Part 46

“My lord Magnifico, to spur you on to say something more, I should like to put you a question concerning what you would have the chief business of the Court Lady, and it is this: that I wish to hear how she ought to conduct herself with respect to one detail which seems to me very important; for although the excellent qualities wherewith you have endowed her include genius, wisdom, good sense, ease of bearing, modesty, and so many other virtues, whereby she ought in reason to be able to converse with everyone and on every theme, still I think that more than anything else she needs to know that which belongs to discussions on love. For as every gentle cavalier uses those noble exercises, elegances and fine manners that we have mentioned, as a means to win the favour of women, to this end likewise he employs words; and not only when he is moved by passion, but often also to do honour to the lady with whom he is speaking, since he thinks that to give signs of love for her is a proof that she is worthy of it, and that her beauty and merits are so great that they compel every man to serve her.

“Hence I fain would know how this lady ought to converse on such a theme discreetly, and how reply to him who loves her truly, and how to him who makes a false pretence thereof; and whether she ought to feign not to understand, whether to return his love or to refuse, and how conduct herself.”

54.—Then my lord Magnifico said:

“It would be needful to teach her first to distinguish those who pretend to love and those who love truly; then, as to returning love or not, I think she ought not to be governed by any others’ wish but her own.”

Messer Federico said:

“Then teach her what are the surest and safest signs to discern false love from true, and with what proof she ought to be content in order to be sure of the love shown her.”

The Magnifico replied, laughing:

“I know not, for men to-day are so cunning that they make false pretences without end, and sometimes weep when they have great wish to laugh; hence it were necessary to send them to Isola Ferma under the True Lovers’ Arch.

“But to the end that this Lady of mine (of whom it behooves me to take special care, since she is my creation) may not fall into those errours wherein I have seen many others fall, I should tell her not to be quick to believe herself loved, nor act like some who not only do not feign not to understand when court is paid to them even covertly, but at the first word accept all the praise that is given them, or decline it with a certain air that is rather an invitation to love for those with whom they are speaking, than a refusal.

“Therefore the course of conduct that I wish my Court Lady to pursue in love talk, will be to refuse always to believe that whoever pays court to her for that reason loves her: and if the gentleman shall be as pert as many are, and speak to her with small respect, she will give him such answer that he may clearly understand he is causing her annoyance. Again, if he shall be discreet and use modest phrases and words of love covertly, with that gentle manner which I think the Courtier fashioned by these gentlemen will employ, the lady will feign not to understand and will apply his words in another sense, always modestly trying to change the subject with that skill and prudence which have been said befit her. If, again, the talk is such that she cannot feign not to understand, she will take it all as a jest, pretending to be aware that it is said to her more out of compliment to her than because it is so, depreciating her merits and ascribing the praises that he gives her to the gentleman’s courtesy; and in this way she will win a name for discretion and be safer against deceit.

“After this fashion methinks the Court Lady ought to conduct herself in love talk.”

55.—Then messer Federico said:

“My lord Magnifico, you discourse of this matter as if everyone who pays court to women must needs speak lies and seek to deceive them: if the which were true, I should say that your teachings were sound; but if this cavalier who is speaking loves truly and feels that passion which sometimes so sorely afflicts the human heart, do you not consider in what pain, in what calamity and mortal anguish you put him by insisting that the lady shall never believe anything he says on this subject? Ought his supplications, tears, and many other signs to go for naught? Have a care, my lord Magnifico, lest it be thought that besides the natural cruelty which many of these ladies have in them, you are teaching them still more.”

The Magnifico replied:

“I spoke not of him who loves, but of him who entertains with amourous talk, wherein one of the most necessary conditions is that words shall never be lacking. But just as true lovers have glowing hearts, so they have cold tongues, with broken speech and sudden silence; wherefore perhaps it would not be a false assumption to say: ‘Who loves much, speaks little.’ Yet as to this I believe no certain rule can be given, because of the diversity of men’s habits; nor could I say anything more than that the Lady must be very cautious, and always bear in mind that men can declare their love with much less danger than women can.”

56.—Then my lord Gaspar said, laughing:

“Would you not, my lord Magnifico, have this admirable Lady of yours love in return even when she knows that she is loved truly? For if the Courtier were not loved in return, it is not conceivable that he should go on loving her; and thus she would lose many advantages, and especially that service and reverence with which lovers honour and almost adore the virtue of their beloved.”

“As to that,” replied the Magnifico, “I do not wish to give advice; but I do say that I think love, as you understand it, is proper only for unmarried women; for when this love cannot end in marriage, the lady must always find in it that remorse and sting which things illicit give her, and run risk of staining that reputation for chastity which is so important to her.”

Then messer Federico replied, laughing:

“This opinion of yours, my lord Magnifico, seems to me very austere, and I think you have learned it from some preacher—one of those who rebuke women for loving laymen, in order to have themselves the better part therein. And methinks you impose too hard a rule on married women, for many of them are to be found whose husbands bear them the greatest hatred without cause, and affront them grievously, sometimes by loving other women, sometimes by causing them all the annoyances possible to devise; some against their will are married by their fathers to old men, infirm, loathsome and disgusting, who make them live in continual misery. If such women were allowed to be divorced and separated from those with whom they are ill mated, perhaps it would not be fitting for them to love any but their husbands; but when, either by enmity of the stars or by unfitness of temperament or by other accident, it happens that the marriage bed, which ought to be a nest of concord and of love, is strewn by the accursed infernal fury with the seed of its venom, which then brings forth anger, suspicion and the stinging thorns of hatred to torment those unhappy souls cruelly bound by an unbreakable chain until death,—why are you unwilling that the woman should be allowed to seek some refuge from the heavy lash, and to bestow on others that which is not only spurned but hated by her husband? I am quite of the opinion that those who have suitable husbands and are loved by them, ought not to do them wrong; but the others wrong themselves by not loving those who love them.”

“Nay,” replied the Magnifico, “they wrong themselves by loving others than their husbands. Still, since not to love is often beyond our power, if this mischance shall happen to the Court Lady (that her husband’s hate or another’s love brings her to love), I would have her yield her lover nothing but her spirit; nor ever let her show him any clear sign of love (either by words or by gestures or by any other means) by which he may be sure of it.”

57.—Then messer Roberto da Bari said, laughing:

“I appeal from this judgment of yours, my lord Magnifico, and think I shall have many with me; but since you will teach married women this rusticity, so to speak, do you wish also to have the unmarried equally cruel and discourteous?—and complaisant to their lovers in nothing whatever?”

“If my Court Lady be unmarried,” replied my lord Magnifico, “and must love, I wish her to love someone whom she can marry; nor shall I account it an errour if she shows him some sign of love: as to which matter I wish to teach her one universal rule in a few words, to the end that she may with little pains be able to bear it in mind; and this is, let her show him who loves her every token of love except such as may imbue her lover’s mind with the hope of obtaining something wanton from her. And it is necessary to give great heed to this, for it is an errour committed by countless women, who commonly desire nothing more than to be beautiful: and since to have many lovers seems to them proof of their beauty, they take every pain] to get as many as they can. Thus they are often carried into reckless behaviour, and forsaking that temperate modesty which so becomes them, they employ certain pert looks with scurrile words and acts full of immodesty, thinking that they are gladly seen and listened to for this and that by such ways they make themselves loved: which is false; for the demonstrations that are made to them spring from desire excited by a belief in their willingness, not from love. Wherefore I wish that my Court Lady may not by wanton behaviour seem to offer herself to anyone who wants her and to do her best to lure the eyes and appetite of all who look upon her, but that by her merits and virtuous conduct, by her loveliness, by her grace, she may imbue the mind of all who see her with that true love which is due to all things lovable, and with that respect which always deprives him of hope who thinks of any wantonness.

“Moreover, he who is loved by such a woman ought to content himself with her every slightest demonstration, and to prize a single loving look from her more than complete possession of any other woman; and to such a Lady I should not know how to add anything, unless to have her loved by so excellent a Courtier as these gentlemen have described, and to have her love him also, to the end that they may both attain their complete perfection.”

58.—Having thus far spoken, my lord Magnifico was silent; whereupon my lord Gaspar said, laughing:

“Now, in sooth, you will not be able to complain that my lord Magnifico has not described a most excellent Court Lady; and henceforth, if such an one is found, I admit that she deserves to be esteemed the Courtier’s equal.”

My lady Emilia replied: