Mrs Rosie and the Priest

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  Once the lady and Messer Ricciardo were in the chamber by themselves and had sat down, Messer Ricciardo began entreating her. ‘Oh, heart of my life, my own sweet soul, my one hope, don’t you recognize your Ricciardo, who loves you more than he loves himself? How can it be? Have I altered so much? Oh, lovely darling girl, at least give me a little look.’

  The lady broke out laughing and wouldn’t let him go on. ‘You are very well aware,’ she said, ‘that I’ve not such a bad memory that I don’t know you are Messer Ricciardo da Chinzica, my husband. But you made a poor show of knowing me as long as I was with you. You’re not as wise as you want people to think you are, and you never were. If you had been, you really should have had the wit to see that I was young, fresh and frisky, and then have consequently acknowledged that young ladies require something else apart from food and clothing, though modesty forbids them to spell it out. But you know how you managed all that.

  ‘You shouldn’t have married, if you liked studying law more than studying your wife. Not that I thought you were much of a judge. You seemed more like a crier calling out holy days and feast-days, you knew them so well, not to mention fast-days and overnight vigils. Let me tell you that if you had given as many days off to the labourers working your lands as you did to the one who should have been working my little plot, you’d not have harvested one grain of corn. By chance I’ve met with this man here, chosen by God, because he shows a compassionate concern for my young age. And I stay with him in this chamber, where no one knows what a feast-day is. I mean those feast-days that you celebrated one after another, piously serving the Lord in preference to the ladies. Saturdays don’t pass through that door, neither do Fridays, vigils, Ember days or Lent, which just goes on and on. No, it’s all work, day and night, banging away all the time. As soon as the bell rang for matins this morning, there we were back at it, doing the same job again and again, as I know very well. So I intend to stay and work with him while I’m young, and keep feast-days and penances and fasts for when I’m old. Get out of here as soon as you can and good luck to you. Go and keep your saints’ days as much as you like without me.’

  Messer Ricciardo’s distress at hearing her speak like this was unbearable.

  ‘Oh, sweet soul of mine,’ he said, when he realized she had finished, ‘what are you saying? Aren’t you bothered at all about your family’s honour or your own? Do you want to stay here as this fellow’s tart, living in mortal sin, rather than be my wife in Pisa? He’ll get fed up with you and throw you out in total disgrace. But I’ll always hold you dear and you’ll always be the lawful mistress of my house, even if I didn’t want to be your husband. Oh, please listen. Are you going to let this unbridled, immoral lust make you forget your honour and forget me, when I love you more than my very life? Please, my dear love, don’t say things like that any more, just come away with me. Now that I know what you want, I’ll really make an effort from now on. So, sweetheart, change your mind, come away with me. I’ve been so miserable since you were carried off.’

  ‘Now that there’s nothing to be done about it,’ said the lady, ‘I don’t see how anyone apart from me can be squeamish over my honour. I just wish my family had been a bit more squeamish when they gave me to you! But since they didn’t bother about my honour then, I don’t intend to bother about theirs now. If my sin’s a mortar one, I’ll stay stuck in it like a pestle. So don’t you worry about me. And what’s more, let me tell you that I feel like Paganino’s wife here, while I felt like your tart in Pisa, what with lunar charts and geometric squarings having to align your planet and mine, while here Paganino has me in his arms all night, squeezing me, biting me, and the state he leaves me in God alone can tell you. Then you say you’ll make an effort. Doing what? Waiting for something to happen? Straightening it by hand? I can tell you’ve turned into a redoutable knight since I saw you last! Go on, do your best to come to life. But you can’t manage it. I don’t think you belong in this world, you look such a wasted, miserable little wimp. And another thing. If he leaves me – which I don’t think he’s inclined to do as long I want to stay with him – I’ve no intention of ever coming back to you. Squeeze you till you squeaked, and you still wouldn’t produce a spoonful of sauce. That meant that when I was with you I just lost out and paid out. I’m after better returns somewhere else. To go back to where I started, I tell you there are no feast-days and no vigils here, where I intend to stay. So leave as quickly as you can, and the Lord be with you. If you don’t, I’ll start shouting that you’re forcing yourself on me.’

  Messer Ricciardo saw that the game was up, recognizing there and then the folly in marrying a young wife without the appropriate wherewithal. He left the chamber in a saddened, suffering state and spoke a lot of waffle to Paganino, which got him nowhere. In the end, he left the lady and returned empty-handed to Pisa. The blow affected his mind and, when he was walking around the city, if someone greeted him or asked him a question, he would only reply, ‘A horrid hole hates a holy day.’

  It wasn’t long before he died. When Paganino heard, knowing how much the lady loved him, he took her as his lawful wedded wife. Thereafter, with no thought for holy days or vigils or Lent, they worked their patch as much as their limbs would let them, and had a wonderful time together.

  Mrs Rosie and the Priest

  So, to begin, there’s a village not far from here called Varlungo, as every one of you knows or will have heard from other people. It had once a valiant priest, a fine figure of a man who served the ladies well. He was not much of a reader, but every Sunday he would spout wholesome holy verbiage beneath the churchyard elm to refresh the spirits of his parishioners. When the men were off somewhere, he would come visiting their wives more solicitously than any priest they’d had before, sometimes bringing religious bits and pieces, holy water or candle-ends into their houses, and giving them his blessing.

  Now among the women of the parish he took a fancy to, there was one he particularly liked, called Mrs Rosie Hues. She was the wife of a labourer by the name of Willy Welcome, and she really was a lovely ripe country-girl, tanned, sturdy, with lots of grinding potential. She was also better than any girl around at playing the tambourine, singing songs like ‘The water’s running down my river’, and dancing reels and jigs, when she had to, waving a pretty little kerchief in her hand. With all these talents, she reduced the good priest to a quivering wreck. He would wander round the village all day trying to catch sight of her. When he realized she was in church on a Sunday morning, he would launch into a Kyrie or a Sanctus and struggle to come over as a virtuoso singer, though he sounded more like an ass braying, whereas, when he didn’t see her there, he barely bothered to sing at all. All the same, he was clever enough not to arouse the suspicions of Willy Welcome or any neighbours of his.

  From time to time, he would send Mrs Rosie presents in an effort to win her over. Sometimes it was a bunch of fresh garlic, since he grew the best in the region in a vegetable garden he worked with his own hands, sometimes it was a basket of berries, and now and then a bunch of shallots or spring onions. When he saw his chance, he would give her a hurt look and mutter a few gentle reproaches, while she acted cold, pretending not to notice, and looking all supercilious. So the estimable priest was left getting nowhere.

  Now it happened one day that the priest was kicking his heels in the noontime heat out in the countryside with nothing much to do, when he bumped into Willy Welcome driving an ass loaded up with a pile of things on its back. He greeted him and asked him where he was going.

  ‘To tell the truth, Father sir,’ replied Willy, ‘I’m off to town on a bit of business. I’m transporting these materials to Mr Notary Bonaccorri da Ginestreto to get him to aid and assist with a fiddle-faddle on the legal side that the assessor is officializing to put the whole house in order at last.’

  ‘That, my son, is a good thing to do,’ said the priest, full of glee. ‘Go with my blessing and come back soon. And if you should happen to see Lapuccio or Naldino,
don’t let it slip your mind to tell them to bring me those straps for my threshing flails.’

  Willy said he would do that and went off towards Florence, while the priest decided the time had come for him to go and try his luck with Rosie. He strode out vigorously and did not stop until he reached her house. He went in, calling out, ‘God be with us! Is anyone here?’

  Rosie was up at the top of the house. Hearing him, she shouted, ‘Father, you’re very welcome. What are you doing all fancy free in this heat?’

  ‘God help me,’ said the priest, ‘ I’ve come to spend a little time with you, having just met your man on his way to town.’

  Rosie was downstairs by now. She sat and began cleaning some cabbage seeds her husband had sifted out a short time before.

  ‘Well, Rosie,’ said the priest, ‘must you go on being the death of me like this?’

  Rosie began to laugh.

  ‘Well, what am I doing to you?’ she said.

  ‘You’re not doing anything to me,’ said the priest, ‘but you don’t let me do what I’d like to do to you, which is love my neighbour as God commanded.’

  ‘Oh, get on with you,’ said Rosie. ‘Do priests do things of that sort?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the priest, ‘and better than other men. And why shouldn’t we? I tell you, we do a much, much better job. And do you know why? It’s because we let the pond fill up before the mill starts grinding. And truly I can give you just what you need, if you’ll only stay quiet and let me do the business.’

  ‘What do you mean, just what I need?’ said Rosie. ‘You priests are all tighter-fisted than the devil himself.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the priest. ‘Just ask me. Maybe you want a nice little pair of shoes, or a headscarf, or a pretty woollen waistband, or maybe something else.’

  ‘That’s all very well, Brother Priest,’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve enough of that stuff. But if you’re that keen on me, you can do me a particular favour, and then I’ll do what you want.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re after and I’ll be glad to do it,’ said the priest.

  ‘I have to go to Florence on Saturday,’ said Rosie, ‘to give in the wool I’ve been spinning and get my spinning wheel mended. If you let me have five pounds (which I know you’ve got), I’ll get the pawnbroker to give me back my purple skirt and the decorated Sunday belt I wore when I got married. You know not having it has meant I can’t go to church or anywhere respectable. And after that I’ll be up for what you want for evermore.’

  ‘God help me,’ said the priest, ‘I haven’t the money on me. But trust me, I’ll make sure you have it before Saturday.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Rosie, ‘you’re all great at making promises. And then you don’t keep any of them. Do you think you can treat me the way you treated Nell the Belle, who was left with just a big bass tum to play with? You’re not going to do the same to me, by God. She ended up on the game because of you. If you haven’t got it here, go and get it.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ said the priest, ‘don’t make me go all the way back to the house. You can tell my luck is up, and there’s no one about. It could be that when I came back someone would be here to get in our way. I don’t know when it might next stand up as well as it’s standing up now.’

  ‘That’s all very fine,’ she said, ‘but if you’re willing to go, go. If not, you’ll just have to manage.’

  He saw that she was only going to agree to his wishes when a contract was signed and delivered, whereas he was hoping for a bit of free access.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you don’t believe I’ll bring you the money. What about if I leave you this blue cape of mine as a guarantee? It’s a good one.’

  Rosie gave him a haughty look.

  ‘This cape,’ she said, ‘how much is it worth?’

  ‘What do you mean, how much is it worth?’ said the priest. ‘Let me tell you it’s Douai cloth, double ply, maybe triple ply, and there are even people here who say it’s got some foreply in it. I paid seven pounds at Lotto’s second-hand clothes shop less than two weeks ago. It had five shillings knocked off, so it was a bargain, according to Bulietto d’Alberto, who you know is a bit of an expert in blue cloths.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Rosie. ‘God help me, I’d never have believed it. But give it to me first.’

  The good priest, who was feeling hard-pressed by his loaded weapon, unfastened his cape and passed it over.

  ‘Well, Mr Priest,’ she said, when she’d put it away, ‘let’s go down here to the shed. It doesn’t get visitors.’

  So off they went. And there he covered her in the sloppiest kisses in the world, introduced her to God’s holy bliss and enjoyed himself generally with her for a good while. He finally left in the uncaped state priests normally appear in only at weddings and went back to the church.

  There he reflected how all the candle-ends he picked up from his parishioners in the course of a year weren’t worth half a fiver, and felt he had made a mistake. Now regretting leaving the cape behind, he started thinking about how to get it back at no cost to himself. Since he was quite crafty-minded, he figured out a good way of doing so. And it worked.

  The next day being a feast-day, he sent the son of a neighbour of his to Rosie Hues’s house, with a request for her to be so kind as to lend him her stone mortar, since Binguccio del Poggio and Nuto Buglietti were dining with him that morning and he wanted to make a sauce. Rosie sent it back with the boy. When it got to round lunchtime, the priest guessed Willy Welcome and Rosie Hues would be eating. He called his curate and said to him, ‘Pick up that mortar and take it back to Mrs Rosie. Tell her, “The Father is immensely grateful and would like to have back the cape the boy left with you as a guarantee.” ’

  The curate went to Rosie’s house with the mortar and found her with Willy at the table eating their meal. He set down the mortar and gave them the priest’s message.

  Rosie was all set to give her reply to this request for the cape. But Willy’s brow darkened.

  ‘So you need guarantees from our estimated father, do you?’ he said. ‘I swear to Christ, I could really give you a clout up the bracket. Go and fetch it right now, and get yourself cancered while you’re at it. And watch out for him wanting anything else of ours. He’d better not be told no, whatever it is. Even if it’s our donkey, our donkey he gets.’

  Rosie got up grumbling to herself and went over to the linen-chest. She took out the cape and passed it to the curate.

  ‘You must give that priest a message from me,’ she said, ‘Say, “Rosie Hues vows to God that you’ll never again be sauce-pounding in her mortar. That last time you didn’t do yourself any credit.” ’

  The curate went off with the cape and relayed Rosie’s message to the priest, who burst out laughing.

  ‘You can tell her next time you see her,’ he told him, ‘that if she won’t lend out the mortar, I won’t lend her the pestle. The one goes with the other.’

  Willy believed that his wife had spoken as she did because he had told her off and gave the matter no further thought. But coming off worst made Rosie fall out with the priest, and she refused to speak to him until the grape-harvest, when he terrified her by threatening to have her stuffed into the mouth of the biggest devil in hell. She made her peace with him over fermenting must and roasting chestnuts, and after that the two of them had a good guzzle together on various occasions. To make up for the five pounds, the priest had her tambourine re-covered and a dinky little bell attached, which made her very happy.

  Patient Griselda

  Years ago a young man called Gualtieri inherited the marquisate of Saluzzo as the eldest son of the family. Being unmarried and childless, he spent all his time hunting birds and beasts, without giving a thought to marriage or future offspring. He should have been considered a very wise man, but his subjects disapproved. They kept begging him to get himself a wife so that he should not die without an heir and they should not be left without a lord. They kept offering to find him one with a suitable fa
ther and mother, who would satisfy their hopes and who would make him very happy.

  Gualtieri’s response was as follows: ‘My friends, you are forcing me into something I had been completely set on never ever doing, given how difficult it is to find someone with the right character and habits, how plentiful are the inappropriate candidates, and how hard life becomes for the man who ends up with someone he doesn’t get on with. You claim you can tell the daughters’ characters from how the fathers and mothers behave, and argue on that basis that you can provide me with a wife I’ll be pleased with. That is rubbish. I don’t see how you can know the fathers properly, or the mothers’ secrets for that matter. Besides, even if you could, daughters are very often unlike their fathers and their mothers. But since you like the idea of tying me up in these chains, I’ll try to satisfy you, and, in order not to end up blaming anyone but myself if things should go wrong, I want to do the finding myself. But I tell you that if you don’t honour and respect whoever I choose, you’ll learn to your cost how hard it’s been for me to take a wife against my will, just because you begged me to.’

  His valiant subjects replied that they would be happy just so long as he could bring himself to get married.

  Gualtieri had been impressed for a good while by the behaviour of a poverty-stricken young woman from a village near his family home. Since he also judged her to be beautiful, he calculated that life with her could be very pleasant. He looked no further and made up his mind to marry her. He had the father summoned and entered into an agreement with this complete pauper to take the girl as his wife.

  That done, he called together all his friends in the area he ruled.

  ‘My friends,’ he said to them, ‘you have been eager for me to make my mind up about a wife for some time. Well, I have made a decision, more out of wanting to comply with your wishes than from any desire to be married on my part. You know what you promised me – that is, to be content with the woman I chose, whoever she was, and to honour her as your lady. The time has come when I am about to keep my promise to you, and when I expect you to keep yours to me. I have found very near here a young woman after my heart. I intend to make her my wife and to bring her into my house in a few days. So arrange for the marriage-feast to be a fine one and to give her an honourable welcome. In that way I shall be able to say I am happy with how you have fulfilled your promise, and you will be able to say the same about me.’