Despair

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)

  As he was undressing, knowing only too well what was in store for him, it happened that a company of soldiers, at least two dozen strong, descended on them with shouts of ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ In their confusion, the others abandoned Pietro and looked to their defence; but on finding themselves greatly outnumbered, they took to their heels, with their assailants in full pursuit. When Pietro saw this, he promptly gathered up his belongings, leapt on to his steed, and galloped away as fast as he could along the path by which the girl had already fled. But on finding no sign of a track through the forest, or even the imprint of a horse’s hoof, he was overcome with despair, and as soon as he judged himself to be beyond the reach of his captors and their assailants, he burst into tears and began to meander through the forest, calling her name in all directions. But there was no reply, and, not daring to retrace his steps, he rode on without having the slightest notion of where he was going. To add to his misery, he was afraid, not only on his own account but also on the girl’s, of all the wild beasts that are generally to be found lurking in forests, and in his mind’s eye he constantly saw her being suffocated by bears or devoured by wolves. And so our luckless Pietro careered all day long through the forest, shouting and calling, sometimes going round in circles when he thought he was proceeding in a straight line, until eventually, what with shouting and weeping and feeling afraid and not having eaten, he was so exhausted that he could go no further. Finding that darkness had fallen, and not knowing what else he could do, he dismounted from his nag, tethered it to a large oak, and then climbed the tree to avoid being devoured in the night by wild beasts. The night was clear, and before very long the moon had risen, but for fear of tumbling from his perch Pietro dared not fall asleep. This would in any case have been impossible because he was far too dejected and concerned for Agnolella’s safety, and so his only alternative was to stay awake, groaning and cursing and bewailing his misfortune. Meanwhile the girl, who as we have stated was fleeing with no destination in mind, simply let her nag carry her wherever it chose, and soon she had penetrated so far into the forest that she could no longer discern the way by which she had entered. So she spent the whole day just as Pietro had done, threading her way through the wildwood, pausing occasionally to rest, weeping and calling out incessantly, and bemoaning her terrible fate.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It was better, she said, that Stephen should take Puddle with her, if Puddle would consent to go. They might live in London or somewhere abroad, on the pretext that Stephen wished to study. From time to time Stephen would come back to Morton and visit her mother, and during those visits, they two would take care to be seen together for appearances’ sake, for the sake of her father. She could take from Morton whatever she needed, the horses, and anything else she wished. Certain of the rent-rolls would be paid over to her, should her own income prove insufficient. All things must be done in a way that was seemly—no undue haste, no suspicion of a breach between mother and daughter: ‘For the sake of your father I ask this of you, not for your sake or mine, but for his. Do you consent to this, Stephen?’ And Stephen answered: ‘Yes, I consent.’ Then Anna said: ‘I’d like you to leave me now—I feel tired and I want to be alone for a little—but presently I shall send for Puddle to discuss her living with you in the future.’ So Stephen got up, and she went away, leaving Anna Gordon alone. 2 As though drawn there by some strong natal instinct, Stephen went straight to her father’s study; and she sat in the old arm-chair that had survived him; then she buried her face in her hands. All the loneliness that had gone before was as nothing to this new loneliness of spirit. An immense desolation swept down upon her, an immense need to cry out and claim understanding for herself, an immense need to find an answer to the riddle of her unwanted being. All around her were grey and crumbling ruins, and under those ruins her love lay bleeding; shamefully wounded by Angela Crossby, shamefully soiled and defiled by her mother—a piteous, suffering, defenceless thing, it lay bleeding under the ruins. She felt blind when she tried to look into the future, stupefied when she tried to look back on the past. She must go—she was going away from Morton: ‘From Morton—I’m going away from Morton,’ the words thudded drearily in her brain: ‘I’m going away from Morton.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  5That night Stephen took the girl roughly in her arms. ‘I love you—I love you so much . . .’ she stammered; and she kissed Mary many times on the mouth, but cruelly so that her kisses were pain—the pain in her heart leapt out through her lips: ‘God! It’s too terrible to love like this—it’s hell—there are times when I can’t endure it!’ She was in the grip of strong nervous excitation; nothing seemed able any more to appease her. She seemed to be striving to obliterate, not only herself, but the whole hostile world through some strange and agonized merging with Mary. It was terrible indeed, very like unto death, and it left them both completely exhausted. The world had achieved its first real victory. CHAPTER 471T heir Christmas was naturally overshadowed, and so, as it were by a common impulse, they turned to such people as Barbara and Jamie, people who would neither despise nor insult them. It was Mary who suggested that Barbara and Jamie should be asked to share their Christmas dinner, while Stephen who must suddenly pity Wanda for a misjudged and very unfortunate genius, invited her also—after all why not? Wanda was more sinned against than sinning. She drank, oh, yes, Wanda drowned her sorrows; everybody knew that, and like Valérie Seymour, Stephen hated drink like the plague—but all the same she invited Wanda. An ill wind it is that blows no one any good. Barbara and Jamie accepted with rapture; but for Mary’s most timely invitation, their funds being low at the end of the year, they two must have gone without Christmas dinner. Wanda also seemed glad enough to come, to leave her enormous, turbulent canvas for the orderly peace of the well-warmed house with its comfortable rooms and its friendly servants. All three of them arrived a good hour before dinner, which on this occasion would be in the evening. Wanda had been up to Midnight Mass at the Sacré Cœur, she informed them gravely; and Stephen, reminded of Mademoiselle Duphot, regretted that she had not offered her the motor. No doubt she too had gone up to Montmartre for Midnight Mass—how queer, she and Wanda. Wanda was quiet, depressed and quite sober; she was wearing a straight-cut, simple black dress that somehow suggested a species of cassock. And as often happened when Wanda was sober, she repeated herself more than when she was drunk. ‘I have been to the Sacré Cœur,’ she repeated, ‘for the Messe de Minuit; it was very lovely.’

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Monks put the preservation of the surviving texts above their own lives, and regarded their reproduction as infinitely more important than their own creative labours. Thus a Mediceus of Virgil, dating from the end of the fifth century, and probably once in the possession of Cassiodorus, was preserved in various monastic houses, found its way to Bobbio, and is now in the Laurentian Library in Florence. The monks argued that the more copies they succeeded in making, the more likely it was that one at least would survive; and they were right. In the eighth century, the scriptorium of St Martin’s of Tours transcribed a fifth-century Livy; the copy survived, the original is lost. Right at the end of his life, Bede was urging his scribe to ‘write faster’. There was a sense of gloomy urgency about the task, for men believed that, however horrible the period since Rome’s decline had been, things would get worse, not better; and there was much evidence to support their belief. One chief reason why King Alfred, at the end of the ninth century, wanted all the essential Latin texts translated into English was that he believed the coming hard times would wipe out Latin scholarship and that, even if the originals were not destroyed, no one would be able to read them. Hence, in the eighth and ninth centuries virtually all the ancient texts were re- copied, often many times, and so saved. Much of this work was carried out in the big German monasteries – Lorsch, Cologne, Witzburg, Reichenau, St Gall, and so forth. Outstanding was Fulda, the centre of historiography east of the Rhine, to which we owe, for instance, vital texts of Tacitus, Suetonius, Ammianus, Vetruvius and Servius, through whom medieval men learnt their Virgil. Fulda had huge resources, and recruited a large number of conspicuously able men. One of its ninth-century monks, Hrabanus Maurus, later Archbishop of Mainz, put together an encyclopaedia of received knowledge, modelled on Isidore of Seville; and one of Hrabanus’s pupils, Servatus Lupus, later Abbot of Ferrières, became the nearest approach to the modern idea of a scholar before the twelfth century John of Salisbury. Yet the work of both these Fulda monks is essentially derivative. Hrabanus’s encyclopaedia contains no original thinking; Servatus’s chief contribution was to compile a corpus of barbarian laws for the Duke of Friuli. These works were useful but uncreative. Moreover, we must not think that the monks were primarily concerned with transmitting the classics. No Greek secular works were preserved in the original. Even the Greek fathers were studied, and copied, in Latin translations. Profane literature in Latin occupied only a fraction of the time available. The work of the scriptoria was overwhelmingly centred on the Fathers, chiefly Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome,

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  As God had first created it, the earth was free of thorns and thistles, bringing forth a marvelous abundance of food, according to Augustine. Then Adam sinned, and “all nature was changed for the worse”;20 thorns and thistles suddenly sprang up from the once fertile land. God had placed man in Eden “to till it and to cultivate it,” and before he sinned, Adam worked “not only without laboring, but, indeed, with pleasure for the soul.”21 But now, Augustine says, every man experiences pain, frustration, and hardship in his labor, as every woman does in hers: the miseries of human nature now beset both sexes “from infancy to the grave.”22 Worst of all is what awaits us at the end—“the last enemy, death.” In the beginning, God granted “the power to live, not any necessity of dying.”23 Death was in no sense natural but arose only after Adam chose to sin, bringing upon himself and all his progeny this dreadful agony, along with “the innumerable forms of illness that bring people to death.”24 Adam’s single arbitrary act of will rendered all subsequent acts of human will inoperative. Humankind, once harmonious, perfect, and free, now, through Adam’s choice, is ravaged by mortality and desire, while all suffering, from crop failure, miscarriage, fever, and insanity to paralysis and cancer, is evidence of the moral and spiritual deterioration that Eve and Adam introduced. Ever since Augustine, the hereditary transmission of original sin has been the official doctrine of the Catholic church. Augustine thus denies the existence of nature per se—of nature as natural scientists have taught us to perceive it—for he cannot think of the natural world except as a reflection of human desire and will. Where there is suffering, there must have been evil and guilt, for, Augustine insists, God would not allow suffering where there was no prior fault. How, Augustine challenges Julian, could a just and all-powerful God allow infants to suffer the evils that nearly all infants suffer in this transitory life, if nothing calling for punishment were contracted from parents? Without a glance you bypass those evils which … all of us see them suffer. You say, “Human nature, at the beginning of life, is adorned with the gift of innocence.” We agree, in regard to personal sins, but not about original sin.… You must explain why such great innocence is sometimes born blind or deaf. If nothing deserving punishment passes from parents to infants, who could bear to see the image of God sometimes born retarded, since this afflicts the soul itself? Consider the plain facts; consider why some infants suffer from a demon.25

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

  Luther reports that he often disputed with the Devil in the night, about the state of his soul, so earnestly that he himself perspired profusely, and trembled. Once the Devil told him that he was a great sinner. "I knew that long ago," replied Luther, "tell me something new. Christ has taken my sins upon himself, and forgiven them long ago. Now grind your teeth." At other times he returned the charge and tauntingly asked him, "Holy Satan, pray for me," or "Physician, cure thyself." The Devil assumes visible forms, and appears as a dog or a hog or a goat, or as a flame or star, or as a man with horns. He is noisy and boisterous.420 He is at the bottom of all witchcraft and ghost-trickery. He steals little children and substitutes others in their place, who are mere lumps of flesh and torment the parents, but die young.421 Luther was disposed to trace many mediaeval miracles of the Roman Catholic Church to the agency of Satan. He believed in daemones incubos et succubos. But, after all, the Devil has no real power over believers. He hates prayer, and flees from the cross and from the Word of God as from a flaming fire. If you cannot expel him by texts of Holy Scripture, the best way is to jeer and flout him. A pious nun once scared him away by simply saying: "Christiana sum." Christ has slain him, and will cast him out at last into the fire of hell. Hence Luther sings in his battle hymn, — "And let the Prince of ill Look grim as e’er he will, He harms us not a whit: For why? His doom is writ, One little word shall slay him." Luther was at times deeply dejected in spirit. He wrote to Melanchthon, July 13, under the influence of dyspepsia which paints every thing in the darkest colors: "You elevate me too high, and fall into the serious error of giving me too much credit, as if I were absorbed in God’s cause. This high opinion of yours confounds and racks me, when I see myself insensible, hardened, sunk in idleness, alas! seldom in prayer, and not venting one groan over God’s Church. My unsubdued flesh burns me with devouring fire. In short, I who ought to be eaten up with the spirit, am devoured by the flesh, by luxury, indolence, idleness, somnolence. Is it that God has turned away from me, because you no longer pray for me? You must take my place; you, richer in God’s gifts, and more acceptable in his sight. Here, a week has passed away since I put pen to paper, since I have prayed or studied, either vexed by fleshly cares, or by other temptations. If things do not improve, I will go to Erfurt without concealment; there you will see me, or I you, for I must consult physicians or surgeons.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When she heard that Martuccio and his companions were dead, the girl, who had been distressed beyond measure by his departure, wept incessantly and resolved to put an end to her life. Lacking the courage to do herself violently to death, she hit upon a novel but no less certain way of killing herself; and one night, she secretly left her father’s house and made her way to the harbour, where she chanced upon a tiny fishing-boat, lying some distance away from the other vessels. Its owners having gone ashore just a little while earlier, the boat was still equipped with its mast, its sail, and its oars. And since, like most of the women on the island, she had learnt the rudiments of seamanship, she stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind. She calculated that one of two things would inevitably happen: either the boat, being without ballast or rudder, would capsize in the wind, or it would be driven aground somewhere and smashed to pieces. In either case she was certain to drown, for she would be unable to save herself even if she wanted to. So having wrapped a cloak round her head, she lay down, weeping, on the floor of the boat. But her calculations proved quite wrong, for the wind blew so gently from the north that the sea was barely disturbed, the boat maintained an even keel, and towards evening on the following day she drifted ashore near a town called Susa, 2 a hundred miles or so beyond Tunis. The girl was not aware that she was more ashore than afloat, for she had not raised her head once from the position in which it was lying, nor had she any intention of doing so, whatever happened. As luck would have it, when the boat ran aground there was a poor woman on the shore, taking in nets that had been left in the sun by the fishermen for whom she worked. On seeing the boat, she wondered how the fishermen aboard could have let it run aground under full sail, and assumed that they must be asleep. So she went up to the boat, but the only person she could see was this young woman, lying there fast asleep. Having called to her several times, she eventually got her to wake up, and since she could see that the girl was a Christian from the clothes she was wearing, she asked her in Italian how it came about that she had landed in that particular spot, and in that particular boat, all by herself. Hearing herself addressed in Italian, the girl wondered whether she had been driven back to Lipari by a change of wind.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And hence she flailed her arms in all directions, heaping a constant stream of curses upon herself, her life, her lover, and the scholar. Being thus goaded, tormented, and pierced to the very quick by the incalculable heat, the rays of the sun, the flies and gadflies, her hunger and above all her thirst, as well as by a thousand agonizing thoughts, she stood up straight and looked about her in the hope of seeing or hearing someone who could be summoned to her assistance, being by now prepared to do anything, come what may, to effect her release. But here too she was dogged by ill luck. The peasants had all deserted the fields on account of the heat, and in any case nobody had been working near the tower that morning because they were staying at home to thresh the corn. So all she heard was the sound of cicadas, and the only moving thing in sight was the Arno, whose inviting waters did nothing to lessen her thirst, but only made it worse. And scattered about the countryside she could see houses and woods and shaded places, all of which played no less cruelly upon her desires. What more are we to say of this hapless widow? What with the sun beating down from above, the torrid heat of the floor beneath her feet, and the flies and gadflies piercing her flesh all over, she was in such a sorry state that her body, whose whiteness had dispelled the shades of night just a few hours before, had now turned red as madder, and being liberally flecked with blood, it would have seemed, to anyone who saw it, the ugliest thing in the world. There, then, she remained, bereft of all counsel and all hope, expecting rather to die than survive, until late in the afternoon, when the scholar, having risen from his siesta, returned to the tower to see how his lady was faring, and told his servant, who had not yet eaten, to go and procure himself a meal. On hearing him talking to the servant, the lady painfully dragged her weak, tormented body to the aperture, where she sat down, burst into tears, and said: ‘Surely your revenge has exceeded all the bounds of reason, Rinieri. For whereas I made you freeze by night in my courtyard, you have roasted me on this tower by day, or rather burnt me to a cinder, and caused me to die of hunger and thirst in the process. I therefore beg you in God’s name to come up here, and, since I do not have the courage to take my own life, to kill me yourself, for death is the one thing I desire above all else, such is the torture I am suffering.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The girl failed to notice them, and when they perceived how beautiful she was, seeing that she was all alone, the youths resolved to seize her and carry her off. Nor did they waste any time in giving effect to their resolve, but promptly took hold of the girl, and, though she screamed and shouted, bundled her aboard their ship. They then sailed away, but on arriving in Calabria, they fell to arguing among themselves over which of them was to take possession of the girl, each of them wanting her for himself. Being unable to reach any sort of agreement, they decided, rather than make matters worse and bring ruin upon themselves for the sake of a girl, to give her to King Frederick of Sicily,3 who was then a young man, much addicted to pretty things of that sort. And this they did on reaching Palermo. The girl was greatly prized by the King on account of her beauty, but as he was feeling somewhat indisposed, he ordered that until such time as he recovered she should be lodged with a retinue in a sumptuous villa in one of his gardens, known as La Cuba;4 and these instructions were carried out. The girl’s abduction gave rise to a great furore in Ischia, but the worst part about it was that they had no idea who it was that had carried her off. Gianni, who was the person most deeply affected by her disappearance, knew better than to hang about waiting for news in Ischia, and, having ascertained the direction taken by her captors, he hired a frigate of his own, in which, as swiftly as possible, he scoured the whole of the coast from Cape Minerva to Scalea5 in Calabria, making inquiries about the girl wherever he went. Finally, at Scalea, he was told she had been taken by Sicilian sailors to Palermo, and thither he made his way as speedily as he could. On discovering, after searching high and low for her, that she had been given to the King and was being kept by him in La Cuba, he was greatly perturbed and not only despaired of retrieving her but almost gave up hope of ever seeing her again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All he wanted to do now was to die, and so finally, invoking the great love he bore her, he pleaded with her to let him lie down at her side so that he could get warm, pointing out that his limbs had turned numb with cold whilst he was waiting for her. He assured her that he would neither talk to her nor touch her, and promised to go away as soon as he had warmed himself up a little. Feeling rather sorry for him, Salvestra agreed to let him do it, but only if he kept his promises. So the young man lay down at her side without attempting to touch her, and, concentrating his thoughts on his long love for her, on her present coldness towards him, and on the dashing of his hopes, he resolved not to go on living. Without uttering a word, he clenched his fists and held his breath until finally he expired at her side. After a while, wondering what he was doing and fearing lest her husband should wake up, the girl made a move. ‘Girolamo,’ she whispered, ‘it’s time for you to be going.’ On receiving no answer, she assumed that he had fallen asleep. So she stretched out her hand to wake him up and began to prod him, but found to her great astonishment that he was as cold as ice to the touch. She then prodded him more vigorously but it had no effect, and after trying once more she realized that he was dead. The discovery filled her with dismay and for some time she lay there without the slightest notion what to do. In the end she decided to put the case to her husband without saying who was involved, and ask his opinion about what the people concerned ought to do about it; and having woken him up, she described her own recent experience as though it had happened to someone else, then asked him what advice he would give supposing it had happened to her. To this, the worthy soul replied that in his view, the fellow who was dead would have to be taken quietly back to his own house and left there, and that

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Sophronia was then restored to Titus, and being a sensible girl, she made a virtue of necessity and soon accorded Titus the love she had formerly had for Gisippus. And she went with him to Rome, where she was received with great honour. Meanwhile Gisippus stayed on in Athens, but could no longer command much esteem among most of his fellow citizens; and not long afterwards, through factional strife in the city, he was driven out of Athens, poor and destitute, and condemned to perpetual exile along with all the members of his family. Now that he was banished, before very long he became not only a pauper but a beggar, and made his way as best he could to Rome, in order to discover whether Titus still remembered him. On learning that Titus was alive and that all the Romans sang his praises, he found out where he was living, then went and stood outside his house. Eventually Titus made his appearance, and though Gisippus would not venture to address him because of his beggarly condition, he endeavoured to let himself be seen so that Titus might recognize and send for him. When, therefore, Titus passed him by without any show of recognition, Gisippus was convinced that he had been deliberately snubbed, and remembering all he had done for Titus in the past, he retreated from the scene in dudgeon and despair. It was already dark when Gisippus, hungry and penniless, having nowhere to go and heartily wishing he were dead, strayed into a very lonely part of the city where he came across a large cave, into which he crept with the intention of sheltering there for the night. And on the cave’s bare floor, ill-apparelled and exhausted by prolonged weeping, he fell fast asleep. Just before dawn, however, a pair of burglars came to this very cave with the proceeds of their night’s activities, and having started to quarrel with one another, the more powerful of the two killed his companion and made off. All of this was seen and heard by Gisippus, who, being himself intent upon dying, felt that he had now discovered a way of achieving his goal without resorting to suicide. So he stayed where he was until the praetorian guards, having quickly got wind of the affair, arrived at the scene of the crime and bundled him off into custody. He was then interrogated and confessed to the murder, adding that he had been unable to find his way out of the cave; whereupon the praetor, whose name was Marcus Varro, sentenced him to death by crucifixion, which in those days was the regular method of execution. By a singular coincidence, at that very moment Titus turned up at the law court, and on staring the wretched prisoner in the face, having learned the reasons for the sentence, he recognized him at once as Gisippus.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FOURTH STORY Landolfo Rufolo is ruined and turns to piracy; he is captured by the Genoese and shipwrecked, but survives by clinging to a chest, full of very precious jewels; finally, having been succoured by a woman on Corfu, he returns home rich . When she saw that Pampinea had brought her story to its triumphant close, Lauretta, who was seated next to her, took up her cue without a pause and began to speak as follows: Fairest ladies, it is in my opinion impossible to envisage a more striking act of Fortune than the spectacle of a person being raised from the depths of poverty to regal status, which is what happened, as we have been shown by Pampinea’s story, in the case of her Alessandro. And since, from now on, nobody telling a story on the prescribed subject can possibly exceed those limits, I shall not blush to narrate a tale which, whilst it contains greater misfortunes, does not however possess so magnificent an ending. I realize of course, when I think of the previous story, that my own will be followed less attentively. But since it is the best I can manage, I trust that I shall be forgiven. Few parts of Italy, if any, are reckoned to be more delightful than the sea-coast between Reggio and Gaeta. In this region, not far from Salerno, there is a strip of land overlooking the sea, known to the inhabitants as the Amalfi coast, 1 which is dotted with small towns, gardens and fountains, and swarming with as wealthy and enterprising a set of merchants as you will find anywhere. In one of these little towns, called Ravello, 2 there once lived a certain Landolfo Rufolo, and although Ravello still has its quota of rich men, this Rufolo was a very rich man indeed. But being dissatisfied with his fortune, he sought to double it, and as a result he nearly lost every penny he possessed, and his life too. This Rufolo, then, having made the sort of preliminary calculations that merchants normally make, purchased a very large ship, loaded it with a mixed cargo of goods paid for entirely out of his own pocket, and sailed with them to Cyprus. But on his arrival, he discovered that several other ships had docked there, carrying precisely the same kind of goods as those he had brought over himself. And for this reason, not only did he have to sell his cargo at bargain prices, but in order to complete his business he was practically forced to give the stuff away, thus being brought to the verge of ruin. Being extremely distressed about all this, not knowing what to do, and finding himself reduced overnight from great wealth to semi-poverty, he decided he would make good his losses by privateering, or die in the attempt. At all events, having set out a rich man, he was determined not to return home in poverty.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But a few days later, it happened that because of some other piece of villainy, the old woman who had concocted the poisonous potion for Ninetta was arrested. Under torture, she confessed to this particular crime along with the others she had committed, and supplied a full account of what had happened. The Duke of Crete said nothing about it to anyone, but one night he threw a cordon round Folco’s palace, quietly arrested Ninetta, and took her away without a struggle. There was no need to resort to torture, for he very quickly learned from Ninetta everything he wanted to know about Restagnone’s death. Folco and Ughetto had been secretly informed by the Duke of the reason for Ninetta’s arrest, and they in turn informed their ladies. All four were greatly distressed, and spared no effort to save Ninetta from being burnt at the stake, which was the punishment to which they realized she would be condemned, as she richly deserved. But the Duke was determined that justice should take its course, and it seemed that there was nothing they could do to make him change his mind. Maddalena was a strikingly beautiful young woman, and for some little time she had been the object of the Duke’s affection. She had never given him the slightest encouragement, but she now thought that by placating his desires she would be able to rescue her sister from the fire, and she informed him through a trusted messenger that she was ready to do his bidding on two conditions: first, that her sister should be returned to her unharmed; and secondly, that the whole matter should be kept secret. On receipt of the message, the sound of which was much to his liking, the Duke devoted a great deal of thought to it and in the end agreed to its terms, sending back word to that effect. And one evening, with the young woman’s prior consent, he had Folco and Ughetto arrested on the pretext of hearing their version of the affair, and secretly went to spend the night with Maddalena. First, however, he had tied Ninetta up in a sack and made it appear that he intended to dump her in the sea, instead of which he took her with him and presented her to her sister by way of payment for his night of pleasure. Next morning, before leaving, he begged Maddalena not to look upon this first night of their love as the last they would spend together, and implored her to send her guilty sister away so that he should not be taken to task and compelled to put her on trial all over again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When she heard that Martuccio and his companions were dead, the girl, who had been distressed beyond measure by his departure, wept incessantly and resolved to put an end to her life. Lacking the courage to do herself violently to death, she hit upon a novel but no less certain way of killing herself; and one night, she secretly left her father’s house and made her way to the harbour, where she chanced upon a tiny fishing-boat, lying some distance away from the other vessels. Its owners having gone ashore just a little while earlier, the boat was still equipped with its mast, its sail, and its oars. And since, like most of the women on the island, she had learnt the rudiments of seamanship, she stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind. She calculated that one of two things would inevitably happen: either the boat, being without ballast or rudder, would capsize in the wind, or it would be driven aground somewhere and smashed to pieces. In either case she was certain to drown, for she would be unable to save herself even if she wanted to. So having wrapped a cloak round her head, she lay down, weeping, on the floor of the boat. But her calculations proved quite wrong, for the wind blew so gently from the north that the sea was barely disturbed, the boat maintained an even keel, and towards evening on the following day she drifted ashore near a town called Susa, 2 a hundred miles or so beyond Tunis. The girl was not aware that she was more ashore than afloat, for she had not raised her head once from the position in which it was lying, nor had she any intention of doing so, whatever happened. As luck would have it, when the boat ran aground there was a poor woman on the shore, taking in nets that had been left in the sun by the fishermen for whom she worked. On seeing the boat, she wondered how the fishermen aboard could have let it run aground under full sail, and assumed that they must be asleep. So she went up to the boat, but the only person she could see was this young woman, lying there fast asleep. Having called to her several times, she eventually got her to wake up, and since she could see that the girl was a Christian from the clothes she was wearing, she asked her in Italian how it came about that she had landed in that particular spot, and in that particular boat, all by herself. Hearing herself addressed in Italian, the girl wondered whether she had been driven back to Lipari by a change of wind.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But suddenly, a totally unexpected war broke out in England between the King and one of his sons, 2 splitting the whole of the island into two rival factions, as a result of which the castles of the barons were taken out of Alessandro’s control, and all his other assets were frozen. But he remained in the island in the hope that son and father would make peace at any moment, in which case he might recover not only all his capital, but the outstanding interest as well. Meanwhile, in Florence, the three brothers made no attempt whatever to curb their enormous expenditure, but borrowed more and more each day. But as the years went by one after another, and their expectations were seen to be bearing no fruit, the three brothers lost their sources of credit, and immediately afterwards, since their creditors were demanding payment, they were thrown into prison. Their assets were realized to meet their debts, but the amount they raised was insufficient, and so they remained in prison, leaving their wives and little children to wander off in rags, some taking to the country, some going to one place, some to another, with nothing but a lifetime of poverty ahead of them. Alessandro, after waiting several years in England for a peace that never came, thought it not only pointless but positively dangerous to stay there any longer, and decided to return to Italy. He set out all alone on his journey, but as he was leaving Bruges 3 he happened to see, also leaving the city, an abbot dressed in white, who was attended by many monks and preceded by a large number of retainers and a substantial baggage train. Bringing up the rear were two worthy knights, relatives of the King, with whom Alessandro was personally acquainted. And so, having made his presence known, they readily received him as one of their company. As he jogged along beside the two knights, Alessandro made polite inquiries concerning the identity of the monks who were riding ahead with this large retinue of servants, and asked where they were all going. ‘The person riding up front,’ replied one of the knights, ‘is a young relative of ours who has just been appointed Abbot of one of the largest abbeys in England. But because he is below the minimum age prescribed by law for this great office, we are going with him to Rome in order to ask the Holy Father to give him dispensation for his excessive youth and confirm him in office. But we wish to keep the matter a secret.’ The new abbot rode on, sometimes going ahead, sometimes falling back behind his retinue, in the style regularly to be observed in gentlemen of quality when they are travelling, until eventually he found himself level with Alessandro, who was very young, exceedingly good-looking and well-built, and the most well-mannered, agreeable and finely spoken person you can imagine.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You were just pretending to us that it had been stolen so that you wouldn’t have to buy us a few drinks out of the proceeds.’ Calandrino, who still had the bitter taste of the aloe in his mouth, swore to them that he had not taken the pig, but Buffalmacco said: ‘Own up, man, how much did it fetch? Six florins?’ Calandrino was by now on the brink of despair, but Bruno said: ‘You might as well know, Calandrino, that one of the fellows we were drinking and eating with this morning told me that you had a girl up here, that you kept her for your pleasure and gave her all the little titbits that came your way, and that he was quite certain you had sent her this pig of yours. You’ve become quite an expert at fooling people, haven’t you? Remember the time you took us along the Mugnone? 3 There we were, collecting those black stones, and as soon as you’d got us stranded up the creek without a paddle, you cleared off home, and then tried to make us believe that you’d found the thing. And now that you’ve given away the pig, or sold it rather, you think you can persuade us, by uttering a few oaths, that it’s been stolen. But you can’t fool us any more: we’ve cottoned on to these tricks of yours. As a matter of fact, that’s why we took so much trouble with the spell we cast on the sweets; and unless you give us two brace of capons for our pains, we intend to tell Monna Tessa the whole story.’ Seeing that they refused to believe him, and thinking that he had enough trouble on his hands without letting himself in for a diatribe from his wife, Calandrino gave them the two brace of capons. And after they had salted the pig, they carried their spoils back to Florence with them, leaving Calandrino to scratch his head and rue his losses.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  If you refuse to cooperate, I shall certainly catch him out sooner or later, and since I have no intention of allowing his offence to go unpunished, I shall deal with him in such a way as to make both of your lives a perpetual misery.’ Having listened to Zeppa’s story and questioned him closely about it, the woman was convinced that he was telling the truth, and she said: ‘My dear Zeppa, if I have to bear the brunt of your revenge, so be it; but only if you will see that your wife harbours no resentment against me over this deed we are obliged to perform, just as I myself, in spite of what she has done to me, intend to harbour none against her.’ To which Zeppa replied: ‘I shall certainly see to that; and what’s more, I shall present you with as fair and precious a jewel as any you possess.’ So saying, he took her in his arms and began to kiss her; and having laid her on the chest in which her husband was imprisoned, he sported with her upon it to his heart’s content, and she with him. Spinelloccio, who was inside the chest and had not only heard all that Zeppa had said but also his wife’s reply and the fandango that shortly thereafter took place directly above his head, was torn with anguish, and felt at any moment he would die. But for his fear of Zeppa, he would have given his wife a severe scolding, even though he was under lock and key. In the end, however, recalling that he himself was to blame in the first place, that Zeppa was justified in doing this to him and that he had chosen a civil and comradely way of taking his revenge, Spinelloccio vowed that, if Zeppa was agreeable, they

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Japan open completely to the friars. This coincided with another blow the Jesuits had long feared but could not avert – the arrival of the Dutch Calvinists, with the English not far behind. By 1613 both Protestant groups were active in Japanese waters, making the annual great ship obsolete and the Jesuits no longer indispensible, or even necessary, as commercial brokers. The English promptly engaged in anti-Spanish propaganda, preying on the very insecurity the Japanese already nursed. Had they not heard of Jesuit subversive plans in England, concerted and timed to assist Spanish naval plans to invade? That, said the English captain Richard Cocks, was exactly why his government had expelled Catholic clerics from England: ‘Hath not the Emperor of Japan as much reason to put your Jesuits and friars out of Japan and to withstand the secret entrance of them, knowing them to be stirrers up of sedition, and turbulent people?’ It was the last straw. On 27 January 1614 the Japanese government published an edict which accused the Christians of coming ‘to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow true doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country and obtain possession of the land.’ The attachment of the Christians to the cross was explicitly cited as grounds for believing they approved of criminal acts. All European Christians were to leave, and Japanese Christians were to renounce their faith. The reaction to the expulsion order took the form of a tremendous outbreak of mass religious fervour in Nagasaki, with ritual flagellations and mutilations, several Japanese Christians dying of self-inflicted wounds. This disgusted and infuriated the Japanese authorities. The Jesuits later blamed the Franciscans for setting off this frenzy, and it is true that the Franciscans often encouraged flagellation while the Jesuits hated it. But the truth is that the Japanese converts, as Valignano had perceived, made Christians of unrivalled determination and courage. Had the mission been allowed to proceed under the right conditions, the Japanese would have changed the face of world religion. As it was, they became the victims of one of the most ruthless and prolonged persecutions in the long, bloody story of confessional cruelty. From 1614–43, up to 5,000 Japanese Christians were judicially murdered, nearly always in public. The exact total is not known, but 3,125 individual cases are recorded, 71 of them Europeans. About 46 Jesuits and friars contrived to ‘go underground’, but in the long run this merely served to prolong the agony, since the mission could not be effectively reinforced and fugitives were systematically and relentlessly hunted down. The most appalling tortures were inflicted on those,

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  This vision of the church, advocated by others, such as Augustine’s close friend and fellow bishop Alypius, corresponds in a sense to Augustine’s own experience. In his Confessions he admits how desperately lost, sick, and helpless he felt, believing his will to be morally paralyzed, as he awaited the revelation of grace mediated through the church to penetrate him from without and effect his healing.93 But other Christians surely would not have recognized their own experiences in his account. The British monk Pelagius, for one, sharply objected, criticizing Augustine’s Confessions for popularizing a kind of pious self-indulgence. How, then, did Augustine’s idiosyncratic views on the effects of original sin—and hence on the politics of the church and state—come to be accepted in the fifth and sixth centuries, first by the leadership of the Catholic church and then by the majority of its members? The question is, of course, wildly ambitious; but let us attempt to sketch out the beginning of an answer. Let us consider first how the conflicting views of Chrysostom and Augustine might sound to their contemporaries. By the beginning of the fifth century Catholic Christians lived as subjects of an empire they could no longer consider alien, much less wholly evil. Having repudiated the patronage of the traditional gods some two generations earlier, the emperors now sometimes used military force to help stamp out pagan worship. Furthermore, the two sons of Theodosius the Great, reigning since his death in 395 as emperors of East and West, continued their father’s policy of withdrawing patronage from Arian Christians and placing themselves wholly in alliance with the Catholic bishops and clergy. An earlier generation of Christian bishops, including Eusebius of Caesarea, deeply impressed by the events they had witnessed and convinced that they lived at a turning point in history, had hailed Constantine and his successors as God’s chosen rulers. Augustine, like most of his fellow Christians, once had shared that conviction. But after two generations the Christian empire and its rulers, if no longer alien, remained in many respects all too human. By the beginning of the fifth century few who dealt with the government firsthand—certainly not Chrysostom and finally not Augustine either—would have identified it with God’s reign on earth.94

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  to a religious procession.) In fact, during the 1850s, America’s population rose from 23,191,000 to 31,443,000, or almost fifty per cent, more than a third of the increase being due to immigration. This brought the Catholic issue into politics with the emergence of the secretive ultra-Protestant American Party, whose ‘I don’t know’ answer to a key question led to their popular title, the ‘Know Nothings’. The party became a national force before being merged into the Republican Party in 1854; and it was a matter of note that, whereas the Republican Party became identified with the anti-slavery campaign, the Roman Catholic hierarchy remained non-committal on the issue, and took virtually no part in the crusade. This brings us to the second precondition needed to make the American politico- religious system work. As we have seen, there was no difficulty about the level of religiosity. But the second precondition was a level of agreement on certain basic moral and ethical notions as interpreted in public institutions. It was here that the system broke down, for American Christianity could not agree about slavery. One sees why St Paul was chary of tackling the subject head-on: once slavery is established, religious injunctions tend to fit its needs, not vice versa. In the United States, the dilemma had been there right from the start, since 1619 marked the beginning both of representative government and of slavery. But it had slowly become more acute, since the identification of American moral Christianity – its undefined national religion – with democracy made slavery come to seem both an offence against God and an offence against the nation. Political and religious arguments reinforced each other. On the other hand, weren’t the Southern slave-owners Christians too? Indeed they were. There had been a strong anti-slavery movement among the churches, particularly the Baptists and Quakers, in the 1770s; it had petered out because the churches came to terms with Southern practice. But this did not, indeed, could not, remove religion from the slavery question. The doctrinal position might be arguable, but the moral position – which was what mattered – became increasingly clear to the majority of American Christians. The Civil War can be described as the most characteristic religious episode in the whole of American history since its roots and causes were not economic or political but religious and moral. It was a case of a moral principle tested to destruction – not, indeed, of the principle, but of those who opposed it. But in the process Christianity itself was placed under almost intolerable strain.