The Canoness—"A clerk is no less sorry a choice. It must be admitted that these churchmen have more wit about them than the knights, but just think of the amusement connected with having to go to church in order to hear your lover sing mass, or with running across him when he is escorting a corpse to its last resting place and is mumbling away at his prayers, in a hurry to return to the house of mourning and have his share of the feast. I must confess it shocks my delicacy."
Eglantine—"And if he makes you a present! Fie! His gifts are impregnated with a nauseating odor—they smell of dead bodies."
Marphise (laughing)—"'And should you die, my beloved, I shall very piously and particularly recommend your soul to God, and sing a superb mass with ringing bells.'—"
The three women laugh aloud at Marphise's joke.
The Canoness—"And for all that, out of ten women you will not find two who have not a clerk or a knight for their lover."
Marphise—"I believe Deliane is mistaken."
Eglantine—"Let's see. We are here twelve in the orchard. We are all young, as we know; handsome, as we are told. We are no fools, either. We know how to find amusement while our husbands are away in the Holy Land."
Marphise (laughing)—"Where they expiate their own sins—and ours."
The Canoness—"Blessed be Peter the Hermit! With his preaching of the first Crusade over a hundred years ago, the holy man gave the signal for the delectation of the women—"
Marphise—"That Peter the Hermit must have been bribed by the lovers. More than one husband who departed for Palestine has repeated, while scratching his ears: 'I'd like to know what my wife Capeluche is doing at this hour! By the blood of God, what is my wife doing now?'"