Part 24

Next she did wish for Spring to come, and her lover to be a garden full of flowers, with the which she might deck her head and her beautiful throat and bosom, yea! and roll her lovely body among them between the sheets.

Likewise she did oftimes wish it to be Summer, and her lover a clear fountain or glittering stream, for to receive her in his fair, fresh waters, when she should go to bathe therein and take sport, and so fully and completely to let him see, touch over and over again, each of her lovely, wanton limbs.

Finally she did desire it to be Autumn, for him to return once more to his proper shape, and she to be a woman and her lover a man, that both might in that season have wit, sense and reason to contemplate and remember over all the by-gone happiness, and so live in these delightsome memories and reveries of the past, and inquire and discourse betwixt them which season had been most meet and pleasant for their loves.

In such wise was this lady used to apportion and adjudge the seasons. Wherein I do refer me to the decision of better informed writers than myself to say which of the four was like to be in its qualities most delightful and agreeable to the twain.

* * * * *

Now for good and all I do make an end of this present subject. If any will know further thereof and learn more of the divers humours of cuckolds, let him study an old song which was made at Court some fifteen or sixteen years agone, concerning cuckolds, whereof this is the burden:

Un cocu meine l’autre, et tousjours sont en peine; Un cocu meine l’autre.

(One cuckoo maketh many, and all are in sorry case; one cuckoo many maketh.)

I beg all honourable ladies which shall read any of my tales in this chapter, if byhap they do pay any heed to the same, to forgive me and if they be somewhat highly spiced, for that I could scarce have disguised them in more modest fashion, seeing the sauce such must needs have. And I will say further I could well have cited others still more extravagant and diverting, were it not that, finding it impossible to cover the same with any veil of decent modesty, I was afeared to offend such honourable ladies as shall be at the pains and do me the honour to read my books. Now will I add but one thing further, to wit, that these tales which I have here set down are no petty stories of market-town and village gossip, but do come from high and worthy sources, and deal not with common and humble personages. I have cared not to have aught to do but only with great and high subjects, albeit I have dealt with such discreetly; and as I name no names, I think I have well avoided all scandal and cause of offence.

Femmes, qui transformez vos marys en oyseaux, Ne vous en lassez point, la forme en est très-belle; Car, si vous les laissez en leurs premières peaux, Ilz voudront vous tenir toujours en curatelle, Et comme hommes voudront user de leur puissance; Au lieu qu’estant oyseaux, ne vous feront d’offense.

(Ladies fair, which do transform your husbands into birds, weary not of the task, the shape they so take is a right convenient one. For if you do leave them in their first skins, they will for ever keep you under watch and ward, and manlike will fain to use their power over you; whereas being birds, they will do you no offence.)

Another Song:

Ceux qui voudront blasmer les femmes amiables Qui font secrètement leurs bons marys cornards, Les blasment à grand tort, et ne sont que bavards; Car elles font l’aumosne et sont fort charitables. En gardant bien la loy à l’aumosne donner, Ne faut en hypocrit la trompette sonner.

(They that will be blaming well meaning wives which do in secret give their husbands horns, these do much wrong by their reproaches, and are but vain babblers; for indeed such dames are but giving alms and showing good charity. They do well observe the Christian law of almsgiving,—never, like the hypocrites, sound the trumpet to proclaim your good deeds!)

An old Rhyme on the Game of Love,—found by the Author among some old papers:

Le jeu d’amours, où jeunesse s’esbat, A un tablier se peut accomparer. Sur un tablier les dames on abat; Puis il convient le trictrac préparer, Et en celui ne faut que se parer. Plusieurs font Jean. N’est-ce pas jeu honneste, Qui par nature un joueur admoneste Passer le temps de cœur joyeusement? Mais en défaut de trouver la raye nette, Il s’en ensuit un grand jeu de torment.

(The game of love, whereat youth takes its delight, may be likened to a chess-board. On a chess-board we lay down the pieces,—dames, ladies; then ’tis the time to marshal our men, and herein we have but to make the best game we can. Many play the masterful king; and is it not merely fair play, and an abomination of dame Nature, that a man should make his game in hearty, joyous wise? But should he fail to find a sound queen (quean), why! his game is like to end in woeful pain and sorrow.)

SECOND DISCOURSE

On the question which doth give the more content in love, whether touching, seeing or speaking.

INTRODUCTION

This is a question as concerning love that might well deserve a more profound and deeper writer to solve than I, to wit: which doth afford the more contentment in the fruition of love, whether contact or attouchment, speech, or sight. Mr. Pasquier, a great authority of a surety in jurisprudence the which is his especial profession, as well as in the polite and humane sciences, doth give a disquisition thereon in his letters, the which he hath left us in writing. Yet hath he been by far too brief, and seeing how distinguished a man he is, he should not in this matter have shown himself so niggard of his wise words as he hath been. For if only he had seen good to enlarge somewhat thereon, and frankly to declare what he might well have told us, his letter which he hath indited on this point had been an hundred times more delightsome and agreeable.

He doth base his main discourse on sundry ancient rhymes of the Comte Thibaut de Champagne, the which verses I have never set eyes on, save only the small fragment that M. Pasquier doth quote in his letter. This same good and gallant Knight of yore doth, I conceive, write exceeding well,—not certainly in such good set terms as do our gallant poets of to-day, but still with excellent good sense and sound reason. Moreover he had a right beauteous and worthy subject, to wit the fair Queen Blanche of Castille, mother of Saint-Louis, of whom he was not little enamoured, but indeed most deeply, and had taken her for his mistress. But in this what blame or what reproach for the said Queen? Though she had been the most prudent and virtuous of women, yet could she in any wise hinder the world from loving her and burning at the fire of her beauty and high qualities, seeing it is the nature of all merit and high perfection to provoke love? The whole secret is not to yield blindly to the will of the lover.

This is why we must not deem it strange, or blame this fair Queen, if that she was too fondly loved, and that during her reign and sovereignty there did prevail in France sore divisions and seditions and much civil strife. For, as I have heard said by a very great personage, seditions be oft stirred up as much for intrigues of love as by embroilments of State; and in the days of our fathers was current an old saw, which said that: All the world went mad after the merry-hearted Queen.

I know not for sure of which Queen this word was said; but it may well be ’twas pronounced by this same Comte Thibaut, who very like, either because he was treated ill of her as concerning that he was fain of, or that his love was scorned altogether, or another preferred before him, did conceive in his heart such a disgust and discontent as did urge him to his ruin in the wars and troubles of the time. So doth it often fall out when a fair and high-born Queen or Princess or great lady doth set her to govern a State, that every man doth love to serve her, and to honour and pay respect to her, as well for the good happiness of being agreeable to her and high in her favour, as to the end he may boast him of governing and ruling the State along with her, and drawing profit therefrom. I could allege many examples, but I had liever refrain.[112*]

Be this as it may, this Comte Thibaut did find inducement in the fair subject I have named to write excellent verses, and mayhap to pose the question which M. Pasquier doth cite for us. To this latter I do refer the curious reader, and do say naught here of rhymes good or ill; for ’twould be pure waste of words so to do. ’Twill be enough for me at this present to declare what I think thereanent, whether of mine own judgment or of that of other more experienced lovers than I.

OF THE SENSE OF TOUCH IN LOVE

Now as to touch, it must be allowed that touching is very delightsome, for that the perfection of love is to enjoy the delight thereof, and the said enjoyment cannot be had without touching. For even as hunger and thirst can in no wise be assuaged or appeased except by eating and drinking, so too doth not love pass by dint either of seeing or hearing only, but by touching, kissing and the practice of Venus’ rites. To this did that witty coxcomb Diogenes the Cynic allude facetiously, yet somewhat nastily, when he said he only wished he could relieve his hunger by rubbing his belly, even as frottant la verge he did appease the paroxysm of desire. I would fain have put this in plainer words, but ’tis a thing must needs be passed over trippingly. He was something like that lover of Lamia,[113*] who having been too extravagantly fleeced by her to be able to enjoy her love any more, could not or would not consent to lose the pleasure of her. Wherefore he did devise this plan: he would think of her, and so thinking corrupt himself, and in this fashion enjoy her in imagination. But she hearing of this, did summon him before the Judge to render her satisfaction and payment for his enjoyment. Whereupon the Judge did order that he should but show her the money, whose sound and tinkle would be payment enough, and she would so enjoy the gold in imagination just as the other in dreams and fancy had had the gratification of his desire.

True, many other sorts of love may be alleged against what I say, the which the old philosophers do feign; but for these I do refer me to these same philosophers and the like subtle persons who will fain be discussing such points. In any case forasmuch as the fruit of mere earthly love is no other thing but enjoyment thereof, it must needs be deemed to be rightly attained only by dint of touching and kissing. So likewise have many held this pleasure to be but thin and poor, apart from seeing and speaking; whereof we have a good example in the Cent Nouvelles of the Queen of Navarre. An honourable gentleman, having several separate times enjoyed the favours of a certain honourable lady, at night time and disguised with a small hand-mask, (for regular masks as now used were not yet employed), in a dark, ill-lighted gallery or passage, albeit he was right well assured by the sense of touch there was nothing here but what was good, tasty and exquisite, yet was not content, but was fain to know with whom he had to do. Wherefore one day as he was a-kissing her and did hold her in his arms, he did make a mark with chalk on the back of her gown, which was of black velvet; and then in the evening after supper, (for their assignations were at a certain fixed hour), as the ladies were coming into the ball-room, he did place himself behind the door. Thus noting them attentively as they passed in, he saw his own fair one enter with the chalk mark on her shoulder; and lo! it was such an one as he would never have dreamed of, for in mien and face and words she might have been taken for the very Wisdom of Solomon, and by that name the Queen was wont to describe her.