TALE XXXVIII.
A towns-woman of Tours returned so much good for all the
evil treatment she had received from her husband, that the
latter forsook the mistress whom he was quietly maintaining,
and returned to his wife. (1)
1 It is probable that the incidents related in this tale
occurred between 1460 and 1470. They will be found recorded
in the Ménagier de Paris. (See Baron Pichon’s edition,
1847, vol. i. p. 237). A similar narrative figures in some
editions of Morlini’s tales, notably the Novello, Fabello,
et Comedies, Neapoli, 1520. We further find it in
Gueudeville’s translation of Erasmus’s Colloquies (Dialogue
sur le mariage, collogues, &c., Leyden, 1720, vol. i. p.
87), and Mr. Walter Keily has pointed out (the Heptameron,
Bohn, 1864) that William Warner worked the same incidents
into his poem Albion’s England, his stanzas being
reproduced in Percy’s Reliques under the title of The
Patient Countess.—L. and Ed.
In the city of Tours there dwelt a chaste and comely townswoman, who, by reason of her virtues, was not only loved but feared also and respected by her husband. Nevertheless, with all the fickleness of men who grow weary of ever eating good bread, he fell in love with a farm tenant (2) of his own, and would oft-time leave Tours to visit the farm, where he always remained two or three days; and when he came back to Tours he was always in so sorry a plight that his wife had much ado to cure him, yet, as soon as he was whole again, he never failed to return to the place where pleasure caused him to forget all his ills.
2 The French word here is métayère. The métayer (fem.
métayère) was a farm tenant under the general control of his
landlord, who supplied him with seed and took to himself a
considerable portion of the produce. The system was done
away with at the Revolution, but was revived here and there
under the Restoration, when some of the nobles came to
“their own” again, and there may even nowadays be a few
instances of the kind.—Ed.
When his wife, who was anxious above all things for his life and health, found him constantly return home in so evil a plight, she went to the farm and found there the young woman whom her husband loved. Then, without anger but with graceful courage, she told her that she knew her husband often went to see her, but that she was ill-pleased to find him always return home exhausted in consequence of her sorry treatment of him. The poor woman, influenced as much by respect for her mistress as by regard for the truth, was not able to deny the fact, and craved forgiveness.
The lady asked to see the room and bed in which her husband was wont to sleep, and found it so cold and dirty and ill-appointed that she was moved to pity. Forthwith she sent for a good bed furnished with sheets, blankets and counterpane such as her husband loved; she caused the room to be made clean and neat and hung with tapestries; provided suitable ware for his meat and drink, a pipe of good wine, sweetmeats and confections, and begged the woman to send him back no more in so miserable a state.
It was not long before the husband again went, as was his wont, to see his tenant, and he was greatly amazed to find his poor lodging in such excellent order. And still more was he surprised when the woman gave him to drink in a silver cup; and he asked her whence all these good things had come. The poor woman told him, weeping, that they were from his wife, who had taken such great pity on his sorry treatment that she had furnished the house in this way, and had charged her to be careful of his health.