"Nay! but how should the poor little man that I am hold dispute with the Subtle Doctor? I know nothing, and my simplicity is such I can keep nothing in my head but those songs in the vulgar tongue where they have stuck in rhymes to help the memory, as in
'Jesus, mirror of my soul,
Cleanse my heart and make it whole.'
or in
'Holy Mary, Maid of Flowers,
Lead me to the Heavenly Bowers.'
And Satan answered:
"Fra Giovanni, the Venetian ladies amuse their leisure and show their adroitness in fitting a multitude of little pieces of ivory into a box of cedar-wood, which at the set-off seemed all too small to contain so many. In the same fashion I will pack ideas into your head that no one would have dreamed it could ever hold; and I will fill you with a new wisdom. I will show that, thinking to walk in the right way, you are straying abroad all the while like a drunken man, and that you are driving the plough without any heed to draw the furrows straight."
Fra Giovanni humbled himself, saying:
"It is most true I am a fool, and do nothing but what is wrong."
Then Satan asked him: