The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio [top ten books of all time .TXT] 📗

do you service, I will well to take the pains of putting up my special orisons to God in your name, the which maybe shall profit you, and I will send you bytimes a little clerk of mine, to whom you shall say if they have profited you or not; and if they have profited you, we will proceed farther.’ ‘Sir,’ answered the lady, ‘whatever you do, send none to me at home, for, should my husband come to know of it, he is so terribly jealous that nothing in the world would get it out of his head that your messenger came hither for nought354 but ill, and I should have no peace with him this year to come.’ Quoth the other, ‘Madam, have no fear of that, for I will certainly contrive it on such wise that you shall never hear a word of the matter from him.’ Then said she, ‘So but you can engage to do that, I am content.’ Then, having made her confession and gotten her penance, she rose to her feet and went off to hear mass; whilst the jealous man (ill luck go with him!) withdrew, bursting with rage, to put off his priest’s habit, and returned home, impatient to find a means of surprising the priest with his wife, so he might play the one and the other an ill turn.

Presently the lady came back from church and saw plainly enough from her husband’s looks that she had given him an ill Christmas; albeit he studied, as most he might, to conceal that which he had done and what himseemed he had learned. Then, being inwardly resolved to lie in wait near the street-door that night and watch for the priest’s coming, he said to the lady, ‘Needs must I sup and lie abroad tonight, wherefore look thou lock the street-door fast, as well as that of the midstair and that of thy chamber, and get thee to bed, whenas it seemeth good to thee.’ The lady answered, ‘It is well,’ and betaking herself, as soon as she had leisure, to the hole in the wall, she made the wonted signal, which when Filippo heard, he came to her forthright. She told him how she had done that morning and what her husband had said to her after dinner and added, ‘I am certain he will not leave the house, but will set himself to watch the door; wherefore do thou find means to come hither to me tonight by the roof, so we may lie together.’ The young man was mightily rejoiced at this and answered, ‘Madam, leave me do.’

Accordingly, the night come, the jealous man took his arms and hid himself by stealth in a room on the ground floor, whilst the lady, whenas it seemed to her time⁠—having caused lock all the doors and in particular that of the midstair, so he might not avail to come up⁠—summoned the young man, who came to her from his side by a very privy way. Thereupon they went to bed and gave themselves a good time, taking their pleasure one of the other till daybreak, when the young man returned to his own house. Meanwhile, the jealous man stood to his arms well nigh all night beside the street-door, sorry and supperless and dying of cold, and waited for the priest to come till near upon day, when, unable to watch any longer, he returned to the ground floor room and there fell asleep. Towards tierce he awoke and the street door being now open, he made a show of returning from otherwhere and went up into his house and dined. A little after, he sent a lad, as he were the priest’s clerkling that had confessed her, to the lady to ask if she wot of were come thither again. She knew the messenger well enough and answered that he had not come thither that night and that if he did thus, he might haply pass out of her mind, albeit she wished it not. What more should I tell you? The jealous man abode on the watch night after night, looking to catch the priest at his entering in, and the lady still had a merry life with her lover the while.

At length the cuckold, able to contain himself no longer, asked his wife, with an angry air, what she had said to the priest the morning she had confessed herself to him. She answered that she would not tell him, for that it was neither a just thing nor a seemly; whereupon, ‘Vile woman that thou art!’ cried he. ‘In despite of thee I know what thou saidst to him, and needs must I know the priest of whom thou art so mightily enamoured and who, by means of his conjurations, lieth with thee every night; else will I slit thy weasand.’ She replied that it was not true that she was enamoured of any priest. ‘How?’ cried the husband, ‘Saidst thou not thus and thus to the priest who confessed thee?’ And she, ‘Thou couldst not have reported it better, not to say if he had told it thee, but if thou hadst been present; ay, I did tell him this.’ ‘Then,’ rejoined the jealous man, ‘tell me who is this priest, and that quickly.’

The lady fell a-smiling and answered, ‘It rejoiceth me mightily to see a wise man led by the nose by a woman, even as one leadeth a ram by the horns to the shambles, albeit thou art no longer wise nor hast been since the hour when, unknowing why, thou sufferedst the malignant spirit of jealousy to enter thy breast; and the sillier and more besotted thou art, so much the less is my glory thereof. Deemest thou, husband mine, I am as blind of the eyes of the body as thou of those of the mind? Certes, no; I perceived at first sight who was the priest that