Part 21

I thank you, father. The tales sound in my ears, but my heart is elsewhere; for nothing can make me forget my love. Leave all else therefore, and let us return to our shrift.

Yes, my son, there is one point more, and this is the last. (5398-5438.)

LIB. VIII.

1-198. LAWS OF MARRIAGE. God created Adam and Eve to repair the loss of Lucifer and his angels, and bade them increase and multiply. In the first generation by God’s law brother and sister were joined in marriage, then afterwards cousin wedded cousin, as in the time of Habraham and Jacob. At last under Christian law Marriage was forbidden also in the third degree. Yet some men take no heed to kinship or religion, but go as a cock among the hens and as a stallion among the mares. Such love may be sweet at first, but afterwards it is bitter.

199-2008. EXAMPLES OF INCEST. Caligula the Roman Emperor bereft his three sisters of their virginity: therefore God bereft him of his life and of his empire.

Amon lay with his sister Thamar, and Absolon his brother took vengeance upon him.

Lot lay with his daughters, and the stocks which came from them were not good.

Thus if a man so set his love, he will afterwards sorely repent it; and of this I think to tell a tale which is long to hear. (199-270.)

Apollonius of Tyre. In a Chronicle called Pantheon I read how king Antiochus ravished his daughter and lived with her in sin. To hinder her marriage, he proposed a problem to those who sought her love, and if a man failed to resolve it, he must lose his head. At length came the Prince Apollinus of Tyre, and the king proposed to him the question. He saw too clearly what the riddle meant, and Antiochus fearing shame put off the time of his reply for thirty days. (271-439.)

The Prince feared his vengeance and fled home to Tyre, and thence he departed secretly in a ship laden with wheat. Antiochus sent one Taliart in all haste to Tyre, with command to make away with the Prince by poison. Finding that Apollinus had fled, he returned.

In the meantime the Prince came to Tharsis, and took lodging there with one Strangulio and his wife Dionise. The city was suffering famine, and Apollinus gave them his wheat as a free gift, in return for which they set up a statue of him in the common place. (440-570.)

A man came to him from Tyre and reported that king Antiochus desired to slay him. He was afraid and fled thence again by ship. A storm came upon him and the ship was wrecked: Apollinus alone came alive to land. A fisherman helped him and directed him to the town of Pentapolim, where he found the people gathered to see games, and the king and queen of the country there present. (571-695.)

He surpassed all others in the games, and the king called him to supper in his hall. At supper he was sad and ate nothing, and the king sent to him his daughter to console him. To her he told his name and country, and with that he let the tears run down his cheeks. She fetched a harp and sang to it, and he took it from her hand and played and sang divinely. They all saw that he was of gentle blood. (696-799.)

The king’s daughter desired her father that he might be her teacher, and in the course of time she turned with all her heart to love of him. She so lost her appetite for meat and drink and sleep that she was in danger of her life.

Three sons of princes demanded her in marriage, and she by letter informed her father how the matter stood: if she might not have Apollinus, she would have none other. (800-911.)

The king sent for Apollinus and showed him his daughter’s letter. He assented gladly, and the marriage took place with great festivity. Soon after this men came from Tyre reporting that Antiochus and his daughter were dead, having been both struck by lightning, and entreating him to return to his own people. All were rejoiced to hear that the king’s daughter had married so worthy a prince. (912-1019.)

Apollinus sailed away with his wife, she being with child. A storm arose and she began to be in travail. In anguish she was delivered of a maid child, but she herself lay dead. (1020-1058.)

Apollinus sorrowed as never man sorrowed before, but the master of the ship required that the dead body be cast out of the ship, because the sea will not hold within itself any dead creature, and the ship would be driven on the shore if the body remained within her. They made therefore a coffer closely bound with iron and covered with pitch, in which they placed the corpse, with gold and jewels, and with a letter praying that she might receive burial; and so they cast it overboard. Apollinus in the meantime sailed first to Tharsis. (1059-1150.)

The coffer was cast up at Ephesim and was found by Cerymon, a great physician. He by his art restored the seeming corpse to life, and she took upon herself the rule of religion and dwelt with other women in the temple of Diane. (1151-1271.)

Apollinus coming to Tharsis entrusted his infant daughter Thaise to the care of Strangulio and Dionise, and so he sailed on to Tyre. This daughter, until she was fourteen years old, grew up with the daughter of Strangulio, but Thaise was preferred to the other in all places where they went, and Dionise was therefore wroth. She bade her bondman Theophilus take Thaise down to the shore of the sea and there slay her. He brought her to the sea, but her cry called forth pirates from their hiding-place, who carried her with them away to Mitelene and sold her to Leonin, master of a brothel. (1272-1423.)

The young men who came to her were moved by compassion and did her no wrong, so that Leonin sent his own servant in to her. She entreated to be permitted to make gain for him in some other way, and being taken from the brothel and placed in security, she taught such things as gentlewomen desire to learn, and her name went forth over all the land. (1424-1497.)

Theophilus reported that he had slain Thaise, and Dionise, pretending that she had died suddenly, made a great funeral and set up a tomb with an epitaph. After this, Apollinus came to seek for his daughter at Tharsis, and hearing that she was dead, he put forth to sea again in grievous sorrow. He lay weeping alone in the darkness of the ship’s hold, until under stress of storm they came to Mitelene. (1498-1617.)

Hearing of his grief, the lord of the city, Athenagoras, sent Thaise to comfort him. He at first rejected all her consolation, but then to his joy discovered that she was the daughter for whom he mourned. Athenagoras asked for her in marriage and was wedded to her. (1618-1776.)

They went forth all together with intent to avenge the treason at Tharsis, but Apollinus was warned in a dream to go to Ephesim, and there in the temple of Diane he found the wife whom he supposed to have been dead. Thence they voyaged to Tyre and were received with joy. Athenagoras and Thaise were there crowned king and queen, and Apollinus sailed away and took due vengeance upon Strangulio and Dionise. (1777-1962.)

When this was done, a letter came to him from Pentapolim, praying him to come and receive that kingdom, since the king was dead. They had a good voyage thither, and he and his wife were crowned there and led their life happily. (1963-2008.)

Thus, my son, thou mayest see how it is with those that love in a good manner, but it is not love when men take their lust like beasts.

2029-3172. CONCLUSION. Father, I may acquit myself in this, but I entreat your counsel as to what way I shall follow in my love.

I counsel thee, my son, to labour no more in things which bring thee no profit. The end of every pleasure is pain. Love is blind, and makes all his servants blind: thou mayest yet withdraw and set thyself under the law of reason.