 · How women ordinarily have th

Chapter 3.XXXIV.

How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things prohibited.

When I was, quoth Carpalin, a whoremaster at Orleans, the whole art of

rhetoric, in all its tropes and figures, was not able to afford unto me a

colour or flourish of greater force and value, nor could I by any other

form or manner of elocution pitch upon a more persuasive argument for

bringing young beautiful married ladies into the snares of adultery,

through alluring and enticing them to taste with me of amorous delights,

than with a lively sprightfulness to tell them in downright terms, and to

remonstrate to them with a great show of detestation of a crime so horrid,

how their husbands were jealous. This was none of my invention. It is

written, and we have laws, examples, reasons, and daily experiences

confirmative of the same. If this belief once enter into their noddles,

their husbands will infallibly be cuckolds; yea, by God, will they, without

swearing, although they should do like Semiramis, Pasiphae, Egesta, the

women of the Isle Mandez in Egypt, and other such-like queanish flirting

harlots mentioned in the writings of Herodotus, Strabo, and such-like

puppies.

Truly, quoth Ponocrates, I have heard it related, and it hath been told me

for a verity, that Pope John XXII., passing on a day through the Abbey of

Toucherome, was in all humility required and besought by the abbess and

other discreet mothers of the said convent to grant them an indulgence by

means whereof they might confess themselves to one another, alleging that

religious women were subject to some petty secret slips and imperfections

which would be a foul and burning shame for them to discover and to reveal

to men, how sacerdotal soever their functions were; but that they would

freelier, more familiarly, and with greater cheerfulness, open to each

other their offences, faults, and escapes under the seal of confession.

There is not anything, answered the pope, fitting for you to impetrate of

me which I would not most willingly condescend unto; but I find one

inconvenience. You know confession should be kept secret, and women are

not able to do so. Exceeding well, quoth they, most holy father, and much

more closely than the best of men.

The said pope on the very same day gave them in keeping a pretty box,

wherein he purposely caused a little linnet to be put, willing them very

gently and courteously to lock it up in some sure and hidden place, and

promising them, by the faith of a pope, that he should yield to their

request if they would keep secret what was enclosed within that deposited

box, enjoining them withal not to presume one way nor other, directly or

indirectly, to go about the opening thereof, under pain of the highest

ecclesiastical censure, eternal excommunication. The prohibition was no

sooner made but that they did all of them boil with a most ardent desire to

know and see what kind of thing it was that was within it. They thought

long already that the pope was not gone, to the end they might jointly,

with the more leisure and ease, apply themselves to the box-opening

curiosity.

The holy father, after he had given them his benediction, retired and

withdrew himself to the pontifical lodgings of his own palace. But he was

hardly gone three steps from without the gates of their cloister when the

good ladies throngingly, and as in a huddled crowd, pressing hard on the

backs of one another, ran thrusting and shoving who should be first at the

setting open of the forbidden box and descrying of the quod latitat within.

On the very next day thereafter the pope made them another visit, of a full

design, purpose, and intention, as they imagined, to despatch the grant of

their sought and wished-for indulgence. But before he would enter into any

chat or communing with them, he commanded the casket to be brought unto

him. It was done so accordingly; but, by your leave, the bird was no more

there. Then was it that the pope did represent to their maternities how

hard a matter and difficult it was for them to keep secrets revealed to

them in confession unmanifested to the ears of others, seeing for the space

of four-and-twenty hours they were not able to lay up in secret a box which

he had highly recommended to their discretion, charge, and custody.

Welcome, in good faith, my dear master, welcome! It did me good to hear

you talk, the Lord be praised for all! I do not remember to have seen you

before now, since the last time that you acted at Montpellier with our

ancient friends, Anthony Saporra, Guy Bourguyer, Balthasar Noyer, Tolet,

John Quentin, Francis Robinet, John Perdrier, and Francis Rabelais, the

moral comedy of him who had espoused and married a dumb wife. I was there,

quoth Epistemon. The good honest man her husband was very earnestly urgent

to have the fillet of her tongue untied, and would needs have her speak by

any means. At his desire some pains were taken on her, and partly by the

industry of the physician, other part by the expertness of the surgeon, the

encyliglotte which she had under her tongue being cut, she spoke and spoke

again; yea, within a few hours she spoke so loud, so much, so fiercely, and

so long, that her poor husband returned to the same physician for a recipe

to make her hold her peace. There are, quoth the physician, many proper

remedies in our art to make dumb women speak, but there are none that ever

I could learn therein to make them silent. The only cure which I have

found out is their husband’s deafness. The wretch became within few weeks

thereafter, by virtue of some drugs, charms, or enchantments which the

physician had prescribed unto him, so deaf that he could not have heard the

thundering of nineteen hundred cannons at a salvo. His wife perceiving

that indeed he was as deaf as a door-nail, and that her scolding was but in

vain, sith that he heard her not, she grew stark mad.

Some time after the doctor asked for his fee of the husband, who answered

that truly he was deaf, and so was not able to understand what the tenour

of his demand might be. Whereupon the leech bedusted him with a little, I

know not what, sort of powder, which rendered him a fool immediately, so

great was the stultificating virtue of that strange kind of pulverized

dose. Then did this fool of a husband and his mad wife join together, and,

falling on the doctor and the surgeon, did so scratch, bethwack, and bang

them that they were left half dead upon the place, so furious were the

blows which they received. I never in my lifetime laughed so much as at

the acting of that buffoonery.

Let us come to where we left off, quoth Panurge. Your words, being

translated from the clapper-dudgeons to plain English, do signify that it

is not very inexpedient that I marry, and that I should not care for being

a cuckold. You have there hit the nail on the head. I believe, master

doctor, that on the day of my marriage you will be so much taken up with

your patients, or otherwise so seriously employed, that we shall not enjoy

your company. Sir, I will heartily excuse your absence.

Stercus et urina medici sunt prandia prima.

Ex aliis paleas, ex istis collige grana.

You are mistaken, quoth Rondibilis, in the second verse of our distich, for

it ought to run thus--

Nobis sunt signa, vobis sunt prandia digna.

If my wife at any time prove to be unwell and ill at ease, I will look upon

the water which she shall have made in an urinal glass, quoth Rondibilis,

grope her pulse, and see the disposition of her hypogaster, together with

her umbilicary parts--according to the prescript rule of Hippocrates, 2.

Aph. 35--before I proceed any further in the cure of her distemper. No,

no, quoth Panurge, that will be but to little purpose. Such a feat is for

the practice of us that are lawyers, who have the rubric, De ventre

inspiciendo. Do not therefore trouble yourself about it, master doctor; I

will provide for her a plaster of warm guts. Do not neglect your more

urgent occasions otherwhere for coming to my wedding. I will send you some

supply of victuals to your own house, without putting you to the trouble of

coming abroad, and you shall always be my special friend. With this,

approaching somewhat nearer to him, he clapped into his hand, without the

speaking of so much as one word, four rose nobles. Rondibilis did shut his

fist upon them right kindly; yet, as if it had displeased him to make

acceptance of such golden presents, he in a start, as if he had been wroth,

said, He he, he, he, he! there was no need of anything; I thank you

nevertheless. From wicked folks I never get enough, and I from honest

people refuse nothing. I shall be always, sir, at your command. Provided

that I pay you well, quoth Panurge. That, quoth Rondibilis, is understood.