The Heptameron by Marguerite Queen of Navarre

Author:Marguerite, Queen of Navarre
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486149424
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

17 (XXIII)

How the lust of a Grey Friar made an honest gentleman, his wife, and his child to perish miserably.

In the country of Perigord there was a gentleman who had so great a devotion for St. Francis that he regarded all who wore his dress as holy as the saint himself. And, to his honour, he had appointed rooms in his house for the lodgment of the brethren, by whose counsel he ruled all his affairs, even to the smallest, thinking in this manner to make a safe journey through life. And one day it came to pass that his wife, who was both comely, wise, and virtuous, was brought to bed of a fine boy, the which increased much the more the love her husband had for her. And the better to make feast for her, his dear gossip, he had bidden his brother-in-law; and as the hour for supper drew nigh there came to the house a Grey Friar, whose name I will conceal for the honour of the order. At the coming of this his spiritual father, from whom he had no secrets, the gentleman was glad at heart, and, after some talk between his wife, his brother-in-law, and the monk, they set themselves at table for supper. And while they were at supper, the gentleman, looking upon his wife, in whom, indeed, there was enough beauty and grace to make her desired of her husband, began in a loud voice to question the holy father: “Father, is it of a truth a mortal sin in a man to lie with his wife after she has been in childbed?” The father, whose face and words altogether belied his heart, replied with a wrathful countenance: “Without doubt, sir, I esteem such to be one of the greatest sins that can be committed in the estate of marriage. And for what else was the ensample of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who would not enter the temple till the days of her purification were fulfilled, although she stood in no need of purification, but that you should abstain from this small delight? And this you should surely do, seeing that the good Virgin abstained from going to the temple, where was all her joy, to the end that she might obey the law. And besides this, the physicians say that the offspring of such delights stand in great jeopardy.” And when the gentleman heard these words he was very sorry, since he had hoped the father would have given him leave; however, he spoke no more on it. The holy man, while he was talking, having had a cup too many, had looked at the dame, thinking within himself that if he was the husband he would not ask the leave of a spiritual father to lie with his wife. And as fire, beginning by little and little, at last sets the whole house aglow, the monk began to burn with such a flame of lust that on a sudden he determined to accomplish that desire he had carried for three years concealed in his heart.

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