Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1

by Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme

Many other excellent conveniences are there and advantages of these loves I must needs pass over. Yet, this same great Captain would exclaim, in spite of them all would other commanders, his comrades and fellows, obeying silly, old-fashioned laws of War, be fain to preserve the honour of women. But surely ’twere more meet first to find out in secrecy and confidence their real wishes, and then decide what to do. Or mayhap they be of the complexion of our friend Scipio, who was worse than the gardener’s dog, which, as I have before said, will neither himself eat the cabbages in the garden, nor yet let other folk taste of them. This is the way he did treat the unhappy Massinissa, who had so oft times risked his life for him and for the Roman People, and so sore laboured, sweated and endeavoured, for to gain him glory and victory. Yet after all he did refuse him the fair Queen Sophonisba and did rob him of her, seeing he had chose her for his chiefest and most precious spoil. He did take her from him to send her to Rome, there to live out the rest of her days as a wretched slave,—if Massinissa had not found a remedy to save her from this fate. The Conqueror’s glory had been fairer and nobler, if she had appeared at Rome as a glorious and stately Queen, and wife of Massinissa, so that folk would have said, as they saw her go by: “Look! one of the fair vestiges of Scipio’s conquests.” Surely true glory doth lie much rather in the display of great and noble things than of mean and degraded.

In fine, Scipio, in all this discussion, was shown to have committed grievous faults, whether because he was an enemy of the whole female sex, or as having been altogether impotent to satisfy its wishes. And yet ’tis said that in his later years he did engage in a love intrigue with one of his wife’s maids,—the which the latter did very patiently endure, for reasons that might easily be alleged to account for the said complaisancy.

4

However, to return from the digression I have just been indulging in and come back into the direct course of my argument, I do declare as my last word in this discourse, that nothing in all the wide world is so fair to see and look upon as a beautiful woman splendidly attired or else daintily disrobed and laid upon a fair bed, provided always she be sound and sweet, without blemish, blot or defect, as I have afore said.

King Francis I. was used to say, no gentleman, howsoever magnificent, could in any better wise receive a great Lord, howsoever mighty and high-born, at his mansion or castle, than by offering to his view on his first arrival a beautiful woman, a fine horse and a handsome hound. For by casting his gaze now on the one, now on the other and presently on the third, he would never be a-weary in that house, having there the three things most pleasant to look upon and admire, and so exercising his eyes right agreeably.

Queen Isabelle of Castile was wont to say, there were four things did give her very great pleasure to behold: Hombre d’armas en campo, obisbo puesto en pontifical, linda dama en la cama, y ladron en la horca,—“A man of arms in the field, a Bishop in his pontificals, a fair lady in her bed, and a thief on the gallows.”

I have heard the late Cardinal de Lorraine,[142*] a short while since deceased, relate how on the occasion of his going to Rome to the Court of Pope Paul IV., to break off the truce made with the Emperor, he did pass through Venice, where he was very honourably received, we cannot doubt, seeing he was so high in the favour of so high and puissant a King. The most noble and magnificent Senate of that city did set forth in a body to meet him. Presently, passing up the Grand Canal, where every window of all the houses was crowded with all the fairest ladies of the place, who had assembled thither to see the state entry, there was a certain great man of the highest rank which did discourse to him on the business of the State, and spake at length of great matters. But after a while, seeing the Cardinal was for ever casting his eyes and fixing them on all these beautiful dames, he said to him in his native Venetian dialect: “My Lord Cardinal, I think you heed me not, and you are right enough. For surely ’tis much more pleasure and diversion to watch these fair ladies at the windows and take delight of their beauty than to listen to the talk of a peevish old man like me, even though he should be talking of some great achievement and success to redound to your advantage.” On this the Cardinal, who had no lack of ready wit and memory, did repeat to him word for word all he had said, leaving the good old man excellently well pleased with him, and full of wonder and esteem, seeing that for all his feasting of his eyes on the fair ladies of Venice, he had neither forgot nor neglected aught of all he had said to him.

Any man which hath seen the Court of our French Kings, Francis I., Henri II., and other Sovereigns his sons, will freely allow, whosoever he be and though he have seen all the world, he hath never beheld aught so fair and admirable as the ladies which did frequent their Court and that of the Queens and Princesses, their wives, mothers and sisters. Yet a still fairer sight would he have seen, say some, if only the grandsire of Master Gonnin had yet been alive, who by dint of his contrivances, illusions, witchcrafts and enchantments could have shown the same all undressed and stript naked, as they say he did once in a private company at the behest of King Francis. For indeed he was a man very expert and subtile in his art of sorcery; whose grandson, the which we have ourselves seen, knew naught at all in this sort to be compared with him.

This sight I ween would be as agreeable and diverting as was of yore that of the Egyptian women at Alexandria, on occasion of the reception and welcoming of their great god Apis, to greet whom they were used to go forth in great state, and lifting their gowns, bodices and shifts, and tucking up the same as high as ever they could, did show the god themselves right out. If any will see the tale, let him read Alexander ab Alexandro, in the 6th book of his Dies Joviales.[143*] I think such a sight must indeed have been a right agreeable one, for in those days the ladies of Alexandria were exceeding fair, as they are still to this day.