“The same I say of certain others who use enchantments in their love, charms and sometimes force, sometimes sleeping potions and such like things. Be assured, too, that gifts much lessen the pleasures of love; for a man may suspect that he is not loved and that his lady makes a show of loving him in order to profit by it. Hence you see that great ladies’ love is prized because it could hardly spring from other source than real and true affection, nor is it credible that a great lady should ever pretend to love one of her inferiors unless she loves him truly.”
95.—Then my lord Gaspar replied:
“I do not deny that the purpose, toils and dangers of lovers ought to have their aim directed chiefly towards the conquest of the mind rather than of the body of their beloved. But I say that these deceits, which you call treachery in men and trickery in women, are excellent means of attaining this aim, for whoever possesses a woman’s person is master of her mind as well. And if you remember rightly, Filippello’s wife, after much lament over the deceit practised on her by Riciardo, discovered how much more delicious than her husband’s were the kisses of her lover, and her coldness to Riciardo changed to sweet affection, so that from that day forth she loved him most tenderly. Thus it came about that what his frequent fond visits, his gifts and countless other tokens shown unceasingly, could not affect, a taste of his embraces soon accomplished. You now see that this same trickery, or treachery as you would call it, was a good way to capture the fortress of her mind.”
Then messer Bernardo said:
“You advance a very false premise, for if women always surrendered their mind to the man who possessed their person, no wife would be found who did not love her husband more than every other person in the world; the contrary of which we find to be the case. But Giovanni Boccaccio was very unjustly hostile to women, as you are also.”[[327]]
96.—My lord Gaspar replied:
“I am not at all hostile to them; but there are very few men of worth who as a rule make any account of women whatever, although for their own purposes they sometimes pretend the contrary.”
Then messer Bernardo replied:
“You wrong not women only, but also all men who hold them in respect. However, as I said, I do not wish for the present to go outside my original subject of practical joking, and enter upon so difficult an enterprise as would be the defence of women against you, who are a most redoubtable warrior. So I will make an end of this talk of mine, which has perhaps been far longer than was necessary, and certainly less amusing than you expected. And since I see the ladies sit so quiet, enduring your insults thus patiently as they do, I shall henceforth regard a part of what my lord Ottaviano said as true, namely, that they care not what other evil is said of them, provided they be not taunted with lack of chastity.”
Then at a signal from my lady Duchess, many of the ladies rose to their feet, and all ran laughing towards my lord Gaspar, as if to shower blows upon him and treat him as the bacchants treated Orpheus,[[328]]—meanwhile saying: