Suchlike pictures and portrayals do bring more hurt to a weak soul than men think for. Another of the same sort there, was a Venus naked, lying on a couch and eyed by her son Cupid; another, Mars a-bed with Venus, another, a Leda with her swan. Many other there be, both there and elsewhere, that are somedel more modestly painted and better veiled than the figures of Aretino; but all do come pretty much to one and the same, and are of the like nature with our cup whereof I have been speaking. This last had, as it were, a sort of likeness in unlikeness to the cup which Renault de Montauban found in the Castle Ariosto doth tell of, the which did openly discover unhappy husbands that were cuckolds, whereas this one was more likely to make them so. But while the one did cause somewhat too great scandal to cuckolds and their faithless wives, the other had no such effect. Nowadays is no need of these books or these pictures, for that husbands teach their wives themselves enough and to spare without them. And now for the results of suchlike husbands’ schooling!
I knew an excellent Venetian printer at Paris named Messer Bernardo, a kinsman of the great Aldus Manutius of Venice[33], which did keep his shop in the Rue Saint-Jacques. The same did once tell me, and swear to it, that in less than a year he had sold more than fifty of the two volumes of Aretino[33] to very many folks, married and unmarried, as well as to women of whom he did name three very great ladies of society; but I will not repeat the names. To these he did deliver the book into their own hands, and right well bound, under oath given he would breathe never a word of it—though he did round it to me natheless. And he did tell me further how that another lady having asked him some time after, if he had not another like the one she had seen in the hands of one of the three, he had answered her: _Signora, si, e peggio_ (“Yes, Madam,—and worse”); and she instantly, money on table, had bought them all at their weight in gold. Verily a frantic inquisitiveness for to send her husband a voyage to the haven of Cornette (the Horns), near by Civita-Vecchia.
All such devices and postures are abominable in God’s sight, as indeed St. Jerome saith: “Whosoever doth show himself more unrestrainedly enamoured of his wife than a husband should, is an adulteror and committeth sin.” And forasmuch as sundry Doctors of the Church have spoken thereof, I will sum up the matter shortly in Latin words, seeing themselves have not thought good to say it in plain language: _Excessus_, say they, _conjugum fit, quando uxor cognoscitur ante retro stando, sedendo, in latere, et mulier super virum_ (Excess between married people is committed when the wife is known before by the husband standing behind, or sitting, or sideways, or the woman on top of the man). This last posture is referred to in a little couplet I once read, and which goes as follows:
In prato viridi monialem ludere vidi Cum monacho leviter, ille sub, illa super.
Other learned Doctors hold that any mode whatsoever is good, provided only that _semen ejaculetur in matricem mulieris, et quomodocunque uxor cognoscatur, si vir ejaculetur semen in matricem, non est peccatum mortale_.
These arguments are to be found in the _Summa Benedicti_. This Benedict[34] is a Doctor of the Cordeliers, who has writ most excellently of all the sins, and shown how that he hath both seen much and read widely. Anyone who will read this passage, will find therein a number of excesses which husbands do commit toward their wives. Thus he saith that _quando mulier est ita pinguis ut non possit aliter coire, non est mortale peccatum, modo vir ejaculetur semen in vas naturale_. Whereas others again say it were better husbands should abstain from their wives altogether when they are with child, as do the animals, than for them to befoul marriage with such abominations.
I knew once a famous courtesan of Rome, called “The Greek,” whom a great Lord of France had kept in that city. After some space, she had a strong desire to visit France, using to this end the Signor Bonvisi, a Banker of Lyons,[35*] a native of Lucca and a very rich man, who was her lover. Wherein having succeeded, she did make many enquiries concerning the said gentleman and his wife, and amongst other matters, whether mayhap she did not cuckold him, “seeing that,” she would say, “I have so well trained her husband, and have taught him such excellent lessons, that he having once shown them to his wife and practised the same with her, it is not possible but that she have desired to show the same to others also. For insooth our trade is such an one, when it is well learned, that a woman doth find an hundred times more pleasure in showing and practising it with several than with one only.” Furthermore did she say that the said lady ought of rights to make her a handsome present and one worthy of her pains and good teaching, forasmuch as when her husband did first come to her school, he knew naught at all, but was in these matters the most silly, inexperienced prentice hand ever she had seen. But now, so well had she trained him and fashioned him that his wife must needs find him an hundred times better. For in fact the lady, desiring to see her, went to visit her in disguise; this the courtesan suspected, and held all the discourse to her I have detailed,—and worse still and more dissolute, for she was an exceeding dissolute woman. And this is how husbands do forge the knives to cut their own throats withal; or rather is it a question not of throats at all, but of horns! Acting after this sort do they pollute holy matrimony, for the which God doth presently punish them; then must they have their revenge on their wives, wherein are they an hundred times more deserving of punishment than before. So am I not a whit surprised that the same venerable Doctor did declare marriage to be in very truth but a kind of adultery, as it were; thereby intending, when men did abuse it after the fashion I have been discoursing of.
Thus hath marriage been forbidden our priests; for that it is no wise meet that, just come from their wives’ bed and after polluting themselves exceedingly with them, they should then approach an holy altar. For, by my faith, so far as I have heard tell, some folk do wanton more with their wives than do the very reprobates with the harlots in brothels; for these last, fearing to catch some ill, do not go to extremes or warm to the work with them as do husbands with their wives. For these be clean and can give no hurt,—that is to say the most part of them, though truly not quite all; for myself have known some to give it to their husbands, as also their husbands to them.
Husbands, so abusing their wives, are much deserving of punishment, as I have heard great and learned Doctors say; for that they do not behave themselves modestly with their wives in their bed, as of right they should, but wanton with them as with concubines, whereas marriage was instituted for necessity of procreation, and in no wise for dissolute and lecherous pleasure. And this did the Emperor Sejanus Commodus, otherwise called Anchus Verus[36], well declare unto us, when he said to his wife Calvilla, who did make complaint to him, for that he was used to bestow on harlots and courtesans and other the like what did of rights belong to her in her bed, and rob her of her little enjoyments and gratifications. “Bear with me, wife,” he said to her, “that with other women I satiate my foul passions, seeing that the name of wife and consort is one deserving of dignity and honour, and not one for mere pleasure and lecherousness.” I have never yet read or learned what reply his good wife the Empress made him thereto; but little doubt can be she was ill content with his golden saying, and did answer him from out her heart, and in the words of the most part, nay! of all, married women: “A fig for your dignity and honour; pleasure for me! We thrive better on this last than on all the other.”
Nor yet must we suppose for an instant that the more part of married men of to-day or of any other day, which have fair wives, do speak after this wise. For indeed they do not marry and enter into wedlock, nor take their wives, but only in order to pass their time pleasureably and indulge their passion in all fashions and teach the same merry precepts, as well for the wanton movements of their body as for the dissolute and lascivious words of their mouth, to the end their love may be the better awaked and stirred up thereby. Then, after having thus well instructed and debauched their minds, if they do go astray elsewhere, lo! they are for sorely punishing them, beating and murdering and putting of them to death.
Truly scant reasonableness is there in this, just as if a man should have debauched a poor girl, taking her straight from her mother’s arms, and have robbed her of her honour and maidenhood, and should then, after having his will of her, beat her and constrain her to live quite otherwise, in entire chastity,—verily an excellent and opportune thing to ask! Who is there would not condemn such an one, as a man unreasonable and deserving to be made suffer? The same might justly be said of many husbands, the which, when all is said and done, do more debauch their wives and teach them more precepts to lead them into lechery than ever their gallants use, for they do enjoy more time and leisure therefor than lovers can have. But presently, when they cease their instructions, the wives most naturally do seek a change of hand and master, being herein like a good rider, who findeth more pleasure an hundredfold in mounting an horse than one that is all ignorant of the art. “And alack!” so used the courtesan we but now spake of to say, “there is no trade in all the world that is more cunning, nor that doth more call for constant practice, than that of Venus.” Wherefore these husbands should be warned not to give suchlike instructions to their wives, for that they be far and away too dangerous and harmful to the same. Or, if they needs must, and afterward find their wives playing them a knavish trick, let them not punish them, forasmuch as it is themselves have opened the door thereto.