One tree for his fruit bore nothing but enchained chirping birds, whose throats being conduit piped with squared narrow shells, and charged siren-wise with searching sweet water, driven in by a little wheel for the nonce, that fed it afar off, made a spurting sound, such as chirping is in bubbling upwards through the rough crannies of their closed bills. Under tuition of the shade of every tree that I have signified to be in this round hedge, on delightful leafy cloisters lay a wild tyrannous beast asleep all prostrate. Under some two together, as the Dog nuzzling his nose under the neck of the Deer, the Wolf glad to let the Lamb lie upon him to keep warm, the Lion suffering the Ass to cast his leg over him: preferring one honest unmannerly friend, before a number of crouching picke-thankes. No poisonous beast there reposed, (poison was not before our parent Adam transtressed). There were no sweet-breathing Panthers, that would hide their terrifying heads to betray: no men imitating Hyænas, that changed their sex to seek after blood. Wolves as now when they are hungry eat earth, so then did they feed on earth only, and abstained from innocent flesh. The Unicorn did not put his horn into the stream to chase away venom before he drank, for then there was no such thing extant in the water or on the earth. Serpents were as harmless to mankind, as they are still one to another: the rose had no cankers, the leaves no caterpillars, the sea no Sirens, the earth no usurers. Goats then bore wool, as it is recorded in Sicily they do yet. The torrid Zone was habitable, Only Jays loved to steal gold and silver to build their nests withal, and none cared for covetous clientele, or running to the Indies. As the Elephant 81 understands his countryâs speech, so every beast understood what man spoke. The ant did not hoard up against winter, for there was no winter but a perpetual spring, as Ovid says. No frosts to make the green almond tree counted rash and improvident, in budding soonest of all others: or the mulberry tree a strange politician, in blooming late and ripening early. The peach tree at the first planting was fruitful and wholesome, whereas now till it be transplanted, it is poisonous and hateful. Young plants for their sap had balm, for their yellow gum glistering amber. The evening dewâs not water on flowers, but honey.
Such a golden age, such a good age, such an honest age was set forth in this banqueting house. O Rome, if you had in you such soul exalting objects, what a thing is heaven in comparison to you? Of which Mercatorâs globe is a more perfect model than you are.
Yet, this I must say to the shame of us Protestants. If good works may merit heaven, they do them, we talk of them. Whether superstition or not makes them unprofitable servants, that let pulpits decide. But there you shall have the bravest ladies, in gowns of beaten gold washing pilgrimsâ and poor soldiersâ feet, and doing nothing they and their waiting maids all the year long, but making shirts and bands for them against they come by in distress. Their hospitals are more like noblemenâs house than otherwise, so richly furnished, clean kept, and hot perfumed, that a soldier would think it a sufficient recompense for all his travel and his wounds, to have such a heavenly retiring place. For the pope and his pontificalibus I will no deal with, only I will dilate unto you what happened whilst I was in Rome.
So it fell out, that it being a vehement hot summer when I was a sojourner there, there entered such a hot-spurred plague as has not been heard of. Why, it was but a word and a blow, Lord have mercy upon us and he was gone. Within three quarters of a year in that one city there died of it a hundred thousand, look in Lanquetâs chronicle and 82 you shall find it. To smell of a nosegay that was poisoned, and turn your nose to a house that had the plague, it was all one. The clouds like a number of cormorants that keep their corn til it stinks and is musty, kept in their stinking exhalations till they had almost stifled all Romeâs inhabitants. Physiciansâ greediness of gold made them greedy of their destiny. They would come to visit those with whose infirmity their art had no affinity, and even as a man with a fee should be hired to hang himself, so would they go quietly home and die presently, after they had been with their patients.
All day and all night long carre-men did nothing but go up and down the streets with their carts and cry, ÎHave you any dead bodies to bury?â and had many times out of one house their whole loading. One grave was the sepulchre of seven score, one bed was the altar whereon whole families were offered. The walls were hoard and furred with the moist scorching steam of their desolation. Even as before a gun is shot off, a stinking smoke funnels out, and prepares the way for him, so before any gave up the ghost, death arrayed in a stinking smoke stopped his nostrils, and crammed itself full into his mouth that closed up his fellowâs eyes, to give him warning to prepare for his funeral. Some died sitting at their meat, others as they were asking counsel of the physician for their friends. I saw at the house where I was hosted a maid bring her master warm broth for to comfort him, and she sank down dead herself before he had half eaten it up.
During this time of visitation, there was a Spaniard, one Esdras of Granado, a notable Bandetto, authorized by the pope, because he had assisted him n some murders. This villain colleagued with one Bartol a desperate Italian, practiced to break into those rich menâs houses in the night where the plague had most reined, and if there were none but the mistress and maid left alive, to ravish them 83 both, and bring away all the wealth they could fasten on. In an hundred chief citizensâ houses where the hand of God had been they put this outrage in use. Though the women so ravished cried out, none dared come near them for fear of catching their deaths by them, and some thought they cried out only with the tyranny of the malady.
Amongst the rest, the house where I lay he invaded, where all being snatched up by sickness but the good wife of the house, a noble and chaste matron called Heraclide and her zany, and I and my courtezan, he knocking at the door late in the night, ran in to the matron, and left me an my love to the mercy of his companion. Who, finding me in bed (as the time required), ran at me full with his rapier, thinking I would resist him, but as good luck was, I escaped him, and betook me to my pistol in the window uncharged. He, fearing it had been charge, threatened to run her through if I once offered but to aim at him.
Forth from the chamber he dragged her, holding his rapier at her heart, while I cried out, ãSave her, kill me!â and ÎIâll ransom her with a thousand ducats!ä But lust prevailed, no prayers would be heard. Into my chamber I was locked and watchmen charged (as he made semblance when there was none there) to knock me down with their halberdes, if I stirred but a foot down the stairs.
Then threw I myself pensive again on my pallet, and dared all the devils in hell now I was alone to come and fight with me one after another in defense of that detestable rape. I beat my head against the walls a called them bawds, because they would see such a wrong committed, and not fall upon him.
To return to Heraclide below, whom the ugliest of all blood suckers Esdras of Granado had under shrift. First, he assailed her with rough means, and slew her Zany at her foot, that stepped before her in rescue. Then when all armed resist was put to flight, he assayed her with honey speech, and promised her more jewels and gifts than he was able to 84 pilfer in a hundred years after. He discoursed to her how he was countenanced and borne out by the pope, and how many execrable murders with impunity he had executed on them that displeased him.
ãThis is the eight score house,ä quoth he, ãthat has done homage unto me, and here I will prevail, or I will be torn in pieces.ä
ãAh,ä quoth Heraclide (with a heart rending sigh, ãare you ordained to be a worse plague to me than the plague itself? Have I escaped the hands of Go to fall into the hands of man? Hear me Jehovah, and be merciful in ending my misery. Dispatch me incontinent, dissolute homicide, deathâs usurper. Here lies my husband stone cold on the dewy floor. If you are have of more power than God, to strike me speedily, strike home, strike deep, send me to heaven with my husband. Ai me! it is the spoil of my honor you seek in my soulâs troubled departure, you are some devil sent to tempt me. Avoid from me, Satan, my soul is my Saviourâs. To him I have bequeathed it, from him can no man take it. Jesu, Jesu, spare me undefiled for your spouse. Jesu, Jesu, never fail those that put their trust in you.ä
With that she fell in a swoon, and her eyes closing seemed to spawn forth in their outward, sharp corners newly created seed pearls, which the world before never set eye on. Soon he rigorously revived her and told her yet he had a charter above Scripture, she must yield, she should yield, see who dared remove her out of his hands.
Twixt life and death thus she faintly replied. ãHow think you, is there a power above your power? If there be, he is here present in punishment, and on you will take present punishment, if you persist in your enterprise. In the time of security every man shines, but when death substitutes one friend his special bailiff to arrest another by infection, and disperses his quiver into ten thousand hands at once, who is it but looks about him? A man that has an inevitable huge stone hanging only by a hair over 85 his head, which he looks every Pater noster while to fall and pash him in pieces, will not he be submissively sorrowful for his transgressions, refrain himself from the least thought of folly, and purity his spirit with contrition and penitence? Godâs hand like a huge stone hands inevitably over your head. What is the plague, but death playing the Provost Marshal, to execute all those that will not be called home by any other means? This, my dear knightâs body, is a quiver of his arrows which already are shot into these invisibly. Even as the age of goats is known by the knots on their horns, so think the anger of God apparently visioned or shown unto you in the knitting of my brows. A hundred have I buried out of my house, at whose departures I have been present. A hundredâs infection is mixed with my breath. Lo! now I breathe infection upon you, a hundred deaths come upon you. Repent betimes, imagine there is a Hell though not a Heaven: that Hell your conscience is thoroughly acquainted with, if you have murdered half so many, as you unblushingly brag. As Mæcenas in the latter end of his days was seven years without sleep, so these seven weeks have I taken no slumber, my eyes have kept continual watch against the devil, my enemy. Death I deemed my friend (friends fly from us in adversity), Death, the Devil, and all the ministering spirits of temptation are watching about you to entrap your soul (by my abuse) to eternal damnation. It is your soul you may save, only by saving mine honor. Death will have your body infallibly for breaking into my house, that he had selected for his private habitation. If you ever came of a woman, or hope to be saved by the seed of a woman, pity a woman. Deer oppressed with dogs, when they cannot take soil, run to men for succour, To whom should women in their disconsolate and desperate estate run, but to Men (like the Deer) for succour and sanctuary. It you be a man, you 86 will succor me, but you be a dog and a brute beast, you will spoil me, defile me, and tear me. Either renounce Godâs image, or renounce the wicked mind you bear.ä
These words might have moved a compound heart of iron and adamantine, but in his heart they obtained no impression. For he, sitting in his chair of state against the door all the while that she pleaded, leaning his over-hanging gloomy eyebrows on the pommel of his unsheathed sword, he never looked up or gave her a word. But when he perceived she expected his answer of grace or utter perdition, he stared up and took her currishly by the neck, asking how long he should stay for her Ladyship?
ãYou tell me,ä quoth he, ãof the plague, and that heavy hand of God, and your hundred infected breaths in one. I tell you, I have cast the dice a hundred times for the galleys in Spain, and yet still missed the ill chance. Our order of casting is this, ÎIf there be a General or Captain new come home form the wars, and has some 4. or 500. crowns overplus of the Kingâs in his hand, and his soldiers all paid, he makes proclamation, that whatsoever two resolute men will go to dice for it, and win the bridle or lose the saddle, to such a place let them repair, and it shall be ready for them. Thither go I, and find another such needy squire resident. The dice run, I win, he is undone. I winning have the crowns, he losing is carried to the Galleys. This is our custom, which a hundred times and more has paid me custom of crowns, when the poor fellows have gone to Gehenna, had coarse bread and whipping cheer all their life after. Now think you that I who so oft have escaped such a number of hellish dangers, only depending upon the turning of a few prick, can be scarce-bugged with the plague? What plague can you name worse than I have had? Whether diseases, imprisonment, poverty, banishment, I have passed through them all. My own mother gave I a box of the ear too, and broke her neck 87 down a pair of stairs, because she would not go into a Gentleman when I bade her. My sister I sold to an old Leno to make his best of her. Any kinswoman that I have knew I she were not a whore, myself would make her one. You are a whore, you shall be a whore, in spite of religion, or precise ceremonies.ä
Therewith he flew upon her, and threatened her with his sword, but it was not that he meant to wound her with. He grasped her by the ivory throat, and shook her as a mastiff would shake a young bear, swearing and staring he would tear out her weasand if she refuses. Not content with that savage constraint, he slipped his sacrilegious hand from her lily lawn skinned neck, and inscarfed it in her long silver locks, which with struggling were unrolled. Backward he dragged her even as a man backward would pluck a tree down by the twigs, and then like a traitor that is drawn to execution on a hurdle, he trails her up and down the chamber by those tender untwisted braids, and setting his barbarous foot on her bare snowy breast, bade her yield or have her wind stamped out.
She cried, ãStamp, stifle me in my hair, hang me up by it on beam, and so let me die, rather than I should go to heaven with a beam in my eye.ä
ãNo,ä quoth he. ãNor stamped, nor stifled, nor hanged, nor to heaven shall you go till I have had my will of your, they busy arms in these silken fetters Iâll unfold.
Dismissing her hair fro his fingers, and pinioning her elbows therewithal, she struggled, she wrested, but all was in vain. So struggling, and so resisting, her jewels did seat, signifying there was poison coming towards her. On the hard boards he threw her, and used his knee as an iron ram to beat open the two leaved gate of her chastity. Her husbandâs dead body he made a pillow to his abomination.
Conjecture the rest, my words stick fast in the mire and are clean tired. Would I had never undertook this tragic tale. Whatsoever is borne, is borne to have an end. Thus ends my tale, his 88 whorish lust was glutted, his beastly desire satisfied. What in the house of any worth was carriageable, he put up, and went his way.
Let not your sorrow die. You that have read the proem of the narration of this elegiacal history. Show you have quick wits in sharp conceipt [conceit, concept?] of compassion. A woman that has viewed all her children sacrificed before her eyes, and after the first was slain, wiped the sword with her apron to prepare it for the cleanly murder of the second, and so on forward till it come to the empiercing of the seventeenth of her loins, will not you give her great allowance of anguish?
This woman, this matron, this forsaken Heraclide, having buried fourteen children in five days, whose eyes she howlingly closed, and caught many wrinkles with funeral kisses. Besides, having her husband within a day after laid forth as a comfortless corpse, a carrionly block, that could neither eat with her, speak with her, nor weep with her, is she not to be borne withal, though her body swell with a Tympani of tears, though her speech be as impatient as unhappy Hecubaâs, though her read raves, and her brain dote? Devise with yourselves that you see a corpse rising from his hearse after he is carried to the church, and such another suppose Heraclide to be, rising from the couch of enforced adultery.
Her eyes were dim, her cheeks bloodless, her breath smelt earthy, her countenance was ghastly. Up she rose after she was deflowered, but loath she arose, as a reprobate soul rising to the day of judgement. Looking on the tone side as she rose, she spied her husbandâs body lying under her head. Ah, then she bewailed, as Cephalus when he had killed Procris unwittingly, or Oedipus when ignorantly he had slain his father, and known his mother incestuously. This was her subdued reasonâs discourse.
ãHave I lived to make my husbandâs body the bier to carry me to Hell? Had filthy pleasure no other pillow to 89 lean upon but his outspread limbs? On your flesh my fault shall be imprinted at the day of resurrection. O beauty, the bait ordained to ensnare the irreligious! Rich men are robbed for their wealth, women are dishonored for being too fair. No blessing is beauty but a curse! Curse be the time that ever I was begotten, cursed be the time that my Mother brought me forth to tempt. The serpent in paradise did no more, the serpent in paradise is damned sempiternally! Why should not I hold my self damned (if predestination opinions be true) that am predestined to this horrible abuse. The hog dies presently if he loses an eye! With the hog have I wallowed in the mire, I have lost my eye of honesty, it is clean plucked out with a strong hand of unchastity! What remains but I die? Die I will, though life be unwilling. No recompense is there for me to redeem my compelled offense, but with a rigorous compelled death. Husband, Iâll be your wife in Heaven. Let not your pure deceased spirit despise me when we meet, because I am tyrannously polluted. The devil, the belier of our frailty, and common accuser of mankind, cannot accuse me though he would of unconstrained submitting. If any guilt be mine, this is my fault, that I did not deform my face, ere it should so impiously allure.ä
Having passioned thus awhile, she hastily ran and looked herself in her glass, to see if her win were not written on her forehead. With looking, she blushed, though none looked upon her, but her own reflected image.
Then began she again. ãHeu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu! How hard is it not to bewary a manâs fault by his forehead. Myself do but behold my self, and yet I blush. Then God beholding me, shall not I be ten times more ashamed? The Angels shall hiss at me, the Saints and Martyrs fly from me! Yea, God himself shall add to the devilâs damnation, because he suffered such a wicked creature to come before him. Agamemnon, you were an infidel, yet when you went to the Trojan war, 90 you left a musician at home with your Wife, who by playing the foot Spondæus till your return, might keep her in chastity. My husband going to war with the devil and his enticements, when he surrendered left no musician with me, but mourning and melancholy. Had he left any, as Ægistus killed Agamemnonâs Musician ere hecould be successful, so surely would he have been killed ere this Æstus surceased. My distressed heart as the Hart when as he looses his horns is astonied, and sorrowfully runs to hide himself, so be you afflicted and distressed, hide yourself under the Almightyâs wings of mercy. Sue, plead, entreat, grace is never denied to them that ask. It may be denied, I may be a vessel ordained to dishonor.
ãThe only repeal we have from Godâs undefinite chastisement, is to chastise ourselves in this world. And I will, nought but death be my penance, gracious and acceptable may it be. My hand and my knife shall manumit me out of the horror of mind I endure. Farewell, life, that has lent me nothing but sorrow. Farewell sin-sowed flesh, that has more weeds than flowers, more woes than joys. Point, pierce, edge enwiden, I patiently afford you a sheath. Spur forth my soul to mount post to heaven. Jesu forgive me, Jesu receive me.
So (thoroughly stabbed) fell she down, and knocked her head against her husbandâs body. Wherewith, he not having been aired his full four and twenty hours, started as out of a dream. Whiles I through a cranny of my upper chamber unsealed, had beheld all this sad spectacle. Awaking, he rubbed his head too and fro, and wiping his eyes with his hand began to look about him. Felling something lie heavy on his breast, he turned it off, and getting upon his legs, lighted a candle.
Here begins my Purgatory. For he good man coming into the hall with the candle, and spying his wife with her hair about her ears defiled and massacred, and his simple Zany Capestrano run through, took a halberd 91 in his hadn, and running from chamber to chamber to search who in his house was likely to do it, at length found me lying n my bed, the door locked to me on the outside, and my rapier unsheathed in the window. Wherewith he straight conjectured it was I. And calling the neighbours hard by, said, I had caused myself to be locked into my chamber after that sort, sent away my Courtezan whom I called my wife, and made clean my rapier, because I would not be suspected.
Upon this was I laid in prison, should have been hanged, was brought to the ladder, had made a Ballad for my Farewell in a readiness called Wiltonâs wantonness and yet for all that escaped dancing in a hempen circle. He that had gone through many perils and returned safe from them, makes but a merriment to dilate them. I had the knot under my ear, there was fair play, the hangman had one halter, another about my neck was fastened to the gallows, the riding device was almost thrust hoe, and his foot on my shoulder to press me down, when I made my saint-like confession as you have heard before that such and such men at such an hour broke into the house, slew the Zany, took my Courtezan, locked me in my chamber, ravished Heraclide, and finally how she slew herself.
Present at the execution was there a banished English Earl, who hearing that a Countryman of his was to suffer for such a notable murder, came to hear his confession, and see if he knew him. He had not heard me tell half of that I have recited, but he craved audience, and desired that the execution might be stayed.
ãNot two days since it is, Gentlemen and noble Romans,ä said he. ãSince going to be let blood in a Barberâs shop against the infection, all of a sudden in a great tumult and uproar was there brought in, one Bartoll, and Italian grievously wounded and bloody. I seeming to commiserate his harms, courteously questioned him with what Ill debtors he had met, or how or by what casualty he came to be so 92 arrayed?ä
ãO!ä quoth he. ãLong have I lived sworn brothers in sensuality with one Esdras of Granado. Five hundred rapes and murders have we committed betwixt us. When our iniquities were grown to the height, and God had determined to countercheck our amity, we came to the house of Johannes de Imola (whom this young Gentleman has named), there did he justify all those rapes in manner and forms as the prisoner here has confessed. But lo! an accident after, which neither he nor this audience is privy to. Esdras of Granado not content to have ravished the Matron Heraclide and robbed her, after he had betook him from thence to his heels, lighted on his companion Bartol with his Courtezan: whose pleasing face he had scarce winkingly glanced on, but he picked a quarrel with Bartol to have her from him. On this quarrel they fought, Bartol was wounded to the death, Esdras fled, and the fair dame left to go whether she would. This, Bartol in the Barberâs shop freely acknowledged, as both the Barber and his man and other here present can amply depose.
Deposed they were, their oaths went for currant, I was quit by proclamation. To the banished Earl I came to render thanks, when thus he examined me and schooled me.
ãCountryman, tell me what is the occasion of your straying so far out of England, to visit this strange Nation? If it be languages, you may learn them at home, nothing but lasciviousness is to be learned here. Perhaps, to be better accounted of, than other of your condition, you ambitiously undertook this voyage. These insolent fancies aer but Icarusâ feathers, whose wanton wax melted against the Sun, will betray thee into a sea of confusion.
ãThe first traveler was Cain, and he was called a vagabond runnagate on the face of the earth. Travel (like the travel wherein smiths put wild horses when they shoe them) is good for nothing but to tame and bring men under.
ãGod had not greater curse to lay upon the Israelites, than by leading them out of their own country to live 93 as slaves in a strange land. That which was their curse, we Englishmen count our chief blessedness, he is no body that has not travelled. We had rather live as slaves in another land, crouch and cap, and be servile to every jealous Italianâs and proud Spaniardâs humor, where we may neither look nor do any thing, but what pleases them; than live as freemen and Lords in our own Country.
ãHe that is a traveler must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing. And is this be not the highest step of thralldom, thee is no liberty or freedom.
ãIt is but a mild kind subjection to be the servant of one master at once, but when you have a thousand thousand masters, as the veriest butcher, tinker, or cobbler freeborn will domineer over a foreigner, and think to be his better or master in company; then shall you find there is no such Hell, as to leave your fatherâs house (your natural habitation) to live in the land of bondage.
ãIf you do but lend half a look to a Romanâs or Italianâs wife, your porridge shall be prepared for you, and cost you nothing but your life. Chance some of them break a bitter jest on you, and you restort it severely, or seem discontented: go to your chamber, and provide a banquet, for you shall be sure to be visited with guests in a mask the next night, when in kindness and courtship your throat shall be cut, and the doers return undiscovered. Nothing so long of memory as a dog, these Italians are old dogs, and will carry an injury a whole age in memory. I have heard of a box on the ear that had been revenged thirty years after. The Neapolitan carries the bloodiest mind, and is the most secret fleering murder: whereupon it is grown to a common proverb, Iâll give him the Neapolitan shrug, when one intends to play the villain, and make no boast of it.
ãThe only precept that a traveler has most use of, and shall find most ease in, is that of Epicharcus, Vigilia, & memor sis ne quid credas: Believe nothing, trust no man, yet seem you as you swallowed all, suspet none, but were easy to be gulled by everyone. Multi fallere docuerunt ( as Seneca said) dum timent falli: Many by showing their jealous suspect of deceit, have made men seek more subtle means to deceive them.
ãAlas, our Englishmen are the plainest dealing souls that ever God put life in. They are greedy of news, and love to be fed in their humors, and hear themselves flattered the best that may be. Even as Philemon a Comic Poet died with extreme laugher at the conceit of seeing an ass eat figs: so have the Italians no such sport, as to see poor English asses, how soberly they swallow Spanish figs, devour any hook baited for them. He is not fit to travel, that cannot with the Candians live on serpents, make nourishing food even of poison. Rats and mice engender by licking one another, he must lick, he much crouch, he must cog, lie, and prate, that either in the Court or a foreign country will engender and come to preferment. Be his feature what it will, if he be fair spoken he wins friends. Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Vlysses: Vlysses the long Traveler was not amiable, but eloquent. Some allege,. they travel to learn wit, but I am of this opinion, that as it is not possible for any man to learn the Art of Memory, whereof Tully, Quintillian, Seneca and Hermannus Buschius have written so many Books, except he have a natural memory before, so is it not possible for any man to attain any great wit by travel, except he have the grounds of it rooted in him before. That with which is thereby to be perfected or made staid, is nothing but Experientia longa malorum, the experience of many evils: The experience that such a man lost his life by this folly, another by that: such a young Gallant consumed his substance on such a Courtezan: these courses of 95 reventge a Merchant of Venice took against a Merchant of Ferrara: and this point of justice was showed by the Duke upon the murderer. What is here but we may read in books, and a great deal more, too, without stirring our feet out of a warm Study.
What is there in France to be learned more than in England, but falsehood in fellowship, perfect slovenry, to love no man bur for my pleasure, to swear Ah par la mort Dieu when a manâs hams are scabbed. For the idle Traveler, (I mean ot for the Soldier) I have known some that have continued there by the space of half a dozen years, and when they come home, they have hid a little weerish lean face under a broad French hat, kept a terrible coil with the dust in the street in their long cloaks of gray paper, and speak English strangely. Nought else have hey profited by their travel, save learnt to distinguish a true Burdeaux Grape, and know a cup of neat Gascoigne wine, from wine of Orleance. Yea, and peradventure this also, to esteem of the pox as a pimple, to wear a velvet patch on their face, and walk melancholy with their Arms folded.
ãFrom Spain what brings our Traveller? a scull crowned hat of the fashion of an old deep porringer, 96 a diminutive Aldermanâs ruffle with short strings like the droppings of a manâs nose, a close-bellied doublet coming down with a peak behind as far as the crupper, and cut off before by the breast bone like a partlet or neckercher, a wide pair of gascoynes, which ungathered would make a couple of womenâs riding kirtles, huge hangers that have half a cowhide in them, a rapier that is lineally descended from half a dozen Dukes at the least. Let his cloak be as long or as short as you will: if long, it is faced with Turkey grogeran raveled: if short, is has a cape live a Calveâs tongue, and is not so deep in his whole length, nor has so much cloth in it I will justify, as only the standing cape of a Dutchmanâs cloak. I have not yet touched all, for he has in either shoe as much taffeta for his tyings as would serve for an ancient, which serves him (if you will have the mystery of it) of the own accord for a shoo-rag. A soldier and a braggart he is (thatâs concluded) he jetts, strutting, dancing on his toes, with his hands under his sides. If you talk with him, he makes a dishcloth of his own Country in comparison of Spain, but if you urge him more particularly wherein it exceeds, he can give no instance but in Spain they have better bread than any we have: when (poor hungry slaves) they may crumble it into water well enough, and make mizers with it, for they have not a good morsel of meat except it be salt piltchers to eat with it all the year long: and which is more, they are poor beggars, and lie in foul straw every night.
Italy the Paradise of the earth, and the Epicureâs heaven, how does it form our young master? It makes him to kiss his hand like an ape, cringe his neck like a starveling, and play at pass repass come aloft when he salutes a man. From thence he brings his art of atheism, the art of epicurising, the art of whoring, the art of poisoning, the art of Sodomitrie. The only probably good thing they have to keep us from condemning it, is that it makes a man an excellent Courtier, a curious carpet 97 knight; which is, by interpretation, a fine close lecher, a glorious hypocrite. It is now a privy not amongst a better sort of men, when they would set a singular mark or brand on a notorious villain, to say, he has been in Italy.
ãWith the Dane and the Dutchmen I will not encounter, for they are simple honest men, that with Danausâ Daughters do nothing but fill bottomless tubs, and will be drunk and snort in the midst of dinner. He hurts himself only that goes thither, he cannot lightly be damned, for the vintners, the brewers, the malt-men and alewives pray for him. Pitch and pay, they will pray all day: score and borrow, they will wish him much sorrow. But lightly a man is nary the better for their prayers, for they commit all deadly sin for the most part pf them in mingling their drink, the vintners in the highest degree.
ãWhy jest I in such a necessary persuasive discourse? I am a banished exile from my country, though near linked in consanguinity to the best: an Earl born by birth, but a beggar now as you see. These many years in Italy have I lived an outlaw. A while I had a liberal pension of the Pope, but that lasted not, for he continued not. One succeeded him in his chair that cared neither for Englishmen nor his own countrymen. Then was I driven to pick up my crumbs among the Cardinals, to implore the benevolence and charity of all the Dukes of Italy, whereby I have since made a poor shift to live, but so live, as I wish myself a thousand times dead.
Here he held his peace and wept. I, glad of any opportunity of a full point to part from him, told him I took his counsel in worth. What lay in me to requite in love should not be lacking. Some business that concerned me highly called me away very hastily, but another time I hoped we should meet. Very hardly he let me go, but I earnestly over pleading my occasions, as length he dismissed me, told me where his lodging was, and charge me to visit him without excuse very often.
Hereâs a stir, thought I to myself, after I was set at liberty, that is worse than an upbraiding lesson after a britching. Certainly, if I had bethought me like a rascal I was, he should have had an Ave Maria of me for his cynical exhortation. God plagued me for deriding such a grave fatherly advertiser. List the worse throw of ill lucks. Tracing up and down the City to seek my Courtezan till the Evening began to grow very well in age, it thus fortuned, the Element as if if had drunk too much in the afternoon, poured down so profoundly, that I was forced to creep like one afraid of the watch close under the 99 pentises, where the cellar door of a Jewâs house called Zadoch (over which in my direct way I did pass) being unbarred on the inside, over head and ears I fell into it, as a man falls in a ship from the oreloop into the hold, or as in an earthquake the ground should open, and a blind man come feeling pad pad over the open Gulf with his staff, should tumble on a sudden into Hell. Having worn out the anguish of my fall a little with wallowing up and down, I cast up mine eyes to see under what Continent I was: and lo, (O destiny!) I saw my Courtezan kissing very lovingly apprentice.
My back and my sides I had hurt with my fall, but now my head swelled and ached worse than both. I was even gathering wind to come upon her with a full blast of contumely, when the Jew (awaked with the noise of my fall) came hastily bustling down the stairs, and raising his other tenants, attacked both the Courtezan and me for breaking his house, and conspiring with his apprentice to rob him.
It was then the law in Rome, that if any man had a felon fallen into his hands, either by breaking into his house, or robbing him by the highway, he might choose whether he would make him his bonds-man or hang him. Zadoch (as all Jewâs are covetous) cating with himself he should have no benefit by casting me off the Ladder, had another policy in his head; he went to one Doctor Zachary, the Popeâs Physician, that was a Jew and his Countryman likewise and told him he had the finest bargain for him that might be. ãIt is not concealed from me,ä says he, ãthat the time of your accustomed yearly Anatomy is at hand, which it behooves you under forfeiture of the foundation of your College very carefully to provide for. The infection is great, and hardly will you get a sound body to deal upon. You are my Countryman, therefore I come to you first. Be it known to you, I 100 have a young man at home fallen to me for my bondsman, of the age of eighteen, of stature tall, straight limbs, of as clear a complexion as any Painterâs fancy can imagine. Go to, you are an honest man, and one of the scattered children of Abraham, you shall have him for five hundred crowns.ä ãLet me see him,ä quoth Doctor Zachary, ã and I will give you as much as anotehr. Home he sent for me. Pinioned and shackled, I was transported along the street; where passing under Julianaâs, the Marquess of Mantuaâs wifeâs window, that was a lusty Bona Roba, one of the Popeâs concubines, as she had her casement half open, she looked out and spied me. At the first sight she was enamoured with my age and beardless face, that had in it no ill sign of physiognomy fatal to fetters. After me she sent to know what I was, wherein I had offended, and whether I was going? My conducts resolved them all. She having received this answer, with a lustful collachrimation lamenting my Jewish Premunire, that body and goods I should light into the hands of such a cursed generation, invented the means of my release.
But first Iâll tell you what betided me after I was brought to Doctor Zacharyâs. The purblind Doctor put on his spectacles and looked upon me. And when he had thoroughly viewed my face, he caused me to be stripped naked, to feel and grope whether each limb were sound and my skin not infected. Then he pierced my arm to see how my blood ran. Which assays and searchings ended, he gave Zadoch his full price and sent him away, then locked me up in a dark chamber till the day of anatomy.
O, the cold sweating cares which I conceived after I knew I should be cut like a French summer doublet. Me thought already the blood began to gush out at my nose. If a flea on the arm had but bit me, I deemed the instrument had pricked me. Well, well, I may scoff at a shroud tune, but thereâs no such ready way to make a man a true Christian, as to persuade himself he is taken 101 up for an anatomy. Iâll depose I prayed then more than I did in seven years before. Not a drop of sweat trickled down my breast and under my sides, but I dreamt it was a smooth-edged razor tenderly slicing down my breast and sides. If any knocked at door, I supposed it was the Beadle of Surgeons hal come for me. In the night I dreamed of nothing but phlebotomy, bloody fluxes, incarnatives, running ulcers. I dared not let out a wheale for fear through it I should bleed to death. For meat in this distance, I had plum-porridge of purgations ministered me one after another to clarify my blood, that it should not lie clotted in the flesh. Nor did he it so much for clarifying Physick, as to save charges. Miserable is that Mouse that lives in a Physicianâs house, Tantalus lives not so hunger-starved in Hell, as she does there. Not the very crumbs that fall from his table, but Zachary sweeps together, and of them moulds up a Manna. Of the ashy parings of his bread, he would make conserve of chippings. Out of bones after the meat was eaten off, he would alchemize an oil, that he sold for a shilling a dram. His snot and spittle a hundred times he has put over to his Apothecary for snow water. Any spider he would temper to perfect Mithradate. His rheumatic eyes when he went in the wind, or rose early in a morning, dropped as cool alum water as you would request. He was dame Niggardizeâ sole heir and executor. A number of old books had he eaten with the moths and worms, now all day would not he study a dodkin, but pick those worms and moths out of his Library, and of their mixture make a preservative against the plague. The liquor out of his shoes he would wring to make a sacred Balsamum against barrenness.
Spare we him a line or two, and look back to Juliana, who conflicted in her thoughts about me very doubtfully, adventured to send a messenger to Doctor Zachary in her name, very boldly to beg me of him, and if she might not beg me, to buy me with what sums of money whatever he 102 would ask. Zachary Jewishly, and churlishly denied both her suits, and said if there were no more Christians on the earth, he would thrust his incision knife inbto his throat-bowl immediately. Which reply, she taking at his hands most despitefully, thought to cross him over the shins with as sore and overwhart blow ere a month to an end. The Pope (I know not whether at her entreaty or no) within two days after fell sick, Doctor Zachary was sent for to minister unto him, who seeing a little danger in his water, gave him a gently comfortive for the stomach, and desired those near about him to persuade his holiness to take some rest, and he doubted not but he would be forthwith well. Who should receive this mild physick of him but the concubine Juliana, his utter enemy. She, being not unprovided of strong poison at that instant, in the Popeâs outward chamber so mingled it, that when his Grand-sublimity-taster came to relish it, he sunk down stark dead on the pavement. Herewith the Pope called Juliana, and asked her what strong concocted broth she had brought him. She kneeled down on her knees, and said it was such as Zachary the Jew had delivered her with his own hands, and therefore if it misliked his holiness she craved pardon. The Pope without further sifing into the matter, would have had Zachary and all the Jews in Rome put top death, but she hung ab out his kenes, and with Crocodile tears desired him the sentence might be lenefied, and they be all but banished at the most.
ãFor Doctor Zachary,ä quoth she, ãyour ten-times ungrateful Physician, since notwithstanding his treacherous intent, he has much Art, and many sovereign simples, oils, gargarisms and syrups in his closet and house that may stand your Mightiness in stead, I beg all his goods only for your Beatitudeâs preservation and good. This request at the first was sealed with a kiss, and the Popeâs edict without dealy proclaimed throughout Rome, namely, that all foreskin clippers whether amle or female belonging to the old Jewry, should depart and 103 avoid upon pain of hanging within twenty days after the date thereof.
Juliana (two days before the proclamation came out) sent her servants to extend upon Zacharyâs territories, his goods, his moveables, his chattels and his servants: who performed their commission to their utmost title, and left him not so much as master of an old urinal case or a candle-box. It was about six oâclock in the evening when those boot-halers entered. Into my chamber they rushed, when I sat leaning on my elbow, and my left hand under my side, devising what kind of death it might be to be let bleed till a man die. I called to mind the assertions of some philosophers, who said the soul was nothing but blood. Then thought I, what a thing were this, if I should let my soul fall and break his neck into a basin. I had but a pimple rose with heat in that part of the vein where they use to prick, and I fearfully misdeemed it was my soul searching for passage.
Fie upon it! a manâs breath to be let out at a back door, what a villainy it is? To die bleeding is all one, as if a man should die pissing. Good drink makes good blood, so that piss is nothing but blood under age. Seneca and Lucan were lobcocks to choose that death of other. A pig or a hog or an edible brute beast a cook or other a butcher deals upon, dies bleeding. To die with a prick, wherewith the faintest hearted woman under heaven would be killed, O God, it is infamous.
In this meditation did they seize upon me, in my cloak they muffled me that no man might know me, nor I see which way I was carried. The first ground I touched after I was out of Zacharyâs house, was the Countess Julianaâs chamber. Little did I surmise that fortune reserved me to so fair a death. I made no other reckoning all the while they had me on their shoulders, but that I was on horseback to heaven, and carried to Church on a bier, excluded forever from drinking any more ale or beer.
Juliana scornfully questioned them thus (as if I had fallen into her hands 104 beyond expectation) what proper apple squire is this you bring so suspiciously into my chamber? what hath he done? or where had you him? They answered likewise a far off, that in one of Zacharyâs chambers they found him close prisoner, and thought themselves guilty of the breach of her Ladyshipâs commandment if they should have left him.
ãO,ä quoth she, ãyou love to be double diligent, or though peradventure that I being a lone woman, stood in need of a love. Bring you me a princoks beardless boy (I know not whence he is, nor whether he would) to call my name in suspense? I tell you, you have abused me, and I can hardly brook it at your hands. You should have lead him to the magistrate. No commission received you of me but for his good and his servants.ä
They besought her to excuse their error, proceeding of dutiful zeal no negligent default.
ãBut why should not I conjecture the worst?ä quoth she. ãI tell you truly, I am half in a ielozie he is some fantastic, amorous youngster, who to dishonor me has hired you to this stratagem. It is a likely matter that such a man as Zachary should make a prison of his house. By your leave, sir gallant, under lock and key shall you stay with me, till I have enquired further of you, you shall be sifted thoroughly before you and I part. Go, maid, show him to the farther chamber at the end of the gallery that looks into the garden. You my trim pandors, I pray, guard him there as you took pains to bring him here. When you have done so, see the doors be made fast and come your way.ä
Here was a wily wench had her liripoop without book, she was not to seek in her knacks and shifts. Such are all women, each of them has a cloak for the rain, and can bleare her husbandâs eyes as she list. Not too much of this Madam Marquess at once, let me dilate a little what 105 Zadochdid with my courtezan after he had sold me to Zachary. Of an ill tree I hope you are not so ill-sighted in grafting to expect good fruit. He was a Jew, and entreated her like a Jew. Under shadow of enforcing her to tell how muchmoney she had of his apprentice so to be trained in his cellar, he stripped her, and scourged her from top to toe tantara. Day by day he had disgested his meat with leading her the measures. A diamond Delphinical dry lecher it was.
The ballet of the whipper of late days here in England, was but a scoff in comparison of him. All the Colliers of Romford, who hold their corporation by yarking the blind bear at Paris garden, were but bunglers to him, he had the right agility of the lash. There was none of them could make the cord come aloft with a twang half like him. Mark the ending, mark the ending. The tribe of Juda is adjudged from Rome to be trudging, they may no longer be lodged there, all the Albumazers, Rabisacks, Gedions, Tebiths, Benhadads, Benrodans, Zedechiaes, Halies of them were banquerouts and turned out of house and home Zachary came running to Zadochâs in sack cloth and ashes presently, after his goods were confiscated and told him how he was served, and what decree was coming out against them all. Descriptions stand by, here is to be expressed the fury of Lucifer when he was turned over heaven bar for a wrangler. There is a toad fish, which taken out of the water swells more than one would think his skin could hold, and bursts in his face that touches him. So swelled Zadoch, and was ready to burst out of his skin and shoot his bowels like chain-shot full at Zacharyâs face for bringing him such baleful tidings. His eyes glared and burnt blue like brimstone and aqua vitæ set on fire in an eggshell. His very nose lightened glow-worms, his teeth crashed and grated together, like the joints of a high building cracking and rocking like a cradle, when as a tempest takes her full but against his broad 106 side. He swore, he cursed, and said, ãThese are they that worship that crucified God of Nazareth. Hereâs the fruits of their new found Gospel. Sulphur and gunpowder carry them all quick to Gehenna. I would spend my soul willingly, to have that triple-headed Pope with all his sin-absolved whores, and oil-greased priests borne with a black saint on the devilsâ backs in procession to the pit of perdition. Would I might sink presently into the earth, so I might blow up this Rome, this whore of Babylon into the air with my breath. If I must be banished, if those heathen dogs will needs rob me of my goods, I will poison their springs and conduit heads, whence they receive all their water round about the city. Iâll entice all the young children into my house that I can get, and cutting their throats barrel them up in poudring beef tubs, and so sent them to victual the Popeâs galleys. Before the officers come to extend, Iâll bestow a hundred pound on a dole of bread, which Iâll cause to be kneaded with scorpionâs oil, that will kill more than the plague. Iâll hire them that make their wafers or sacramentary gods, to minge them after the same sort, so in the zeal of their superstitious religion, they shall languish and drop like carrion. If there is ever a blasphemous conjurer that can call the winds from their brazen caves, and make the clouds travel before their time, Iâll give him the other hundred pounds to disturb the heavens a whole week together with thunder and lightning, if it is for nothing but to sour all the wines in Rome, and turn them to vinegar. As long as they have either oil or wine, this plague feeds but pinglingly upon them.ä
ãZadoch, Zadoch,ä said Doctor Zachary, cutting him off. ãYou threaten the air, while we perish here on earth. It is the countess Juliana, the Marquis of Mantuaâs wife, and no other,that has complotted our confusion, ask now how, but insist on my words, and assis in revenge.ä
ãAs how, as how,ä said Zadoch, shrugging and shrubbing.
107
ãNo, no, brother Zadoch,ä answered Zachary, ãthat is not the way. Can you provide me ere a bond-maid, indued with singular and divine qualified beauty, whom as a present from our synagogue you may commend unto her, desiring her to be good and gracious to us. [v. r. her]ä
ãI have, I am for you,ä quoth Zadoch, ãDiamante come forth. Hereâs a wench of as clean a skin as Susanna, she has not a wem on her flesh from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. How think you, master Doctor, will she not serve the tune?ä
ãShe will,ä said Zachary, ãand therefore Iâll tell you what charge I would have committed to her. But I care not if I disclose it only to her. Maid (if you are a maid) come here to me. You must be sent to the countess of Mantuaâs about a small piece of service, whereby being now a bond woman, you shall purchase freedom and gain a large dowry to your marriage. I know your master loves you dearly though he will not let you perceive so much, he intends after he is dead to make you his heir, for he has not children. Please him in that I shall instruct you and you are made forever. So it is, that the pope is far out of liking with the countess of Mantua his concubine, and has put his trust in me, his physician, to have her quietly and charitably made away. 108 Now I cannot intend it, for I have many cures in hand which call upon me hourly. You if you are placed with her as her waiting maid or cup-bearer, may temper poison with her broth, her meat, her drink, her oils, her syrups, and never be bewraid. I will not say whether the pope has heard of you, and you might come to be his leman in her place, if you behave yourself wisely. What, have you the heart to go through with it or no?ä
Diamante deliberating with herself in what hellish servitude she lived with the Jew, and that she had no likelihood to be released of it, but fall from evil to worse if she omitted this opportunity, resigned herself over wholly to be disposed and employed as seemed best to them. Thereupon, without further consultation, her wardrobe was richly rigged, her tongue smooth filed and new edged on the whetstone, her drugs delivered her, and presented she was by Zadoch, her master, to the countess, together with some other slight new-fangles, as from the whole congregation, desiring her to stand their merciful mistress, and solicit the pope for them, that through one manâs ignorant offence, were all generally in disgrace with him, and had incurred the cruel sentence of loss of goods and of banishment
Juliana, liking well the pretty round face of my black-browed Diamante, gave the Jew better countenance than otherwise she would have done, and told him for her own part she was but a private woman, cand could promise nothing confidently of his holiness. For though he had suffered himself to be over-ruled by her in some humors, yet in this that touched him so nearly, she knew not how he would be inclined. But what lay in her either to pacify or persuade him, they should be sure of, and so craved his absence.
His back turned, she asked Diamante what countrywoman she was, what friends she had, and how she fell into the hands of that Jew? She answered that she was a Magnificoâs daughter of Venice, stolen when she was young 109 from her friends. and sold to this Jew for a bond-woman, ·
ãwho,ä quoth she, ãhas used me to jewishly and tyrannously, that forever I must celebrate the memory of this day wherein I am delivered from his jurisdiction.ä
Alas,ä quoth she, ãwhy did I enter into any mention of my own misusage? It will be thought that that which I am now to reveal, proceeds of malice not truth. Madam, your life is sought by these Jews that sue to you. blush not, nor be troubled in your mind, for with warning I shall arm you against all their intentions.
ãThus and thus,ä quoth she, ãsaid Doctor Zachary to me, this poison he delivered me. Before I was called in to them, such and such consultation through the crevice of the door hard locked did I hear between the. Deny it if they can, I will justify it. Only I beseech you to be favourable lady to me, and let me not fall again into the hands of those vipers.ä
Juliana said little but thought unhappily, only she thanked her for detecting it, and vowed though she were her bond-woman to be a mother to her. The poison she took of her, and set it up charely on a shelf in her closet, thinking to keep it for some good purposes. As, for example, when I was consumed and worn to the bones through her abuse, she would give me a dram too much, and pop me into a privy. So she had served some of paramours before that, and if God had not sent Diamante to be my redeemer, undoubtedly I would have drunk of the same cup.
In a leaf or two, before I was locked up: here in this page the aforesaid goodwife Countess comes to me, she is no longer a judge but a client. How she came, in what manner of attire, with what immodest and uncomely words she courted me, if I should take upon me to enlarge, all modest ears would abhor me. Some inconvenience she brought me too by her harlot-like behavior, of which enough I can never repent me.
110Let that be forgiven and forgotten, fleshly delights could not make her slothful or slumbering in revenge against Zadoch. She set men about him to incense and egg him on in courses of discontentment, and other supervising espialls, to ply, follow, and spur forward those suborning incensers. Both which played their parts so, that Zadoch of his own nature violent, swore by the ark of Jehovah to set the whole city on fire before he went out of it. Zachary, aftter he had furnished the wench with the poison, and given her instructions to go to the devil, dared not stay one hour for fear of disclosing, but fled to the duke of Bourbon, that afterwards sacked Rome, and thre practised with his bastard-ship all the mischief against the pope and Rome that envy could put into his mind.
Zadoch was left behind for the hangman. According to his oath, he provided balls of wild fire in readiness, and laid trains of gunpowder inn a hundred several places of the city to blow it up, which he has set fire to and also bandied his balls abroad, if his attendant spies had not taken him with the manner. To the straightest prison in Rome he was dragged, where from tope to toe he was clogged with fetters and manacles.
Juliana informed the pope of Zachary and his practise, Zachary was sought for, but Non est inuentus, he was packing long before. Commandment was given, that Zadoch whom they had under hand and seal of lock and key, should be executed with all the fiery torments that could be found out.
Iâll make short work, for I am sure I have wearied all my readers. To the execution place was he brought, where first and foremost he was stripped, then on a sharp iron stake fastened in the ground, he had his fundament pithed, which stake ran up along into the body like a spit, under his armholes two of like sort, a great bonfire they made round about him, wherewith his flesh roasted not burned. And ever as with the heat his skin blistered, the fire was drawn aside, and they basted him with a mixture 111 of Aqua fortis. alum water, and Mercury sublimatum, which smarted to the very soul of him and searched him to the marrow. Then did they scourge his back parts so blistered and basted, with burning whips of red hot wire. His head they anointed over with pitch and tar, and so inflamed it. To his privy members they tied streaming fireworks, the skin from the crest of the shoulder, as also from his elbows, his huckle bones, his knees, his ankles, they plucked and gnawed off with sparkling pincers. His breast and his belly with seal skins they grated over, which as fast as they grated and rawed, one stood over and laved with smithâs syndry water and Aqua vitæ. His nails they half raised up, and the under-propped them with sharp pricks like a Tailorâs shop window half open on a holy day. Every one of his fingers tehyrent up to the wrist. His toes they broke off by the roots, and let them still hand by a little skin. In conclusion, they had a small oil fire, such as men blow light bubbles of glass with and beginning at his feet, they let him lingeringly burned up limb by limb; till his heart was consumed, and then he died.
Triumph women, this was the end of the whipping Jew, contrived by a woman, in revenge of two women, herself and her maid.
I have told you or I should ell you in what credit Diamante grew with her fair mistress. Juliana never dreamed but she was an authentic maid. She made her the chief of her bedchamber, she appointed none but her to look in to me, and serve me of such necessaries as I lacked. You must suppose when we met there was no small rejoicing on either part, much like the three brothers that went three several ways to seek their fortunes, and at the yearâs end at those three cross ways met again, and told one another how they sped. So after we had been long asunder seeking our fortunes, we commented one to another most kindly, what cross haps had encountered us. Neare a six hours 112 but the Countess cloyed me with her company. It grew to this pass that either I must find out some miraculous means of escape, or drop away in a consumption, as one pined for lack of meat. I was clean spent and done, there was no hope of me.
The year held on his course to doomsday, when Saint Peterâs day dawned. That day is a day of supreme solemnity in Rome, when the Ambassador of Spain comes and presents a milk white jennet to the pope, that kneels down upon his own accord in token of obeisance and humility before him, and lets him stride on his back as easy as one strides over a block. With this jennet is offered a rich purse of a yard length full of Peter pence. No music that has the gift of utterance but sounds all the while. Copes and costly vestments deck the hoarsest and beggar-liest singing-man, not a clerk or sexton is absent, no, nor a mule nor a foot-cloth belonging to any Cardinal but attends on the tail of the triumphs. The pope himself is borne in his pontificalibus through the Burgo (which is the chief street in Rome) to the Ambassadorâs house to dinner, and there resorts all the assembly. Where, if a poet should spend all his lifetime in describing a banquet, he could not feast his auditors half so well with words, as he does his guests with junkets.
To this feast Juliana addressed herself like an angel, in a litter of green needlework wrought like an arbour, and open on every side was she borne by four men, hidden under cloth rough plushed and woven like eglentine and woodbine. At the four corners it was topped with four round crystal cages of Nightingales. For footmen, on either side of her went four virgins clad in lawn, with lutes in their hands playing. Next before her, two and two in order, a hundred pages in suits of whit cypress, and long horsemenâs coats of cloth of silver: who, being all in white, advanced every one of them his picture, enclosed in a white 113 round screen of feathers, such as is carried over great princesses heads when they ride in summer to keep them from the heat of the sun. Before them went a four score bead women she maintained in green gowns, scattering strawing herbs and flowers. After her followed the blink, the halt and the lame sumptuously appareled like Lords, and thus past she on to S. Peters.
Interea quid agitur domi, how is it at home all this while. My courtezan is left my keeper, the keys are committed unto her, she is mistress fac totum. Against our countess we conspire, pack up all her jewels, place, money that was extant, and to the waterside send them. To conclude, courageously robher, and run away. Quic non auri sacra fames? Îwhat fame will not gold salve.â He mistook himself that invented the proverb, Dimicandum est pro aris & focis. For it should have been pro auro & fama: not for altars and fires we must contend, but for gold and fame.
Oars nor wind could not stir nor blow faster, than we toiled out of Tiber. Anumber of good fellows would give sixe ace and the dice that with as little toil they could leave Tyburn behind them. Out of ken we were before the Countess came home from the feast. When she returned and found her house not so much pestered as it was wont, her chests, her closets and her cupboards broken open to take air, and that both I and my keeper was missing: O then she fared like a frantic Bacchanelle, she stamped, she starâd, she beat her head against the walls, scratched her face, bit her fingers, and strewed all the chamber with her hair. None of her servants dared stay in her sight, but she beat them out in heaps, and bade them go seek search they knew not where, and hang themselves, and never look her in the face more, if they did not hunt us out.
After her fury had reasonably spent itself, her breast began to swell with the mother [? smother?] , caused by her former fretting and chafing, and she grew very ill at ease. 114 Whereupon she knocked for one of her maids, and bade her run into her closet, and fetch her a little glass that stood on the upper shelf, where there was spiritus vini.
The maid went, and mistakingly took the glass of poison which Diamante had given her and she kept in store for me. Coming with it as fast as her legs could carry her, her mistress at her return was in a swoon, and lay for dead on the floor, whereat she shrieked out, and fell a rubbing and chafing her very busily. When that would not serve, she took a key and opened her mouth, and having heard that spiritus Vini was a thing of mighty operation, able to call a man from death to life, she took the poison, and verily thinking it to be spiritus vini (such as she was sent for) poured a large quantity of it into her throat, and jogged on her back to digest it. It revived her with a very vengeance, for it killed her outright, only she awakened and lifted up her hands, but spoke nary a word.
Then was the maid in my grandames beanes, and knew not what should become of her. I heard the Pope took pity on her, and because her trespass was not voluntary but chance-medley, he assigned her no other punishment but this: to drink out the rest of the poison in the glass that was left, and so go scot-free.
We, careless of these mischances, held on our flight, and saw no man come after us, but we thought had pursued us. A thief, they say, mistakes every bush for a true man, the wind rattled not in any bush by the way as I rode, but I straight drew my rapier. To Bologna a merry gale we posted, where we lodged ourselves in a blind street out of the way, and kept secret many days. But when we perceived we sailed in the haven, that the wind was laid, and no alarm made after us, we boldly came abroad. And one day, hearing of a more desperate murderer than Cain was to be executed, we followed the multitude, and grudged not to lend him our eyes at his last parting.
115Who sould it be but one Cutwolfe, wearish, dwarfish, writhen faced cobbler, brother to Bartol the Italian, that was a confederate with Esdras of Granado, and at that time stole away my courtezan when he ravished Heraclide.
It is not so natural for me to epitomize his impiety, as to hear him in his own person speak upon the wheel where he was to suffer.
Prepare your ears and your tears, for never till this have I thrust any tragic matter upon you. Strange and wonderful are Godâs judgements. Here they shine in their glory. Chaste Heraclide, your blood is laid up in heavenâs treasury, not one drop of it was lost, but lent out in usury. Water poured forth sinks down quietly into the earth, but blood spilt on the ground sprinkles up to the firmament. Murder is wide-mouthed, and will not let God rest till he grant revenge. Not only the blood of the slaughtered innocent, but the soul ascends to his throne, and there cries out and exclaims for justice and recompense. Guiltless souls that live every hour subject to violence and with your despairing fears do much impair Godâs providence: fasten your eyes on this spectacle that will add to your faith. Refer all your oppressions, afflictions, and injuries to the even-balanced eye of the Almighty. He it is that when your patience sleeps, will be most exceedingly mindful of you.
This is but a gloss upon the text: thus Cutwolfe begins his insulting oration.
ãMen and people that have made holy day to behold my pained flesh toil on the wheel, expect not of me a whining penitent salute, that shall do nothing but cry and say his prayers and so be crushed in pieces. My body is little, but my mind is as great as a giantâs. The soul which is in me, is the very soul of Julius Cæsar by reversion, my name is Cutwolfe, neither better nor worse by occupation, but a poor Cobbler of Verona. Cobblers are men and kings are no more. The occasion of my 116 coming here at this present, is to have a few of my bones broken (as we are all born to die) for being the death of the Emperor of homicides Esdras of Granado.
ãAbout two years since in the streets of Rome he slew the only and eldest brother I had named Bartol, in quarrelling about a courtezan. The news brought to me as I was sitting in my shop under a stall knocking in of tacks. I think I raised up my bristles, sold pritch-aule, spunge, blacking tub, and punching iron, bought me a rapier and pistol, and to go I went. Twenty months together I pursued him, from Rome to Naples, from Naples to Caiete passing over the river, from Caiete to Siena, from Siena to Florence, from Florence to Parma, from Parma to Pavia, from Pavia to Syon, from Syon to Geneva, from Geneva back again towards Rome.
ãWhere in the way it was my chance to meet him in the nick here at Bologna, as I will tell you how. I saw a great fray in the streets as I passed along, and many swords walking, whereupon drawing nearer, and enquiring who they were, answer was returned me it was that notable Bandetto Esdras of Granado.
ãO, I was tickled so in the spleen with that word. My heart hopped and danced , my elbows itched, my fingers frisked. I knew no what should become of my feet, nor knew what I did for joy. The fray parted, I thought it not convenient to single him out (being a sturdy knave) in the street but to stay till I had got him at more advantage. To his lodging I dogged him, lay at the door all night where he entered, for fear he should give me the slip any way. Betimes in the morning I rung the bell and craved to speak with him, now to his chamber door I was brought, where knocking he rose in his shirt and let me in, and when I was entered, bade me lock the door and declare my errand, and so he slipped to bed again.
ã ÎMarrie this,â quoth I, Îis my errand. Your name is Esdras of Granado, is it not? Most treacherously you slew my brother Bartol about two years ago in the streets of 117 Rome. His death I have come to revenge. In quest of you ever since, above three thousand miles have I travelled. I have begged to maintain myself the better part of the way, only because I would intermit no time from my pursuit in going back for money. Now I have got you naked in my power. Die you shall, though my mother and my grandmother dying did entreat for you. I have promised the devil your soul within this hour. Break my word I will not. In your breast I intend to bury a bullet. Stir not, quinch not, make no noise. For if you do, it will be worse for you.â
ãQuoth Esdras, ÎWhatever you best at whose mercy I lie, spare me, and I will give you as much gold as you will ask. Put me to any pains my life reserved, and I willingly will sustain them. Cut off my arms and legs, and lever me as a lazar to some loathsome spittle, where I may but live a year to pray and repent me. For your brotherâs death, the despair of mind that has ever since haunted me, the guilty gnawing worm of conscience I feel may be sufficient penance. You can not send me to such a hell, as already there is in my heart. To dispatch me presently is no revenge, it will soon be forgotten. Let me die a lingering death, it will be remembered a great deal longer. A lingering death may avail my soul, but is it the illest of ills that can befortune my body. For my soulâs health, I beg my bodyâs torment. Be not you a devil to torment my soul, and send me to eternal damnation. Your over-hanging sword hides heaven from my sight, I dare not look up, lest I embrace my deathâs-wound unawares. I cannot pray to God, and plead to you both at once. Ay me! already I see my life buried in the wrinkles of your brows! Say but I shall live, though you mean to kill me. Nothing confounds like to sudden terror, it thrusts every sense out of office. Poison wrapped up in sugared pills is but half a poison. The fear of deathâs looks are more terrible than his stroke. While 118 I view death, my faith is dead. Where a manâs fear is, there his heart is. Fear never engenders hope. How can I hope that heavenâs Father will save me from the hell everlasting, when he gives me over to the hell of your fury.
ã ÎHeraclide, now think I on your tears sown in the dust, (your tears, that my bloody mind made barren). In revenge of you, God hardens this manâs heart against me. Yet I did not slaughter you, though hundreds else my hand has brought to the shambles. Gentle sir, learn of me what it is to clog your conscience with murder, to have your dreams, your sleeps, your solitary walks troubled and disquieted with murder. Your shadow by day will affright you, you will not see a weapon unsheathed, but immediately you will imagine it is predestined for your destruction.
ã ÎThis murder is a house divided within itself. It suborns a manâs own soul to inform against him. His soul (being his accuser) brings forth his two eyes as witnesses against him, and the least eye witness is unrefutable. Pluck out my eyes, if you will, and deprive my traitorous soul of her two best witnesses. Dig out my blasphemous tongue with your dagger, both tongue and eyes will I gladly forego to have a little more time to think on my journey to heaven.
ã ÎDefer a while your resolution. I am not at peace with the world, for even but yesterday I fought, and in my fury threatened further vengeance. Had I a face to ask forgiveness, I should think half my sins were forgiven. A hundred devils haunt me daily for my horrible murders. The devils when I die will be loth to go to hell with me, for they desired of Christ he would not sent them to hell before their time. If they go not to hell, into you they will go, and hideously vex you for turning them out of their habitation. Wounds I condemn, life I prize 119 lightly, it is another worldâs tranquility which makes me so timid. Everlasting damnation, everlasting howling and lamentation. It is not from death I request you to deliver me, but from this terror of tormentâs eternity.
ã ÎYour brotherâs body only I pierced unadvisedly, his soul meant I no harm to at all. My body and soul both shall you cast away quite, if you do at this instant what you might. Spare me, spare me, I beseech you! By you own soulâs salvation I desire you, seek not my soulâs utter perdition. In destroying me, you destroy yourself and me.â
ã ÎEagerly I replied after this long suppliant oration, ÎThough I knew God would never have mercy upon me except I had mercy on you, yet of you no mercy would I have. Revenge in our tragedies is continually raised from hell. Of hell do I esteem better than heaven, if it affords me revenge. There is no heaven but revenge. I tell you, I would not have undertaken so much toil to gain heaven, as I have done in pursuing you for revenge.
ãDivine revenge, of which (as of the joys above) there is no fullness or satiety. Look how my feet are blistered with following you from place to place. I have riven my throat with overstraining it to curse you. I have ground my teeth to powder with grating and grinding them together for anger when any has named you. My tongue with vain threats is swollen, and waxed too big for my mouth. My eyes have broken their strings with staring and looking ghastly, as I stood devising how to frame or set my countenance when I met you. I have nearly spent my strength in imaginary acting on stone walls, what I determined to execute on you.
ãEntreat not, a miracle may not reprieve you. Villain, thus march I with my blade into your bowels.
ã ÎStay, stay,â exclaimed Esdras, Îand hear me but one word further. Though neither for God nor man you care, but place your whole felicity in murder, yet of your felicity learn how to make a greater felicity. Respite me a little from your swordâs point, and set me about some 120 execrable enterprise, that may subvert the whole state of Christendom, and make all menâs ears tingle that hear of it. Command me to cut all my kindredâs throats, to burn men, women and children in their beds in millions, by firing their Cities at midnight. Be it Pope, Emperor or Turk that displeases you, he shall not breathe on the earth. For your sake will I swear and forswear, renounce my baptism, and all the interest I have in any other sacrament, only let me live how miserable so ever. Be it in a dungeon amongst toads, serpents, and adders, or set up to the neck in dung. No pains I will refuse however prorogued, to have a little respite to purify my spirit. Oh, hear me, hear me! and you can not be hardened against me.â
ãAt this his importunity, I paused a little, not as retiring from my wreakfull resolution, but going back to gather more forces of vengeance, with myself I devised how to plague him double in his base mind. My thoughts travelled in quest of some notable new Italianism, whose murderous platform might not only extend on his body, but his soul also. The groundwork of it was this: that since he had promised for my sake to swear and forswear, and commit Julian-like violence on the highest seals of religion: if he would but this far satisfy me, he should be dismissed from my fury. First and foremost he should renounce God and his laws, and utterly disclaim salvation. Next he should curse him to his face, as Job was willed by his wife, and write an absolute firm obligation of his soul to the devil, without condition or exception. Thirdly and lastly, (having done this,) he should pray to God fervently never to have mercy upon him, or pardon him.
ãScarce had I propounded these articles to him, but he was beginning his blasphemous abjurations. I wonder the earth opened not and swallowed us 121 both, hearing the bold terms he blasted forth in contempt of Christianity. Heaven has thundered when half less contumelies against it have been uttered. Able they were to raise Saints and martyrs from their graves, and pluck Christ himself from the right hand of his father. My joints trembled and quaked with attending them. My hair stood upright, and my heart was turned wholly to fire. So affectionately and zealously did he give himself over to infidelity, as if Satan had gotten the upper hand of our High Maker. The vein of his left hand, that is derived from the heart, with no faint blow he pierced; and with the full blood that flowed from it, wrote a full obligation of his soul to the devil. Yea, he more earnestly prayed to God never to forgive his souls, than many Christians do to save their souls.
ãThese fearful ceremonies brought to an end, I bade him open his mouth and gape wide. He did so (as what will not slaves do for fear?) therewith mad I not more ado, but shot him full into the throat with my pistol. No more spoke he after, so did I shoot him that he might never speak after or repent him.
ãHis body being dead looked as black as a toad. The devil presently branded it for his own.
ãThis is the fault that has called me here, no true Italian but will honor me for it. Revenge is the glory of arms, and the highest performance of valor. Revenge is whatsoever we call law or justice. The farther we wade in revenge, the nearer we come to the throne of the Almighty. To his scepter it is properly ascribed, his scepter he lends to man, when he lets one man scourge another. All true Italians imitate me in revenging constantly and dying valiantly.
ãHangman, to your task! For I am ready for the utmost of your rigor.ä
Herewith all the people (outrageously incensed) with one conjoined outcry, yelled mainly, ãAway with him, Away with him! Executioner, torture him! Tear him, or we will tear you in pieces if you spare him!ä
The executioner needed no exhortation hereunto, for of his own nature was he hackster good enough. Old excellent he was at bone-ache. At the first chop with his wood-knife would he fish for a manâs heart, and fetch it out as easily as a plum from the bottom of a porridge pot. He would crack necks as fast as a cook cracks eggs. A fiddler cannot turn his pin so soon as he would turn a man of the ladder. Bravely did he drum on this Cutwolfeâs bones, not breaking them outright, but like a sadler knocking in of tacks, jarring on them quaveringly with his hammer a great while together. No joint about him but with a hatchet he had for the nones he disjointed half, and then, with boiling lead, he soldered up the wounds from bleeding. His tongue he pulled out, lest he should blaspheme in his torment. Venomous stinging worms he thrust into his ears to keep his head ravingly occupied. With cankers scruzed to pieces he rubbed his mouth and his gums. No limb of his but was lingeringly splintered in shivers.
In this horror they left him on the wheel as in hell. Where he yet living, he might behold his fleshâs legacy amongst the fowls of the air.
Unsearchable is the book of our destinies. One murder begets another. Was never yet bloodshed barren from the beginning of the world to this day.
Mortifiedly abjected and daunted was I with his truculent tragedy of Cutwolfe and Esdras.
To such straight life did it thence forward incite me, that before I went out of Bologna, I married my courtezan, performed many alms-deeds, and hastened so fast out of the Sodom of Italy, that within forty days I arrived at the king of Englandâs camp between Ardes and Guines in France: where he with great triumphs met and entertained the Emperor and the French king, and feasted many days.
And so as my story began with the king at Turnay and Turwin, I think it meet here to end it with the king at Ardes and Guines.
All the conclusive epilogues I will make is this, that if herein I 123 have pleased any, it shall animate me to more pains in this kind.