THE SIXTH HEAD OF THE BEAST.
The sixth head of the evil beast is lechery; that is, excessive and inordinate love, in lust of loins or in fleshly lust. As regards this sin the devil tempts in five ways, as says St. Gregory. First in foolish sight, afterwards in foolish words, afterwards in foolish handling, afterwards in foolish kissing, afterwards one comes to the deed. For from foolish sight one comes to the speech, and from the speech to the handling, from the handling to the kissing, from the kissing to the deed. And thus subtlely the devil makes (one) go from one to another. This sin divides first into two kinds, for there is lechery of heart and lechery of body. The lechery of heart has four steps. For the spirit of fornication, which attends on the fire of lechery, embraces the hearts; first makes the thoughts come, and the delights, and the imaginations of sin to the heart, and makes (it) think. Afterwards the heart dwells on the thoughts, and so is delighted; yet it does not the deed for anything. And in this dwelling and in the same lust is the second step, which may be deadly sin. The great sin may be the lust. The third step is the consenting of heart, and of the reason, and of the will. And such consentings are always deadly sin. After the consenting comes the desire and the great heat that they have to sin, and do more than twenty sins in the day, in sight of ladies and of maidens, who show themselves fairly adorned, who often show and adorn themselves the more quaintly and the more beautifully in order to make fools wonder at them, and think not to sin greatly because they have no will to do the deed. But forsooth they sin very grievously. For by reason of them are many souls lost. And there is much folk brought to death and to sin. For, as says the proverb, ‘Lady of fair adorning is arbalest to the tower.’ For she has not a limb in her body that is not a trap of the devil, as Solomon says. Then it behoves at the day of judgment to give account of the souls that by reason of them are lost: that is to say, when they give occasion to sin wittingly.
Lechery of body is divided into lechery of eyes, of ears, of mouth, of hands, and of all the senses of the body, and especially of the foul deed. And how is it a foul deed since it is natural? Because God forbids it in His Gospel, and His Apostle Paul, who thus says: ‘Let each man have his own, because of fornication;’ that is to say, his own wife. To that sin belong all the things whereby the flesh rises and desires such a deed, such as the great drinkers and eaters, the soft bed, pleasant clothes, and all manner of ease of body unnecessarily, and especially idleness.
The sin of the deed of lechery is divided into many boughs according to the state of the persons that do it, and goes upwards from bad to worse. The first is of man or of woman that have no bond, either of widowhood, or of wedlock, or of orders, or of religion, or of another kind. That is the first deadly sin in the deed of lechery. The second is with a common woman. This sin is harder because it (she) is older, and because such women are sometimes wives, or (women) of religion, and forsake no one, neither father, nor brother, nor son, nor kin. The third is of a single man with a widow, or the converse. The fourth is with a single woman. The fifth is with a married woman; that is the sin of adultery, which is very wrong, because there is breaking of troth, which the one shall bear to the other; afterwards there is a sacrilege, when one breaks the sacrament of marriage; sometimes desertion of heir befalls, and false marriages. This sin is sometimes doubled, when it is of a married man with a woman that has a husband. The sixth is when the man, (that) has his own wife, does a thing that is forbidden and inordinate, against the nature of man and orders and marriage. And with his own sword a man may slay himself. Also he may with his own wife sin deadly. Therefore God smote to an evil death Onan, Jacob’s nephew. And the devil that was called Asmodeus strangled the seven husbands of the holy maid, Sara, who was afterwards the wife of young Tobias. For all the sacraments of holy Church one shall use cleanlily and with great honour. The seventh is of a man with his godmother or with his goddaughter, or of a godson with the children of his sponsors, for those children cannot come together without deadly sin, not even in marriage. The eighth is of a man with his kin, and the same sin is increased and lessened according as the kinship is near or far. The ninth is of the man with the kin of his wife, or, on the contrary, of the wife with the kin of her husband. The same sin is very dreadful. For when the man hath fellowship with any woman, he can no longer in marriage have any of her kin, and if he takes any the marriage is naught. And if he takes a wife and afterwards [another woman] on the side of her kin, he loses the right that he had to his wife, inasmuch as she may not afterwards dwell with him, except she beg for it before. The tenth is of women with hooded clerks. This sin is increased and lessened according to the hoods and the esteem. The eleventh is of a man of the world with a woman of religion, or, on the contrary, of a woman of the world with a man of religion. The twelfth is of a man of religion and a woman of religion, and this sin is increased and lessened according to the state of the persons that do it. The thirteenth is of prelates, who should be a pattern and example of holiness and of cleanness to all the world. The last is most foul and most loathsome, which is not to be named. The same sin is against nature, which the devil teaches to man or to woman in many ways, which are not to be named because of the matter, which is too abominable. But in shrift the same shall name it, to whom it is befallen. For as much more foul and more horrible the sin is, the more shrift avails. For the shame that one has in the telling is a great part of the penance. This sin is so hateful to God that He did rain burning fire and stinking brimstone upon the city of Sodom, and of Gomorrah, and caused five cities to sink into hell. The devil himself, who brings it about, has shame when man does it, and the air is envenomed with the deed.