The Fabliaux by Nathaniel E Dubin

Author:Nathaniel E Dubin [Dubin, Nathaniel E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393240528
Publisher: Liveright
Published: 2013-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

41.The Peasant of Bailleul

by Jean Bodel

If fabliaux can have an ounce

of truth in them, by all accounts,

my master says, in Bailleul village

a peasant dwelt and had his tillage.

He didn’t practice usury.5

At noon one day, at mealtime he

returned home hungry as a bear.

The man was hideous, I swear,

ugly as sin, loathsome, and burly.

His wife, since he was dense and surly,10

had no love for him in the least;

instead, she loved the local priest

and had invited him to come

and spend the day with her alone.

She had made lavish preparation:15

The wine was tapped for their collation,

the capon roasted, by the hearth

a fresh cake covered with a cloth,

I do believe, to keep it warm.

Here comes the peasant. See him yawn20

from hunger—it’s high time he ate.

She hurries to unlock the gate

and goes to meet him at a run,

but isn’t glad that he has come.

She’d sooner have a different guest!25

Then, to deceive him, she addressed

him in this manner (and no wonder—

she wished that he were six feet under!).

“Husband, the Lord bless me,” she stated,

“you look flushed and emaciated!30

Why, you’re reduced to bones and skin!”

“My hunger’s like to do me in,

Erma. Say, are the curds aboil?”

“Surely you’re dying, on my soul!

A truer word was never said.35

You’re dying! Quickly go to bed!

What a mischance for me, your wife,

alas! I have no taste for life

after you, husband dear, have gone

out of my life and have passed on.40

Before long you’ll be laid to rest.”

“Erma,” he says, “is this some jest?

I hear so clearly our cows lowing

that I cannot believe I’m going

to die. No, I’ll live on a bit!”45

“Approaching death, which clouds your wit,

darkens your heart and ruins your health.

You’re just a shadow of yourself.

Your heart will stop, and you’ll be dead.”

“Beloved wife, get me to bed,”50

he says, “since I am so far gone.”

Racing to carry out the con

she has cooked up, the bogus mourner

fixes up for him in a corner

a bed of dry pea stalks and straw55

and hempen linen on the floor,

undresses him and lays him out

and sees his eyes and mouth are shut,

then faints across his last remains.

“Husband, you’re dead now,” she complains;60

“may God be merciful to you!

What can your grieving widow do

but kill herself?” she cries aloud.

The peasant underneath his shroud

really believes that he’s deceased,65

and she goes running for the priest.

She, who was full of tricks and wily,

explained how she had acted slyly

and told him of the peasant’s folly.

Both he and she were very jolly70

that things had worked out as she’d planned.

They walked to her house hand in hand

while they laid plans for their amour.

The priest was scarcely in the door

when he began singing his psalms,75

and she beat her breast with her palms,

but in spite of her knack for drama,

no tear was shed by Mistress Erma;

her heart’s not in it. She soon lay

off, and the priest cut short his say80

and left the man’s soul uncommended.

He took her wrist, and the two wended

their way to an adjacent loft,

where he took all her clothing off,

and on the newly beaten hay85

the couple tumbled down and lay,

with him facedown and her stretched flat.

The peasant saw what they were at.

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