“Such, ladies, is the story which you begged me to relate, and which, as I can see from your eyes, you have not heard without compassion. It seems to me that you should take example by it, and beware of placing your affections upon men; for, however honourable or virtuous these affections may be, in the end they have always an aftertaste of evil. You see how St. Paul would not that even married people should so deeply love each other; (4) for the more our hearts are set upon earthly things, the more remote are they from heavenly affection, and the harder is the tie to be broken. I therefore pray you, ladies, ask God for His Holy Spirit, who will so fire your hearts with the love of God, that when death comes, you will not be pained at leaving that which you love too well in this world.”
4 I Corinthians vii. 32-5.—M.
“If their love,” said Geburon, “was as honourable as you describe, why was it needful to keep it so secret?”
“Because,” said Parlamente, “the wickedness of men is so great, that they can never believe deep love to be allied with honour, but judge men and women to be wicked according to their own passions. Hence, if a woman has a dear friend other than one of her nearest kinsfolk, she must speak with him in secret if she would speak long with him; for a woman’s honour is attacked, whether she love virtuously or viciously, since people judge only from appearances.”
“But,” said Geburon, “when a secret of that kind is revealed, people think far worse of it.”
“I grant you that,” said Longarine; “and so it is best not to love at all.”
“We appeal from that sentence,” said Dagoucin, “for, did we believe the ladies to be without love, we would fain be ourselves without life. I speak of those who live but to win love: and, even if they secure it not, yet the hope of it sustains them and prompts them to do a thousand honourable deeds, until old age changes their fair sufferings to other pains. But, did we think that ladies were without love, it were needful we should turn traders instead of soldiers, and instead of winning fame, think only of hea’ping up riches.”
“You would say, then,” said Hircan, “that, were there no women, we should all be dastards, as though we had no courage save such as they put into us. But I am of quite the opposite opinion, and hold that nothing weakens a man’s courage so much as to consort with women or love them too much. For this reason the Jews would not suffer a man to go to the war within a year after his marriage, lest love for his wife should draw him back from the dangers that he ought to seek.” (5)
5 See Deuteronomy xx. 5, 6, 7; and the comments thereon
of Rabelais (book iii. ch. vi.).—M.
“I consider that law,” said Saffredent, “to have been without reason, for nothing will more readily make a man leave his home than marriage. The war without is not harder of endurance than the war within; and I think that, to make men desirous of going into foreign lands instead of lingering by their hearths, it were only needful to marry them.”