[124] Ibid., pp. 52-4.
[125] Ibid., p. 130.
[126] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 260-1.
[127] Her excuse is also the morals of the time. There was temptation everywhere, as the Decameron alone without the evidence of the other novelle would amply prove. Every sort of shift was resorted to. Procuresses, hired by would-be lovers, forced themselves into the house of the young wife and compelled her to listen to them. They deceived even the most jealous husbands. The priest even acted as a pander sometimes and more often as a seducer. Decameron, III, 3, and Il Cortigiano di Castiglione, Lib. III, cap. xx. The society in which she moved had no moral horror of this sort of thing; as to-day, the sin lay in being found out. A woman's onestà was not ruined by secret vice, but by the exposure of it, which brought ridicule and shame.
"L' acqua furtiva, assai più dolce cosa
È che il vin con abbondanza avuto;
Così d' amor la gioia, che nascosa,
Trapassa assai del sempre mai tenuto
Marito in braccio...."