Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  Ricciardo inwardly rejoiced at these words and without making any reply, clipped her and kissed her and fondled her more than ever; whereupon quoth she, following on her speech, 'Ay, thou thinkest to cajole me with thy feigned caresses, fashious dog that thou art, and to appease and console me; but thou art mistaken; I shall never be comforted for this till I have put thee to shame therefor in the presence of all our friends and kinsmen and neighbours. Am I not as fair as Ricciardo's wife, thou villain? Am I not as good a gentlewoman? Why dost thou not answer, thou sorry dog? What hath she more than I? Keep thy distance; touch me not; thou hast done enough feats of arms for to-day. Now thou knowest who I am, I am well assured that all thou couldst do would be perforce; but, so God grant me grace, I will yet cause thee suffer want thereof, and I know not what hindereth me from sending for Ricciardo, who hath loved me more than himself and could never boast that I once even looked at him; nor know I what harm it were to do it. Thou thoughtest to have his wife here and it is as if thou hadst had her, inasmuch as it is none of thy fault that the thing hath miscarried; wherefore, were I to have himself, thou couldst not with reason blame me.'

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Bertrand knew the girl, and had thought her very beautiful on seeing her again. But knowing that her lineage was in no way suited to his own noble ancestry, he was highly indignant, and said: ‘But surely, sire, you would not want to marry me to a she-doctor. Heaven forbid that I should ever accept a woman of that sort for a wife.’ ‘The young lady has demanded your hand in marriage as her reward for restoring our health,’ said the King. ‘Surely you would not want us to break the promise we have given her.’ ‘Sire,’ said Bertrand, ‘you have the power to take away everything I possess, and hand me over to anyone you may choose, for I am merely your humble vassal. But I can assure you that I shall never rest content with such a match.’ ‘Of course you will,’ said the King, ‘for she is beautiful, intelligent, and deeply in love with you. Hence we are confident that you will be much happier with her than you would ever have been with a lady of loftier birth.’ Bertrand said no more, and the King gave orders for a splendid wedding feast to be arranged. And so, much against his will, on the appointed day and in the presence of the King, Bertrand married the girl who loved him more dearly than her very life. Having already made up his mind what he should do, as soon as the wedding was over he sought the King’s permission to depart, saying that he wished to return to his own estates and consummate his marriage there. So he duly set out on horseback, but instead of going to his estates he came to Tuscany, where he learned that the Florentines were waging war against the Sienese,3 and resolved to offer them his assistance. The Florentines welcomed him with open arms and placed him in command of a sizeable body of men, paying him a good stipend, and for a long time thereafter he remained in their service. His bride was far from happy with the turn events had taken, and in the hope of persuading him to return to his estates by her wise administration, she went to Roussillon, where all the people received her as their rightful mistress. Since there had been no Count to govern the territory for some little time, she was faced on her arrival with nothing but confusion and chaos. But being a capable woman, she applied herself with great diligence to the task in hand, and soon had everything restored to order, thus winning the profound respect and devotion of her subjects, who were enormously pleased by her endeavours and strongly critical of the Count because of his indifference towards her.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  A few days later they came to Antioch, and Joseph invited Melissus to stay with him and rest for a few days before going on with his journey. Having met with an icy reception from his wife, Joseph told her to see that supper was prepared, taking her instructions from Melissus; and the latter, seeing that Joseph wanted him to do it, briefly explained what he would like to eat. But the woman, true to her old habits, did almost the exact opposite of what Melissus had prescribed; and when Joseph saw what she had done, he rounded on her angrily and said: ‘Were you not told about the kind of supper you were to serve?’ The woman turned to him defiantly, and said: ‘What are you talking about? Bah! get on with your supper, if you want it. I shall do as I think fit, not as I am told. If you don’t like it, you can lump it.’ Melissus was astounded by the woman’s reply, and took great exception to it. And Joseph said: ‘Woman, you are just the same as ever; but believe me, I shall make you change your ways.’ Then, turning to Melissus, he said: ‘We shall soon see, my friend, whether Solomon’s advice was sound. Pray be good enough to stay and observe what I shall do, and look upon it as a game. If you should be tempted to interfere, remember what the muleteer said to us when we felt so sorry for his mule.’ ‘Since I am a guest in your house,’ said Melissus, ‘I have no intention of opposing your wishes.’ Having laid his hands on a good, stout stick of sapling oak, Joseph made his way to his wife’s bedroom, to which she had retired, mumbling and muttering angrily to herself, from the supper-table. And grabbing her by the tresses, he flung her to the floor at his feet and began to belabour her cruelly. The woman first began to shriek and then to threaten; but on finding that Joseph was totally unmoved by all this, she began, bruised and battered from head to toe, to plead with him in God’s name to spare her life, saying she would never again do anything to displease him. None of this had the slightest effect upon Joseph, who on the contrary tanned her hide with ever-increasing fury, dealing her hefty blows about the ribs, the haunches, and the shoulders until eventually he stopped from sheer exhaustion. And to cut a long story short, there was not a bone nor a muscle nor a sinew in the good woman’s back that was not rent asunder. His task completed, Joseph came back to Melissus and said to him: ‘Tomorrow we shall see how Solomon’s advice to go to Goose-bridge has stood up to the test.’ Then, having rested for a while, he washed his hands and supped with Melissus; and in due course they both retired to bed.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  You focus your rage on the idiot that almost got you killed. Heart and mind still racing, you notice your ice-cold hands are still glued to the steering wheel. You imagine strangling the idiot with all your might. Still wound up, images of the event begin to flash before your eyes. (the second phase begins, but you are still highly charged). The panicky feeling returns, and your heart beats rapidly. You are losing control, and you feel the anger return. Anger has become your frien d- it helps you maintain some semblance of control. Your thoughts return to the idiot. He has ruined your day. You wonder if he is going through the same thing you are. You doubt that he is, because he’s such an idiot. He probably just went on his merry way, oblivious to the whole incident. You hate that possibility, but begin to think that it’s true. Then you get a flas h- you remember the ca r- it was a yellow Cougar. Your anger swells at the vision of it. You hate the car and its driver. You are going to teach them both a lesson. You drive down the street in search of the yellow cougar. You spot it in a parking lot. Your heart races and your excitement mounts as you turn into the lot. Revenge will be your s, justice will be served. You park a few cars away, open your trunk, and grab the tire iron. In a rush of energy, you head directly for the Cougar and begin smashing the windshield with the tire iron. You smash and smash, again and again, trying to discharge the intense energy. Suddenly, you stop and look around. People are staring at you in disbelief. Some of them are afraid of you, others think you are nuts, others are giving you hostile glares. For a split second, you consider attacking the hostile ones. They are probably friends of the Cougar owner. Then, reality sinks in. You realize what you have done, and are overcome with shame. The shame is immediately replaced by panic. You have broken the law, and the police are probably on their way. It is time to escape. You run to your car, get in, and drive off, leaving a cloud of burnt rubber. By the time you arrive home, the shame has overtaken you. Your family is glad to see you, but you cannot tell them what happened. They ask you what is wrong, but you dismiss them. The temporary relief at smashing the windshield is long gone. It has been replaced, once again, by the panic. You can’t stay at home. You get into the car and drive, trying to calm yourself. Nothing seems to work.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In a passage describing Florentine burial customs, and the role that had traditionally been played in them by the womenfolk of the dead, it is pointed out that these customs had been abandoned, and that not only did people die without having many women about them, but they also died with few people if any to mourn them, or even to witness their passing. Indeed, with the overturning of normal values that accompanied the plague, bereavement became the signal for black humour – laughter, witticisms, and general jollification – the practice of which, as the author ruefully adds, women had learned to perfection. In all of this there is of course a remnant of the anti-feminism which is observable in much of the literature of the Middle Ages, and which surfaces at several points in the Decameron , despite Boccaccio’s dedication of the work to the ladies and his frequent avowals of devotion to their well-being. But the overriding impression conveyed by his account of the plague is of a previously well-ordered and civilized society that has been precipitated into chaos and anarchy by the reversal of those values and standards of behaviour on which it depended for its survival, and to which the exercise of the traditional womanly virtues of modesty and compassion had made a decisive contribution. It is thus significant that in his fictive account of the return to a decorous and civilized mode of existence, as represented by the sealed-off world of the lieta brigata , Boccaccio not only attributes its generative impulse to a group of young ladies, but he stresses over and over again their strict adherence to rules of womanly conduct which in the outside world had fallen into disuse. Their sustained sense of decorum stands in marked contrast to the moral anarchy which has overtaken their contemporaries in the plague-ridden city. Pointed reference is made to the correctness of their behaviour, not only in the Introduction but in the interludes between one bout of story telling and the next. And in the concluding pages of the Tenth Day, Panfilo claims that neither in word nor in deed nor in any other respect have he and his companions been deserving of censure. The return to order, harmony, and self-discipline is effected by the application of wisdom, the quality to which the author gives pride of place in his description of the seven young ladies, and which is embodied to its fullest extent in Pampinea. It is she who not only supplies a graphic account of the indignation that she and her companions experience in their daily lives because of the collapse of traditional civilized values but also indicates how their dilemma may be resolved.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Bearing in mind, then, that we have a natural propensity to fly into a temper, that our cheerfulness and mildness of manner have a pleasing and very soothing effect upon our menfolk, and that anger and fury can bring about so much peril and anguish, I intend to strengthen our will to resist this vice by telling this story of mine, which, as I have already said, concerns the love of three young men and three young women, and which shows how, through the anger of one of these latter, their happiness was transformed into complete and utter misery. Marseilles, as you know, is an ancient and illustrious city on the coast of Provence, and it used to boast a larger number of wealthy citizens and great merchants than appears to be the case nowadays. One of these was a certain N’Arnald Civada, who, despite his exceedingly humble origins, had built himself a firm reputation as an honest merchant and amassed a huge fortune, both in money and capital goods. His wife presented him with a number of children, of whom the eldest three were girls, whilst all the rest were boys. Two of the girls were fifteen-year-old twins, the third was fourteen, and marriages had been arranged for all three by their kinsfolk, who were simply waiting for the return of N’Arnald from Spain, whither he had gone with a consignment of merchandise. The names of the first two girls were Ninetta and Maddalena; the third was called Bertella. Ninetta was loved, with the devotion of his entire being, by a young man called Restagnone, who was poor but of noble birth. The girl reciprocated his love, and they had managed to devise a way of consummating it without revealing the fact to a living soul. They had already been enjoying the fruits of their love for quite some time when two young men called Folco and Ughetto, who were mutual friends and whose fathers had died, leaving them very wealthy, happened to fall in love with Maddalena and Bertella respectively. It was Ninetta who first drew Restagnone’s attention to this, and having confirmed that it was so, he cudgelled his brains for a way of using the young men’s loves to repair his own fortunes. Having struck up an acquaintance with them, he made a practice of taking them, sometimes individually and sometimes together, to visit the three young ladies. And one day, when he felt that he was on sufficiently friendly and familiar terms with the two young men, he invited them round to his house, and said to them: ‘My dear young friends, we have now become well enough acquainted for you to perceive the strength of my affection towards you, and to realize that I would work no less zealously in the pursuit of your interests than I would in pursuing my own.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And since I am prepared to forgive him, you must do the same.’ Having heard what her daughter had said, the mother now began to raise a clamour, saying: ‘By the cross of God, daughter, we ought to do no such thing; on the contrary, this loathsome, ungrateful cur ought to be put to death. You were far too good for him in the first place. God in Heaven, you’d think he had picked you up out of the gutter! To hell with this small-time trader in horse manure, let him take his foul slander elsewhere! These country yokels, they move into town after serving as cut-throat to some petty rustic tyrant, and wander about the streets in rags and tatters, their trousers all askew, with a quill sticking out 2 from their backsides, and no sooner do they get a few pence in their pockets than they want the daughters of noble gentlemen and fine ladies for their wives. And they devise a coat of arms for themselves, and go about saying: “I belong to such-and-such a family” and “My people did so-and-so”. If only my sons had followed my advice! They could easily have married you into the finest family in Florence, with no more than a hunk of bread for a dowry, instead of which they had to give you to this perfect jewel of a man, who has the impudence, when he’s married to the most chaste and respectable girl in the city, to wake us up in the middle of the night and call you a strumpet, as if we didn’t know you. God’s faith! if I had anything to do with it, he’d be given such a thrashing that he’d smart for the rest of his days.’ Then, turning to her sons, she said: ‘Didn’t I tell you all along that it couldn’t be true? Have you heard how your poor sister is treated by this precious brother-in-law of yours? He’s a tuppenny-ha’penny pedlar, that’s what he is! If I were in your place, after hearing what he’s said about her and what he’s done to her, I’d never rest content till I’d scourged him from the face of the earth. And if I were a man, and not a woman, I wouldn’t allow anyone to stop me. God punish the drunken villain! He ought to be ashamed of himself!’ Angered by what they had seen and heard, the young men turned on Arriguccio and called him all the names under the sun; and by way of conclusion, they said: ‘We’ll let you off lightly this time, seeing that you’ve had too much to drink. But as you value your life, take care never to disturb us again with your nonsensical stories, because if we hear any more from you, you can rest assured we shall pay you out twice over.’ And with this dire warning they departed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And so, having built a palace similar to Nathan’s, he began to entertain all those who came and went on a more lavish scale than any ever previously known, and there is no doubt that within a short time he became very famous. Now one day, whilst the young man was sitting all alone in the main courtyard, a woman happened to enter the palace by one of the gates, ask him for alms, and be given them. She then returned by way of a second gate, approached him again, and was given a further sum of money. This happened twelve times in succession, and when she returned for the thirteenth time, Mithridanes said to her: ‘My good woman, you are very persistent with this begging of yours.’ But he gave her the alms just the same. On hearing what he had said, the old woman exclaimed: ‘Ah, how wonderful is the generosity of Nathan! For his palace has thirty-two gates, just like this one, and I passed through each of them in turn, asked him for alms, and obtained them every time, without his ever so much as hinting that he knew who I was. Yet here I have only to pass through thirteen before I am recognized and given a scolding.’ And so saying, she went away and never returned. Mithridanes took the old woman’s words about Nathan as a slight on his own reputation, and flying into a violent rage, he exclaimed: ‘Poor fool that I am! How can I ever hope to match Nathan’s generosity in greater things, let alone surpass him as I sought, when even in the most trivial affairs I cannot even approach him? All my efforts will be quite futile until he is removed from the face of the earth. He shows no sign of dying from old age, so I shall have to do the job with my own hands, and the sooner the better.’ He then leapt angrily to his feet, and without revealing his intentions to a living soul, set out on horseback with a there handful of companions; and after the third day he came to the place where Nathan lived. Evening was now approaching, and having bidden his companions to pretend he was a total stranger to them, and find themselves somewhere to stay pending further instructions, he was left to his own devices. Not very far from Nathan’s fair palace he came across its owner, all alone and very plainly attired, taking a pleasant stroll in the cool of the evening; and not realizing who it was, he asked him whether he could direct him to Nathan’s house. ‘My son,’ Nathan gaily replied, ‘nobody in these parts could show you better than I how to get there. So if you have no objection, I’ll take you there myself.’ The young man gladly accepted his offer, but told him that if possible he did not want Nathan to see him or to know that he was there.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Similarly, when women who have been raped begin to come out of shock (frequently, months or even years later), they often have the impulse to kill their assailants. In some instances, they may have the opportunity to carry this action through. Some of these women have been tried and sentenced for “pre-meditated” murder because the time lapse was viewed as premeditation. Some injustices may have occurred due to the misunderstanding of the biological drama that was perhaps being played out. It is possible that a number of these women may have been acting upon the profound (and delayed) self-protective responses of rage and counter-attack that they experienced coming out of agitated immobility. These reprisals may be biologically motivated, and not necessarily by premeditated revenge. Some of these killings could have been prevented by effective treatment of post-traumatic shock. In post-traumatic anxiety, immobility is maintained primarily from within. The impulse towards intense aggression is so frightening that the traumatized person often turns it inward on themselves rather than allow it external expression. This imploded anger takes the form of anxious depression and the varied symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Like the pigeon that tries frantically to escape, but is recaptured and held prisoner once more, trauma victims beginning to exit immobility are often trapped by their own fear of abrupt activation and their potential for violence. They remain in a vicious cycle of terror, rage, and immobility. They are primed for full-out escape or raging counter-attack, but remain inhibited because of fear of violence to themselves and others. Like Death Itself In Chapter Seven, we discussed the biological advantage of the immobility response for prey animals. Deceiving a predator into believing its quarry is already dead often works. However, the predator is not the only actor on the stage who responds to immobility as though its prey were dead. The physiology of the immobilized animal acts as though it were dead. Animals can actually die from “immobility response overdose.” The reptilian brain has ultimate control over life and death. If it receives repeated messages that the animal is dead, it may comply. In most cases, however, the reptilian brain does not constantly register that the animal is dead; therefore, there are no serious consequences. The animal remains in the immobility state for a period of time and then moves out of it through trembling discharge. The incident is completed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘But even supposing I were a charitable man, you are not the sort of woman who deserves to be treated with charity. For a savage beast of your sort, death is the only fit punishment, the only just revenge, though admittedly, had I been dealing with a human being, I should already have done enough. So whilst I am not an eagle, yet, knowing that you are not a dove, but a poisonous snake, I intend to harry you with all the hatred and all the strength of a man who is fighting his oldest enemy. To call it revenge, however, is a misuse of words, for it is rather a punishment, inasmuch as revenge must exceed the offence and this will fall short of it. For when I consider how nearly you came to causing my death, it would not suffice for me to take your life by way of revenge, nor a hundred others like it, since I should only be killing a foul and wicked strumpet. ‘For how, in the name of Lucifer, do you differ from any other miserable little whore, apart from having a tolerably pretty face, which in any case a few years hence will be covered all over in wrinkles? Yet it was not for lack of trying that you failed to murder a gentleman (as you called me just now), who can bring more benefit to humanity in a single day than a hundred thousand women of your sort can bring to it for as long as the world shall last. By suffering as you do now, then, you will possibly learn what it means to trifle with a man’s affections, and to hold a man of learning up to ridicule; and if you should escape with your life, you will have good cause never to stoop to such folly again. ‘But if you are so anxious to descend, why do you not throw yourself over the parapet? With God’s help, you would break your neck, and so release yourself from the pain you seem to be suffering, at the same time making me the happiest man alive. That is all I have to say to you for the present. Now that I have managed to put you up there, let’s see whether you are as clever at finding your way down as you were at making me look such a fool.’ Whilst the scholar was speaking, the hapless woman wept without stopping, time was passing, and the sun was climbing higher in the sky. But now that he was silent, she said:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It is not my intention to steal the Duke’s mistress, but to remove the injury he does to my sister.’ Since nobody dared offer any reply, Constant embarked with his men, settled himself next to the lady, who was crying, and ordered them to cast off and start rowing. And they plied their oars to such good effect that just before dawn on the following day they arrived at Aegina. 10 Going ashore there in order to rest, Constant amused himself in the company of the lady, who was bitterly bewailing her ill-starred beauty. Then they boarded the ship once again, and a few days later they arrived at Chios, 11 where Constant decided to remain, for he thought he would be safe there from his father’s strictures and from the possibility of having to surrender the stolen woman. For several days, the fair lady bemoaned her misfortune. Eventually, however, she responded to Constant’s efforts at consoling her, and began, as on previous occasions, to derive pleasure from the fate to which Fortune had consigned her. And this was how matters stood when Uzbek, 12 who was at that time the King of the Turks and who was constantly at war with the Emperor, happened to pass through Smyrna, where he learned that Constant was leading a dissolute life on Chios with some stolen mistress of his, leaving himself wide open to attack. Arriving by night with a squadron of light warships, Uzbek quietly entered the town with his men, took numerous people captive from their beds before they were aware of their enemies’ arrival, and slaughtered those who had woken up in time to seize their arms. The invaders then set the whole town on fire, and having loaded their booty and prisoners on to the ships, they returned to Smyrna. On reviewing the spoils of the expedition immediately after their return, Uzbek, who was a young man, was delighted to discover the fair lady, whom he recognized as the one who had been taken, along with Constant, as she was lying asleep in her bed. So he promptly married her, and after celebrating the nuptials he happily devoted himself, for the next few months, to the pleasures of the marriage-bed. Now, during the period immediately preceding these happenings, the Emperor had been negotiating a pact with the King of Cappadocia, Basano, 13 whereby the latter was to descend with his forces on Uzbek from one direction whilst the Emperor attacked him with his own troops from the other. He had not yet been able to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion, however, because of his unwillingness to concede some of the more outrageous of Basano’s demands. But on hearing what had happened to his son, he was so incensed that he immediately agreed to the King of Cappadocia’s terms, and urged him to attack Uzbek as soon as he possibly could, meanwhile making his own preparations for marching against him from the opposite direction.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You’ll find that she will follow you, and once she reaches the barn, you know exactly what you have to do.’ Calandrino was overjoyed, and seizing the parchment, he said: ‘Just you leave it to me, comrade.’ Nello, against whom Calandrino was constantly on his guard, was enjoying the affair as much as anyone, and was every bit as eager to make a fool of him; so on Bruno’s instructions he went down to Florence, called on Calandrino’s wife, and said to her: ‘You remember the hiding Calandrino gave you, Tessa, for no reason at all, on the day he came home from the Mugnone with all those stones 6 ? Well, now’s your chance to be even with him, and if you fail to take it, you needn’t regard me as your friend or your kinsman ever again. He’s fallen in love with some woman up there at Camerata, and she’s such a wanton little baggage that she’s forever going off with him in private. They’ve arranged to meet today, as a matter of fact, so I want you to come and see, and punish him as he deserves.’ Monna Tessa was not at all amused by what she had heard, and leaping to her feet, she exclaimed: ‘Ah, false villain, so this is how he treats me, is it? By all that’s holy, he shan’t get away with it, not if I can help it.’ Seizing her cloak, she promptly set forth, accompanied by a maidservant, and made her way up to Camerata with Nello, walking at such a furious pace that he was scarcely able to keep up. However, long before she reached the mansion, Bruno saw her coming and said to Filippo: ‘There’s our friend coming now.’ Filippo therefore went to the part of the house where Calandrino and the others were working, and said: ‘Gentlemen, I have some urgent business to attend to in Florence, so keep up the good work.’ And taking his leave of them, he went and concealed himself in a place from which, without being observed, he would be able to see what Calandrino was doing. As soon as Calandrino imagined Filippo to be well on his way to Florence, he descended to the courtyard, where, finding Niccolosa alone, he engaged her in conversation. She had been carefully briefed on what she was to do, and walking over to Calandrino, she treated him with greater familiarity than usual. Calandrino therefore touched her with the scroll, and immediately directed his steps towards the barn without saying a word. She followed him in, closed the door behind her, and threw her arms about his neck; then she pushed him over on to some straw that was lying on the floor and promptly sat astride his prostrate form, forcing his hands back against his shoulders.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Monna Sismonda had been listening the whole time, and as soon as she heard her husband leaving the house, she opened the bedroom door and re-lit the lamp, to discover her maidservant lying there, all bruised and battered, and crying her eyes out. Having consoled her as best she could, she led the girl back to her own room, where she covertly arranged for her to be nursed back to health and waited upon, and rewarded her so handsomely from Arriguccio’s own coffers that the girl was more than contented. No sooner was the maid safely bestowed in her room than Monna Sismonda returned, remade the bed, and tidied up the whole room so as to make it look as if no one had slept there. Having re-lit the main lamp, she dressed herself and combed her hair to give the impression that she had not yet gone to bed, then she lit another lamp, which she took out on to the landing with some of her sewing. She then sat down and began to sew, and waited to see how things would develop. On leaving the house, Arriguccio had hurried round to his wife’s brothers’ house as fast as his legs would carry him, and hammered away at the door until someone came to let him in. Hearing that it was Arriguccio, the lady’s three brothers and her mother got up out of bed, called for lights to be lit, and came down to ask him what had brought him to see them, all alone, at that hour of the night. Arriguccio gave them a full account of all that he had found and all that he had done, beginning with his discovery of the string attached to Monna Sismonda’s toe; and in order to prove his story beyond any shadow of a doubt, he handed over the hair which he had cut off (or so he thought) from his wife’s head, adding that they were to come and fetch her and deal with her according to the dictates of their family honour, as he had no intention of permitting her to darken his doorstep again. The lady’s brothers, who believed every word of his story, were exceedingly angry, and, calling for torches to be lit, they set forth with Arriguccio and made their way to his house, determined to punish her severely. On seeing how incensed they were against her daughter, the mother burst into tears and began to follow them, pleading with each of them in turn not to be taken in so quickly by everything they heard without looking further into the matter. She pointed out that the husband might have some other reason for losing his temper and knocking her about, and that he might have trumped up these charges against her as a cover for his own misdeeds. Moreover, she was astonished that such a thing could have happened, knowing her daughter as she did, and having brought her up herself from her infancy.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Charles II., who "never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one," broke his solemn pledges and took the lead in intolerance and licentiousness. The Act of Uniformity was re-enacted May 19, 1662, and went into operation on St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1662, made hideous by the St. Bartholomew Massacre, nearly a hundred years before. "And now came in," says Baxter, one of the most moderate as well as most learned and pious of the Nonconformists, "the great inundation of calamities, which in many streams overwhelmed thousands of godly Christians, together with their pastors." All Puritan ministers were expelled from their livings and exposed to starvation, their assemblies forbidden, and absolute obedience to the king and conformity to episcopacy were enforced, even in Scotland. The faithful Presbyterians in that country (the Covenanters) were subjected by the royal dragonnades to all manner of indignities and atrocities. "They were hunted"—says an English historian101 — like criminals over the mountains; their ears were torn from their roots; they were branded with hot irons; their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins; the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots; women were scourged publicly through the streets; multitudes were transported to the Barbadoes; an infuriated soldiery was let loose upon them, and encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them." The period of the Restoration is, perhaps, the most immoral and disgraceful in English history. But it led at last to the final overthrow of the treacherous and semi-popish dynasty of the Stuarts, and inaugurated a new era in the history of religious liberty. Puritanism was not dead, but produced some of its best and most lasting works—Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress—in this period of its deepest humiliation and suffering. 8. The act of Toleration under the reign of William and Mary, 1689, made an end to violent persecutions in England. And yet it is far from what we now understand by religious liberty. Toleration is negative, liberty positive; toleration is a favor, liberty a right; toleration may be withdrawn by the power which grants it, liberty is as inalienable as conscience itself; toleration is extended to what cannot be helped and what may be in itself objectionable, liberty is a priceless gift of the Creator.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Calandrino walked on without stopping until he reached his house, which was situated near the Canto alla Macina, and Fortune favoured the hoax to such an extent that at no point along his route, either beside the river or in the city streets, did anyone address a single word to him, though as a matter of fact he encountered very few people because nearly everyone was at breakfast. Calandrino let himself into the house, staggering under his burden, but as luck would have it, his wife, a handsome-looking gentlewoman called Monna Tessa, was standing at the head of the stairs; and as she was somewhat annoyed with him for staying out so long, no sooner did she catch sight of him than she began to scold him, saying: ‘A fine fellow you are, I must say, coming home to breakfast when everyone else has finished eating. Where the devil have you been?’ On realizing that she could see him, Calandrino was filled with anger and dismay, and began to shout: ‘Blast you, woman, why did you have to be standing there? Now you’ve ruined everything, but I swear to God I’ll make you pay for it.’ And having ascended the stairs, he deposited his enormous collection of stones in one of the smaller rooms and rushed upon his wife like a madman. Catching her by the tresses, he hurled her to the ground at his feet and began to pummel her and kick her as hard as he could until she was bruised and battered all over from head to foot, whilst all the time she was pleading in vain for mercy and clasping her hands in a gesture of supplication. Bruno and Buffalmacco, having tarried for a while at the city gate to have a good laugh with the watchmen, slowly set off to follow Calandrino at a distance, and when, on reaching his front door, they heard the sound of the terrible beating he was inflicting on his wife, they pretended they had only just returned, and called out to him. Calandrino appeared at the window, flushed, panting, and covered in sweat, and asked them to come up. So up the stairs they went, scowling all over their faces, to find the room cluttered up with stones and the woman huddled in a corner, her hair dishevelled, her clothes torn, and her face covered with scratches and bruises, crying her eyes out, whilst at the other side of the room Calandrino was sitting gasping for breath as though he were completely exhausted, his clothes in total disarray. Having spent a little time surveying the scene, they said: ‘What’s all this, Calandrino? Are you planning to build a wall with all these stones we can see lying about?’ And so as to add insult to injury, they continued: ‘What’s happened to Monna Tessa? It looks as though you’ve been giving her a beating.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And one day, while out walking in a fine, thickly wooded forest, Giannotto and the girl, forging on ahead of their companions, came to a delectable spot all covered with grass and flowers and surrounded by trees, and, thinking they had left the others far behind, they began to make love. So great was their enjoyment that they lost all track of time, and they had been together for ages when the girl’s mother arrived on the scene, to be followed a moment later by Currado. Dismayed beyond measure by what he saw, 7 he ordered three of his servants, without giving any reasons, to seize the pair of them, bind them, and march them off to one of his castles. Then he stalked away, seething with distress and anger, and intent on having them ignominiously put to death. The girl’s mother was extremely upset, and regarded no punishment as too severe for her daughter’s lapse. But she could not stand passively aside and allow them to suffer the kind of fate which, on piecing together certain of Currado’s remarks, she realized he was intending to inflict on the culprits. So she hurried to catch up with her irate husband, and began pleading with him not to ruin his old age by killing his own daughter in a sudden fit of frenzy and soiling his hands with the blood of one of his servants. He could, she insisted, find some other way of placating his anger, such as having them incarcerated, so that, as they languished in prison, they would have a chance of repenting in full for their sinful behaviour. The saintly woman pressed these views and many others upon him with so much urgency, that she dissuaded him from killing them. And he ordered each of them to be imprisoned in different places, where they were to be closely guarded, receive a minimum of food, and suffer the maximum of discomfort, until such time as he decided otherwise. These instructions were promptly carried out, and I leave you to imagine the sort of life they led in their captivity, weeping incessantly and almost starving to death. Now, when Giannotto and Spina had been languishing in these wretched conditions for more than twelve months, and Currado had dismissed them from his thoughts, it came about that King Peter of Aragon, with the aid of a subversive movement led by Messer Gian di Procida, stirred up a rebellion in Sicily 8 and wrested the island from King Charles. Currado, being a Ghibelline, was overjoyed at the news, and when Giannotto heard about it from one of his gaolers, he heaved a deep sigh, and said: ‘Oh, alas! for fourteen long years I have travelled the world in continual hardship, waiting only for this to happen!

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Look here, comrade, this woman has promised me a thousand times that she would give you what you wanted, but when it comes to the point she does nothing, and I strongly suspect that she’s leading us by the nose. So unless you have any objection, as she won’t keep her promises, we shall make her keep them whether she wants to or not.’ ‘Ah yes!’ Calandrino replied. ‘Let’s do that, for the love of God, and do it quickly.’ ‘Are you bold enough to touch her with a scroll that I shall give you?’ asked Bruno. ‘Of course I am,’ said Calandrino. ‘In that case,’ said Bruno, ‘see that you let me have a small piece of parchment from a stillborn lamb, a live bat, three grains of incense, and a candle that has been blessed, and leave the rest to me.’ Calandrino accordingly spent the whole of that evening attempting by various ingenious means to catch a live bat, which he eventually succeeded in doing, and took it along to Bruno next morning, together with the other items he had specified. Bruno then withdrew to an inner room, filled the parchment with a series of meaningless hieroglyphics, and brought it back to Calandrino, saying: ‘Now listen, Calandrino: if you touch her with this parchment, she will immediately come with you and do whatever you want. So if Filippo should go off anywhere today, you must contrive to approach her and touch her with the scroll, then make your way round the side of the house to the barn, which is the ideal spot for your purposes as no one ever goes near it. You’ll find that she will follow you, and once she reaches the barn, you know exactly what you have to do.’ Calandrino was overjoyed, and seizing the parchment, he said: ‘Just you leave it to me, comrade.’ Nello, against whom Calandrino was constantly on his guard, was enjoying the affair as much as anyone, and was every bit as eager to make a fool of him; so on Bruno’s instructions he went down to Florence, called on Calandrino’s wife, and said to her: ‘You remember the hiding Calandrino gave you, Tessa, for no reason at all, on the day he came home from the Mugnone with all those stones6? Well, now’s your chance to be even with him, and if you fail to take it, you needn’t regard me as your friend or your kinsman ever again. He’s fallen in love with some woman up there at Camerata, and she’s such a wanton little baggage that she’s forever going off with him in private. They’ve arranged to meet today, as a matter of fact, so I want you to come and see, and punish him as he deserves.’ Monna Tessa was not at all amused by what she had heard, and leaping to her feet, she exclaimed:

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  And she did. He’d managed to catch Rupert on film walking through the scene we’d shot that day, but in the final cut, Rupert is identified only as Anaïs’s escort. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Anaïs and Rupert came to dinner at the beach house the following week. She’d promised to deliver the tapes to me then but said she’d forgotten them. A week later, I drove to her house, unannounced, so she couldn’t give me any more excuses. When I reached the end of the long, narrow driveway, I saw Rupert bringing out the trash. “Oh, Tristine, you should have phoned,” he boomed. “Anaïs is out of town. She’s accepting another honorary doctorate.” “I believe she left some audio tapes for me to pick up.” “Oh, those tapes you made with the women in your tent? We listened to those together.” He grinned lewdly. “They were very stimulating.” I felt a surge of anger. “Those were private! She wasn’t supposed to share them!” Rupert just continued standing there with a stupid, satisfied look on his face. “Do you know where the tapes are?” I walked toward the back door that led directly into the kitchen, but he blocked me with his thick frame. “I need to get them back,” I insisted. “I think Anaïs would like to keep them.” “She can’t keep them! I told her that.” “Well, you’ll have to talk to her. She’ll be back next week.” He escaped inside the kitchen door and locked it against me. I was furious and slammed my car door shut, intending to storm away, but I had to inch my car back out that narrow driveway. How could she? I fumed while speeding home on the Santa Monica Freeway. She had used our earnest and sensitive self-explorations as pornography for Rupert. I had told her the tent tapes were only for her ears; I’d told her about the women’s confidentiality, and that a special exception had been made for her. I had assumed she was part of our sisterhood. I knew she was a liar, but I’d thought that was only to men. I thought she understood; you might lie to a man but you would never betray a sister.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I swear to God they are in there together,’ he said, as they came up to the door of the barn. Fuming with rage, Calandrino’s wife applied both her hands to the door and pushed it open. On entering the barn, she saw Calandrino lying there on his back, straddled by Niccolosa, who no sooner caught sight of Monna Tessa than she leapt to her feet and ran off to join Filippo. Before Calandrino could get up, Monna Tessa pounced upon him and attacked him with her nails, clawing his face all over before seizing him by the hair and dragging him round the floor of the barn, saying: ‘You filthy, despicable dog, so you’d do this to me, would you? A curse on all the love I ever bore you, demented old fool that you are. Don’t you think you have enough to do, keeping the home fires burning, without going off to stoke up other people’s? A fine lover you would make for anyone! Don’t you know yourself, villain? Don’t you realize, scoundrel, that if they were to squeeze you from head to toe, there wouldn’t be enough juice to make a sauce? God’s faith, it wasn’t your wife who was getting you with child7 this time. May the Lord make her suffer, whoever she is, for she must surely be a depraved little hussy to take a fancy to a precious jewel like you.’ When he first saw his wife coming in, Calandrino was unsure whether he was dead or alive, and hadn’t the courage to defend himself against her furious onslaught. But in the end, all torn and bleeding and dishevelled, he picked up his cape, staggered to his feet, and humbly entreated Monna Tessa not to shout unless she wanted him to be torn to pieces, for the woman who was with him was none other than the wife of the master of the house. ’I don’t care who she is,’ bawled Monna Tessa. ‘May God punish her as she deserves.’ Pretending to have been attracted by all the noise, Bruno and Buffalmacco now appeared on the scene, having laughed themselves silly along with Filippo and Niccolosa as they watched this spectacle; and after much heated discussion, they pacified Monna Tessa and advised Calandrino to return to Florence and never show his face there again in case Filippo came to hear of what had happened and did him some serious mischief. And so, scratched and torn to ribbons, Calandrino made his way back to Florence feeling all forlorn and dejected; and not having the courage to return to Camerata, he resigned himself to the torrent of strictures and abuse to which he was subjected day and night by Monna Tessa, and made an end to his love for Niccolosa, having supplied a feast of entertainment, not only for his companions, but for Filippo and Niccolosa as well.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘However, the fact that you have no children of your own does not exempt me, a mother, from the laws common to all other mothers. And being bound to obey those laws, I am forced, contrary to my own wishes and to all the rules of decorum and propriety, to ask you for something to which I know you are very deeply attached – which is only natural, seeing that it is the only consolation, the only pleasure, the only recreation remaining to you in your present extremity of fortune. The gift I am seeking is your falcon, to which my son has taken so powerful a liking, that if I fail to take it to him I fear he will succumb to the illness from which he is suffering, and consequently I shall lose him. In imploring you to give me this falcon, I appeal, not to your love, for you are under no obligation to me on that account, but rather to your noble heart, whereby you have proved yourself superior to all others in the practice of courtesy. Do me this favour, then, so that I may claim that through your generosity I have saved my son’s life, thus placing him forever in your debt.’ When he heard what it was that she wanted, and realized that he could not oblige her because he had given her the falcon to eat, Federigo burst into tears in her presence before being able to utter a single word in reply. At first the lady thought his tears stemmed more from his grief at having to part with his fine falcon than from any other motive, and was on the point of telling him that she would prefer not to have it. But on second thoughts she said nothing, and waited for Federigo to stop crying and give her his answer, which eventually he did. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘ever since God decreed that you should become the object of my love, I have repeatedly had cause to complain of Fortune’s hostility towards me. But all her previous blows were slight by comparison with the one she has dealt me now. Nor shall I ever be able to forgive her, when I reflect that you have come to my poor dwelling, which you never deigned to visit when it was rich, and that you desire from me a trifling favour which she has made it impossible for me to concede. The reason is simple, and I shall explain it in few words.