Fear

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.

Page 33 of 529 · 20 per page

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  was itself mistaken, the Council of Constantinople (553) insisting: ‘Whoever says or thinks that the punishment of demons and the wicked will not be eternal, that it will have an end . . . let him be anathema.’ From Augustine to the Reformation, only the ninth-century Irishman, John Scotus Erigena, positively denied an eternal, or even material Hell, substituting the misery inflicted by the pangs of conscience; and he did not think his view should be taught pastorally. Among a few theologians there was the theory of double truth, which allowed a more qualified attitude in private but insisted on the full horrors for public consumption. Luther himself held that the doctrine of Hell should not be discussed with intellectuals, but only with persons of simple, deep piety. This was, or appeared, a confession of weakness; but the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530), article 17, requires orthodox belief in Hell: ‘Christ. . . will give pious men eternal life and perpetual joy, but he will condemn impious men and devils to torture without end. They condemn the Anabaptists, who hold that there will be an end to the punishment of the damned and of devils.’ The official Anglican position was broadly similar (though the Augsburg statement, article 42 of the 1552 collection, does not figure in the Elizabethan Thirty-Nine Articles). In practice, then, the theologians had insisted on Hell, and done their utmost to bring it home to Christians by portraying it in the most vivid possible terms. Pastoral writers were much more specific about Hell than about Heaven; they wrote of it as though they had been there. The three most influential medieval teachers, Augustine, Peter Lombard and Aquinas, all insisted that the pains of Hell were physical as well as mental and spiritual, and that real fire played a part in them. The general theory was that Hell included any horrible pain that the human imagination could conceive of, plus an infinite variety of others. Hence writers felt at liberty to impress their public by inventing torments. Jerome said that Hell was like a huge winepress. Augustine said it was peopled by ferocious flesh-eating animals, which tore humans to bits slowly and painfully, and were themselves undamaged by the fires. St Stephanus Grandinotensis evaded the problem of imagination by saying that the pains of Hell were so unspeakable that if a human so much as conceived of them, he would instantly die of terror. Eadmer listed fourteen specific pains endured in Hell. Adam Scotus said that those who practised usury would be boiled in molten gold. Many writers refer to a continuous beating with red-hot brazen hammers. Richard Rolle, in Stimulus Conscientiae, argued that the damned tear and eat their own flesh, drink the gall of dragons and the venom of asps, and suck the heads of adders; their bedding

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

  The next day, when the governor, at Paul’s hearing, demanded to know why Thecla refused to marry her legal fiancé, she “stood there looking steadily at Paul” and refused to answer. Her mother, enraged that Thecla would jeopardize her own future as well as her family’s, burst into a violent tirade: “Burn the lawless one! Burn her that is no bride in the middle of the amphitheater, so that all the women who have been taught by this man may be struck with terror!”31 The governor, shaken by Thecla’s defiance and her mother’s rage, ordered Paul to be beaten and driven out of town. Thecla he condemned to be burned alive for violating the laws of the city and so threatening the social order. Brought naked into the amphitheater for execution, Thecla was stretched out on a pile of wood, and the kindling lighted, but suddenly a raincloud overshadowed the amphitheater and burst. Escaping in the confusion, Thecla went searching for Paul. But a Syrian nobleman, aroused by this young woman traveling alone in Antioch, tried to rape her. To protect herself from such attacks, Thecla cut off her hair and dressed herself as a man. Thecla’s story celebrates her as someone who resisted family pressure, social ostracism, rape, torture, and even execution to “follow the word of the virgin life as it was spoken by Paul.” Even the apostle himself, the story says, at first would not take her seriously, refusing to baptize her or to accept her as a fellow evangelist. So she, in desperation, baptized herself, and persisted in pursuing Paul until he reluctantly granted her his blessing. Having achieved her vocation, Thecla became a famous teacher and holy woman, revered for centuries throughout the eastern churches as a beloved saint. Although many legends grew up around Thecla,32 and some scholars regard her story as fiction, she may well have been an actual person.33 Whether or not she in fact heard Paul himself preach, she—and thousands like her—welcomed such radical versions of the gospel. Following Jesus’ advice, these young disciples broke with their families and refused to marry, declaring themselves now members of “God’s family.” Their vows of celibacy served many converts as a declaration of independence from the crushing pressures of tradition and of their families, who ordinarily arranged marriages at puberty and so determined the course of their children’s lives. As early as the second century of the Christian Era, and for many generations thereafter, Christian celibates may have invoked Thecla’s example to justify the right of Christian women to baptize and to preach. Even two hundred years later, Christian women who chose the way of asceticism, whether living in solitude at home or in monastic communities founded and often financed by wealthy women, called themselves “new Theclas.”34

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  ‘without wretchedness, poverty and sickness’, because it was, in a sense, an answer to them. Reason, too, claimed to shed more light that it actually could. ‘Let me therefore be no longer reproached for lack of clarity, since I make a point of it; but let the truth of religion be recognized in its very obscurity, in the little understanding of it we have, and in our indifference about knowing it.’ Man’s suffering and ignorance were thus permanent facts: ‘On seeing the blindness and misery of man, and the astonishing contradictions presented by his nature, and seeing the whole universe dumb, and man without light, abandoned to himself, and as it were lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he will become when he dies, I become fearful, like a man who, transported in his sleep to a deserted and frightful island, awakens without knowing where he is, and without having any possibility of leaving it; and I then marvel that one does not despair of so wretched a condition.’ Faced with this predicament, Pascal argued that Christianity provided a better answer than a solution which depended purely on reason. In all probability, it was a better bet. Pascal was not anti-reason. He saw it as neutral. A rational proof of God, or Christianity, would never displace the gift of faith. He saw a sinister tendency for man’s reason to end in irrationality, just as his natural goodwill was corrupted by animosity. Human life was not necessarily progressing towards sweetness and light: man has a two-fold nature – the Fall, as well as divine grace, operates within him. More positively, the establishment and survival of Christianity was itself a challenge to rationalism (a point Tertullian, or for that matter St Paul, might have made), and in rare moments of inspiration we discover a reality which it is absurd to dissect by reason, and which shows Christ still operates in this world. Thus: ‘Reason’s final step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.’ Or again: ‘There is nothing more reasonable than the rejection of reason.’ Finally: ‘We come to know truth not only by reason, but still more so through our hearts.’ The phenomenon of Pascal, who echoed medieval mysticism and adumbrated nineteenth-century romanticism, dominated the forces of protest within French Catholicism, and so prevented the fusion of reform and reason which produced Locke’s system in England, and allowed the Enlightenment there to develop peacefully within the framework of the Established Christian religion. Under

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In case Federigo should become suspicious of her and take offence, Monna Tessa decided that, come what may, she must get up out of bed and apprise him of the fact that Gianni was there, and so she said to her husband: ‘That’s all very well. You can spout as many words as you like, but as far as I’m concerned I shan’t feel safe or secure until we exorcize it, and now that you are here we can do it.’ ‘Exorcize it?’ said Gianni. ‘How are we to do that?’ ‘I know exactly how to exorcize it,’ said his wife, ‘because the day before yesterday, when I went to the pardoning at Fiesole, I came across a hermitess, who as God is my witness, Gianni dear, is the most saintly woman you ever met, and when she saw how terrified I was of the werewolf, she taught me a fine and godly prayer, telling me that she had tried it many a time before becoming a recluse, and that it had always worked for her. Heaven knows that I would never have sufficient courage to try it out by myself, but now that you are here, I want us to go and exorcize it.’ Gianni thought this an excellent idea, and so they both got up out of bed and tiptoed over to the door, on the other side of which Federigo, his suspicions already aroused, was still waiting. On reaching the door, Gianni’s wife said to him: ‘As soon as I give you the word, have a good spit.’11 ‘Right you are,’ said Gianni. Then the lady began the exorcism, saying: ‘Werewolf, werewolf, black as any crow, you came here with your tail erect, keep it up and go; go into the garden, and look beneath the peach, and there you’ll find roast capons, and a score of eggs with each; raise the flask up to your lips, and take a swig of wine; then get you gone and hurt me not, nor even Gianni mine.’ And so saying she turned to her husband, and said: ‘Spit, Gianni.’ And Gianni spat. Federigo, who was standing outside and heard every syllable, had stopped feeling jealous, and despite all his frustration he had to hold his sides to prevent himself from bursting out laughing. And in a low murmur, as Gianni was doing his spitting, he groaned: ‘The teeth!’ When Monna Tessa had exorcized the werewolf three times in this same fashion, she and her husband returned to bed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘My dear,’ Egano replied, ‘why do you ask such a question when you know very well that I have never had anyone I could trust so completely, or respect so profoundly, as I trust and respect Anichino?’ On learning that Egano had woken up, and hearing his own name being mentioned, Anichino made several attempts to withdraw his hand so that he could make good his escape, for he strongly suspected that the lady was going to give him away. But she was clasping his hand so firmly that it was impossible for him to retrieve it. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ said the lady, in reply to Egano’s question. ‘My own opinion of Anichino was the same as yours; I too considered him the most faithful of your servants. But he has undeceived me, for yesterday, when you were out hawking and he stayed behind, he had the impudence, thinking it a good opportunity, to propose that I should minister to his pleasures. And so that I should have no difficulty in providing you with tangible and visible evidence of all this, I gave him my consent and told him that I would go into the garden, shortly after midnight, and wait for him at the foot of the pine-tree. I personally have no intention of going there, of course: but if you desire to know what a trustworthy servant he is, you can easily slip into one of my skirts, cover your head in a veil, and go down there to see whether he turns up, as I am certain he will.’ ‘I must certainly look into this,’ said Egano. So he got out of bed, and, groping around in the darkness, he struggled into one of his wife’s skirts as best he could and covered his head in a veil. Then he made his way down to the garden and stood at the foot of the pine-tree, waiting for Anichino to turn up. As soon as she heard him leaving the bedroom, the lady got up and bolted the door from the inside. After experiencing the biggest fright that he had ever had in his life, and struggling with all his might to free himself from the lady’s grasp, and silently heaping a hundred thousand curses upon the lady and upon himself for loving her and trusting her, Anichino was positively overjoyed when, at the end of it all, he saw what she had done. As soon as the lady had returned to her bed, she urged him to strip off his clothes and get in beside her, and there they lay for quite some time together, to their mutual pleasure and delight. When the lady thought it was time for Anichino to go, she persuaded him to get up and put on his clothes, saying: ‘My darling treasure, find yourself a good stout stick and go down to the garden.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As you can see for yourself, I am no longer her lover but her enemy, and in this guise I am obliged to pursue her for the same number of years as the months of her cruelty towards me. Stand aside, therefore, and let me carry out the judgement of God. Do not try to oppose what you cannot prevent.’ On hearing these words, Nastagio was shaken to the core, there was scarcely a single hair on his head that was not standing on end, and he stepped back to fix his gaze on the unfortunate girl, waiting in fear and trembling to see what the knight would do to her. This latter, having finished speaking, pounced like a mad dog, rapier in hand, upon the girl, who was kneeling before him, held by the two mastiffs, and screaming for mercy at the top of her voice. Applying all his strength, the knight plunged his rapier into the middle of her breast and out again at the other side, whereupon the girl fell on her face, still sobbing and screaming, whilst the knight, having laid hold of a dagger, slashed open her back, extracted her heart and everything else around it, and hurled it to the two mastiffs, who devoured it greedily on the instant. But before very long the girl rose suddenly to her feet as though none of these things had happened, and sped off in the direction of the sea, being pursued by the dogs, who kept tearing away at her flesh as she ran. Remounting his horse, and seizing his rapier, the knight too began to give chase, and within a short space of time they were so far away that Nastagio could no longer see them. For some time after bearing witness to these events, Nastagio stood rooted to the spot out of fear and compassion, but after a while it occurred to him that since this scene was enacted every Friday, it ought to prove very useful to him. So he marked the place and returned to his servants; and when the time seemed ripe, he sent for his friends and kinsfolk, and said to them: ‘For some little time you have been urging me to desist from wooing this hostile mistress of mine and place a curb on my extravagance, and I am willing to do so on condition that you obtain for me a single favour, which is this: that on Friday next you arrange for Messer Paolo Traversari and his wife and

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As she lay there in the bath, which was near the postern on the other side of which our unfortunate hero had taken shelter, she could hear the wails and moans being uttered by Rinaldo, who sounded from the way his teeth were chattering as if he had been turned into a stork. 3 She therefore summoned her maid, and said: ‘Go upstairs, look over the wall, and see who it is on the other side of this door. Find out who he is and what he is doing there.’ The maid went up, and by the light of the stars she saw him sitting there just as we have described him, bare-footed and wearing only his shirt, and quivering all over like a jelly. She asked him who he was, and Rinaldo, who was shaking so much that he could hardly articulate, told her his name and explained as briefly as possible how and why he came to be there. He then implored her, in an agonized voice, to do whatever she could to prevent his being left there all night slowly freezing to death. The maid, feeling very sorry for him, returned to her mistress and told her the whole story. The lady too was filled with pity, and, remembering that she had a key for that particular door, which the Marquis occasionally used for his clandestine visits, she said to the maid: ‘Go and let him in, but do it quietly. We have this supper here, and no one to eat it. And we can easily put him up, for there’s plenty of room.’ The maid warmly commended her mistress’s charity, then she went and opened the door and let him in. Perceiving that he was almost frozen stiff, the lady of the house said to him: ‘Quickly, good sir, step into that bath whilst it is still warm.’ He willingly obeyed, without waiting to be bidden twice. His whole body was refreshed by its warmth, and he felt as if he were returning from death to life. The lady had him supplied with clothes that had once belonged to her husband, who had died quite recently, and when he put them on they fitted him to perfection. As he awaited further instructions from the lady, he fell to thanking God and Saint Julian for rescuing him from the cruel night he had been expecting, and leading him to what appeared a good lodging. Meanwhile the lady had taken a brief rest, having first ordered a huge fire to be lit in one of the rooms, to which she presently came, asking what had become of the gentleman.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  For I maintain that if one conducts one’s life virtuously, there is no reason to be afraid of any dream that encourages one to behave differently or to abandon one’s good intentions because of it: and if one harbours perverse and wicked intentions, however much one’s dreams appear favourable to these and encourage one to pursue them by presenting auspicious omens, none of them should be believed, whilst full credence should be given to those which predict the opposite. But let us turn now to the story. In the city of Brescia there once lived a nobleman called Messer Negro da Pontecarraro. He had several children, including a daughter whose name was Andreuola, and although she was an exceedingly beautiful young woman, she was as yet unmarried. Andreuola chanced to fall in love with a neighbour of hers called Gabriotto, a man of low estate but full of admirable qualities, as well as being handsome and pleasing in appearance. Aided and abetted by her maidservant, the girl not only succeeded in apprising Gabriotto of her love but had him conveyed regularly into a beautiful garden in the grounds of her father’s house, to the mutual joy of the two parties concerned. And so that this delectable love of theirs should never be torn asunder save by the hand of death, they secretly became husband and wife. They continued to make love by this furtive means until one night, as she lay asleep, the girl had a dream in which she seemed to see herself in the garden with Gabriotto, giving and getting intense pleasure as she held him in her arms: and whilst they were thus occupied, she seemed to see a dark and terrible thing issuing from his body, the form of which she could not make out. The thing appeared to take hold of Gabriotto, and, by exerting some miraculous force, to tear him away from her despite all she could do to prevent it. It then vanished below ground, taking him with it, and they never set eyes upon one another again. Her sorrow was so intense that it woke her up, and although, now that she was awake, she felt relieved that she had merely been imagining all this, she was nevertheless filled with terror because of the dreadful things she had dreamt about. And for this reason, knowing that Gabriotto was anxious to visit her that evening, she did everything in her power to ensure that he stayed away. The following night, however, seeing that he was determined to come, she received him in the garden as usual. The roses were in flower, and she plucked a large number, some red and others white, 1 before going to join him at the edge of a magnificent, crystal-clear fountain situated in the garden.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On learning that Egano had woken up, and hearing his own name being mentioned, Anichino made several attempts to withdraw his hand so that he could make good his escape, for he strongly suspected that the lady was going to give him away. But she was clasping his hand so firmly that it was impossible for him to retrieve it. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ said the lady, in reply to Egano’s question. ‘My own opinion of Anichino was the same as yours; I too considered him the most faithful of your servants. But he has undeceived me, for yesterday, when you were out hawking and he stayed behind, he had the impudence, thinking it a good opportunity, to propose that I should minister to his pleasures. And so that I should have no difficulty in providing you with tangible and visible evidence of all this, I gave him my consent and told him that I would go into the garden, shortly after midnight, and wait for him at the foot of the pine-tree. I personally have no intention of going there, of course: but if you desire to know what a trustworthy servant he is, you can easily slip into one of my skirts, cover your head in a veil, and go down there to see whether he turns up, as I am certain he will.’ ‘I must certainly look into this,’ said Egano. So he got out of bed, and, groping around in the darkness, he struggled into one of his wife’s skirts as best he could and covered his head in a veil. Then he made his way down to the garden and stood at the foot of the pine-tree, waiting for Anichino to turn up. As soon as she heard him leaving the bedroom, the lady got up and bolted the door from the inside. After experiencing the biggest fright that he had ever had in his life, and struggling with all his might to free himself from the lady’s grasp, and silently heaping a hundred thousand curses upon the lady and upon himself for loving her and trusting her, Anichino was positively overjoyed when, at the end of it all, he saw what she had done. As soon as the lady had returned to her bed, she urged him to strip off his clothes and get in beside her, and there they lay for quite some time together, to their mutual pleasure and delight. When the lady thought it was time for Anichino to go, she persuaded him to get up and put on his clothes, saying: ‘My darling treasure, find yourself a good stout stick and go down to the garden. Make it appear that you were putting my fidelity to the test, pretend to think that Egano is me, shower him with abuse, and give him a sound thrashing4 with the stick. Just think of the wonderful joy and amusement it’ll bring to us both!’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But as you could see just now, he has this extraordinary knack of disguising himself in any manner he chooses.’ There was no need to say any more, for on hearing this they forced their way to the front, and began to shout: ‘Take hold of that blaspheming swindler! He comes here pretending to be a cripple, poking fun at our Saint and making fools of us when he wasn’t really crippled at all!’ And so saying, they seized him and dragged him away; then they took him by the hair, tore every stitch of clothing from his back, and started to punch and to kick him. In fact, everybody within sight was bearing down upon him, or so it seemed to Martellino. ‘Mercy, for the love of God!’ he cried, defending himself as best he could. But it was of no use, for more and more people were piling on top of him every minute. When Marchese and Stecchi saw what was happening, they began to have serious misgivings. Fearing for their own safety, they dared not go to Martellino’s assistance, but on the contrary they yelled ‘Kill him!’ as loudly as anybody else, at the same time trying to devise some way of rescuing him from the hands of the mob. And he would certainly have been killed but for a quick piece of thinking on the part of Marchese, who made his way as swiftly as possible to the captain in charge of the watch, drawn up in strength outside the church, and said to him: ‘For God’s sake, come quickly! There’s a villain over here who has cut my purse, and robbed me of a hundred gold florins at the very least. Arrest him! Please don’t let him run off with my money!’ On hearing this, a dozen or more of the officers rushed over to the place where poor Martellino was having his brains beaten out, and after forcing their way through the crowd with enormous difficulty, they removed him all bruised and battered from their clutches, and hauled him off to the magistrate’s palace. A number of people followed him all the way, still angry with him for hoodwinking them, and when they heard he had been arrested as a cutpurse, they too began to claim that he had stolen their purses, thinking this as fair a way as any of making life unpleasant for him. The magistrate, who was of a harsh disposition, no sooner heard these accusations than he took him aside and began to interrogate him on the matter. But Martellino gave him facetious answers, as though quite unconcerned at his arrest. This upset the judge, who had him fastened to the strappado, and ordered him to be given a series of good hard blows, with the intention of extracting a confession from him before having him hanged.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  scores to settle. Thus began the practice of treating non-juring clergy as suspects. Soon, fear of clericalism merged with fear of royal and aristocratic reaction, combined with foreign invasion. The new Assembly of October 1791 was crowded with anti- clericals and contained only twenty clergy, all jurors. It passed a decree declaring non- jurors ‘suspects’ and linking them with the swelling ranks of the militant emigrés. Then came war with Austria, which in effect made non-juring treason, and a provocative remark by Cardinal Maury, who told the emigrés at Mayence that the Pope needed ‘their sabres to trim his pens’. Of course this was what the anti-clericals had suspected all along. In May 1792 came the first repressive decree, ordering the deportation of any non-juring priest denounced by twenty ‘active’ citizens. Many were locked up, and when the prison massacres of September 1792 took place, three bishops and two hundred and twenty priests were among the victims. There were a good many other killings. In what had been sleepy Angers, a new method of execution was devised, ‘de-Christianization by immersion’. Clerics were bound together in pairs, packed into boats, and turned loose in the river. In December 1794, fifty-eight were disposed of in this fashion. A local anti-clerical wrote: ‘Last night they were one and all swallowed by the river. What a revolutionary torrent is the Loire!’ There was mounting terror until the fall of Robespierre, and stability was not restored until Napoleon established a quite different regime. Thus for the first time a frontal attack was made on Christian institutions. Catholicism was tested to destruction and found to be, at least temporarily, highly vulnerable. But reason, which took its place, was also tested to destruction and found to be inadequate, even ridiculous. Of course all this had been foreseen by Voltaire, who guessed that reason in charge might cut an unimpressive figure unless linked closely to specific and justified reforms in society. (He admired the English approach.) As a matter of fact, by the 1790s, reason was no longer the guiding principle of the European intelligentsia. It was having to compete not only with the romantic movement, infused by Kantian spirituality, but a swelling variety of fashionable superstitions. The situation was not unlike that of the first century, with paganism, gnosticism and scepticism, as well as Christianity, all jostling each other. In Germany, the most active form of eighteenth-century religious expression, Pietism, had yielded to Illuminism, which was connected to newly surfaced freemason and Rosicrucian movements – once, in the early seventeenth century, an expression of the third force. André Chenier described the Illuminés in his De i’esprit de parti (1791) as

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Needless to say, Cimon was greatly aggrieved by all this. The gods had granted his desire, but only, it seemed, to fill him with dread at the prospect of dying, which without Iphigenia he would have faced with cheerful indifference. His companions were equally woebegone, but the saddest one of all was Iphigenia, who was shedding copious tears and trembled with fear at every buffeting of the waves. Between her tears she bitterly cursed Cimon’s love and censured his temerity, declaring that this alone had brought about the raging tempest, though it could also have arisen because Cimon’s desire to marry her was contrary to the will of the gods, who were determined, not only to deny him the fruits of his presumptuous longing, but to make him witness her demise before he, too, died a miserable death. These laments she continued to pour forth, along with others of still greater vehemence, until, with the wind blowing fiercer all the time, the seamen at their wits’ end, and everyone ignorant of the course they were steering, they arrived off the island of Rhodes. Not realizing where they were, they did everything in their power to make a good landfall, and thus prevent loss of life. Fortune was kindly to their endeavours, and guided them into a tiny bay, to which the Rhodians released by Cimon on the previous day had brought their own vessel a little while before. Dawn was breaking as they entered the bay, turning the sky a little brighter, and no sooner did they become aware that they were at the island of Rhodes than they perceived the very ship from which they had parted company, lying no more than a stone’s throw away from their own. Cimon was dismayed beyond measure by this discovery, and fearing just such a fate as eventually overtook him, he called upon his crew to spare no effort in getting away from there and allowing Fortune to carry them wherever she pleased, since she could hardly choose a worse place than the one they were in. They strove with might and main to make good their escape, but without success, for a fierce gale was blowing directly against them, which not only prevented them from leaving the bay but drove them of necessity to the shore. They eventually ran aground and were recognized by the Rhodian sailors, who by now were already ashore. One of these hurried off to inform the young Rhodian nobles, who had mean-while made their way to a nearby town, that the ship carrying Cimon and Iphigenia had, like their own, been driven into the bay by the storm.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Indeed, the lady came to rely so completely on the fellow’s talent for drinking himself unconscious that she made bold, not only to admit her lover to the premises, but on occasion to go and spend a goodly part of the night with him at his own house, which was no great distance away. The amorous lady had been doing this for quite some time when her unfortunate husband happened to notice that although she encouraged him to drink, she herself never drank at all, which made him suspect (as was indeed the case) that his wife was making him drunk so that she could do as she pleased when he was asleep. In order to prove whether this was so, he returned home one evening, having refrained from drinking for the whole day, and pretended to be as drunk as a lord, scarcely able to speak or stand on his feet. Being taken in by all this, and concluding that he would sleep like a log without imbibing any more liquor, his wife quickly put him to bed, then left the house and made her way, as on previous occasions, to the house of her lover, where she stayed for half the night. Hearing no sound from his wife, Tofano got up, went and bolted the door from the inside, and stationed himself at the window so that he would see her coming back and let her know that he had tumbled to her mischief; and there he remained until she returned. Great indeed was the woman’s distress when she came home to find that she was locked out, and she began to apply all her strength in an effort to force the door open. Tofano put up with this for a while, then he said: ‘You’re wasting your energies, woman. You can’t possibly get in. Go back to wherever it is that you’ve been until this hour of the night, and rest assured that you won’t return to this house till I’ve made an example of you in front of your kinsfolk and neighbours.’ Then his wife began to plead with him for the love of God to let her in, saying that she had not been doing anything wrong, as he supposed, but simply keeping vigil with a neighbour of hers, who could neither sleep the whole night because it was too long, nor keep vigil in the house by herself. Her pleas were totally unavailing, for the silly ass was clearly determined that all the Aretines should learn about his dishonour, of which none of them had so far heard anything.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SEVENTH STORY Teodoro falls in love with Violante, the daughter of his master, Messer Amerigo. He gets her with child, and is sentenced to die on the gallows. But whilst he is being whipped along the road to his execution, he is recognized by his father and set at liberty, after which he and Violante become husband and wife . All the ladies were on tenterhooks, anxiously wondering whether the two lovers would be burnt, and on learning that they had escaped, they all rejoiced and offered thanks to God. Then, having heard the end of the story, the queen entrusted the telling of the next to Lauretta, who cheerfully began as follows: Fairest ladies, there once lived in the island of Sicily, during the reign of good King William, 1 a nobleman called Messer Amerigo Abate of Trapani, 2 who was blessed with many possessions, including a large number of children. He was therefore in need of servants, and when certain galleys arrived from the Levant belonging to Genoese pirates, 3 who had captured a great many children along the Armenian coast, he purchased a number of them, believing them to be Turkish. For the most part they appeared to be of rustic, shepherd stock, but there was one, Teodoro by name, who seemed gently bred and better looking than any of the others. Though he was treated as a servant, Teodoro was brought up in the house along with Messer Amerigo’s children, and as he grew older, being prompted by his innate good breeding rather than by the accident of his menial status, he’ acquired so much poise and so agreeable a manner that Messer Amerigo granted him his freedom. Supposing him to be a Turk, 4 Messer Amerigo had him baptized and re-named Pietro, and placed him in charge of his business affairs, taking him deeply into his confidence. Side-by-side with Messer Amerigo’s other children, there grew up a daughter of his called Violante, 5 a dainty young beauty who, as her father was not in a hurry to marry her off, chanced to fall in love with Pietro. But whilst she loved him, and held his conduct and achievements in high esteem, she was too shy to tell him so directly. Love spared her this trouble, however, for Pietro, having cast many a furtive glance in her direction, fell so violently in love with her that he felt unhappy whenever she was out of his sight. Since he could not help feeling that what he was doing was wrong, he was greatly afraid lest anyone should discover his secret; but the girl, who was by no means averse to his company, divined his feelings towards her, and, in order to bolster his confidence, she let it appear that she was delighted, as indeed she was. And on this footing their relationship rested for some considerable time, neither of them venturing to say anything to the other, much as they mutually desired to do so.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I only mentioned it for your own good, and once again I advise you to stay at home today, or at any rate to keep well away from those woods of ours.’ ‘Very well,’ said the woman, ‘I’ll do as you say.’ But then she began to think to herself: ‘Here’s a crafty fellow! Do you see how he tries to frighten me out of going near the woods today? He’s doubtless made an appointment there with some strumpet or other, and doesn’t want me to find him. Ah, he’d do well for himself at a supper for the blind, but knowing him as I do, I should be a great fool to take him at his word. He certainly won’t get away with this. I shall find out what business takes him to those woods, even if I have to wait there the whole day.’ No sooner had she reached the end of these deliberations than her husband left the house, whereupon she too left the house by a separate door and made her way to the woods without a moment’s delay, keeping out of sight as much as possible. On entering the woods, she concealed herself in the thickest part she could find, and kept a sharp lookout on all sides so that she could see if anyone was coming. Nothing was further removed from her thoughts than the prospect of seeing any wolves, but all of a sudden, whilst she was standing there in the way we have described, a wolf of terrifying size leapt out from a nearby thicket; on seeing which, she scarcely had time to exclaim ‘Lord, deliver me!’ before the wolf hurled itself at her throat, seized her firmly in its jaws, and began to carry her off as though she were a new-born lamb. So tightly was the wolf holding on to her throat that she was unable to scream for help, nor was there anything else she could do; and hence the wolf, as it bore her away, would assuredly have strangled her but for the fact that it ran towards some shepherds, who yelled at the beast and forced it to release her. The poor, unfortunate woman was recognized by the shepherds, who carried her back to her house, and after long and intensive treatment at the hands of various physicians, she recovered. Her recovery was not complete, however, for the whole of her throat and a part of her face were so badly disfigured that whereas she was formerly a beautiful woman, she was thenceforth deformed and utterly loath-some to look upon. Hence she was ashamed to show herself in public, and shed many a bitter tear for her petulant ways and her refusal to give credence, when it would have cost her nothing, to her husband’s prophetic dream.

• From Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  If economic interests do not conflict too sharply, if the spirit of accommodation partially resolves them, and if the democratic process has achieved moral prestige and historic dignity, the coercive factor in politics may become too covert to be visible to the casual observer. Nevertheless, only a romanticist of the purest water could maintain that a national group ever arrives at a “common mind” or becomes conscious of a “general will” without the use of either force or the threat of force. This is particularly true of nations, but it is also true, though in a slighter degree, of other social groups. Even religious communities, if they are sufficiently large, and if they deal with issues regarded as vital by their members, resort to coercion to preserve their unity. Religious organisations have usually availed themselves of a covert type of coercion (excommunication and the interdict) or they have called upon the police power of the state. The limitations of the human mind and imagination, the inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of the process of social cohesion. But the same force which guarantees peace also makes for injustice. “Power,” said Henry Adams, “is poison”; and it is a poison which blinds the eyes of moral insight and lames the will of moral purpose. The individual or the group which organises any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself. The two most obvious types of power are the military and the economic, though in primitive society the power of the priest, partly because he dispenses supernatural benefits and partly because he establishes public order by methods less arduous than those of the soldier, vies with that of the soldier and the landlord. The chief difference between the agrarian civilisations, which lasted from the rise of ancient Babylon and Egypt to the fall of European feudalism, and the commercial and industrial civilisations of today is that in the former the military power is primary, and in the latter it has become secondary, to economic power. In agrarian civilisations the soldier becomes the landlord. In more primitive periods he may claim the land by his own military prowess. In later periods a grateful sovereign bestowed land upon the soldiers who defended his realm and consolidated his dominion. The soldier thus gained the economic security and the social prestige which could be exploited in further martial service to his sovereign. The business man and industrial overlord are gradually usurping the position of eminence and privilege once held by the soldier and the priest. In most European nations their ascendancy over the landed aristocrat of military traditions is not as complete as in America, which has no feudal traditions. In present-day Japan the military caste is still so powerful that it threatens to destroy the rising power of the commercial groups.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On hearing the tomb being opened, Alessandro was filled with terror, but managed none the less to remain perfectly still. Rinuccio clambered in, and thinking he was taking up the body of Scannadio, seized Alessandro by the feet, dragged him out, hoisted him on to his shoulders, and set off in the direction of the gentlewoman’s house. It was such a dark night that he couldn’t really see where he was going, and being none too particular about his burden, he frequently banged Alessandro’s body against the edges of certain benches that were set at intervals along the side of the street. The gentlewoman, being eager to see whether Rinuccio would fetch Alessandro, was standing with her maidservant at the window, forearmed with a suitable pretext for sending them both packing. But just as Rinuccio came up to her front door, he was challenged by the officers of the watch, who happened to be lying in ambush for an outlaw in that very part of the city. On hearing the sound of Rinuccio’s laboured tread, they promptly produced a lantern to see what was afoot, and seizing their shields and their lances, they called out: ‘Who goes there?’ Rinuccio realized at once who it was, and not having time to stop and compose his thoughts, he dropped Alessandro like a sack of coal and ran off as fast as his legs would carry him. Meanwhile Alessandro scrambled quickly to his feet, and though he was encumbered by the dead man’s garments, which were inordinately long, he too took to his heels. By the light of the officers’ lantern, the lady had plainly observed Rinuccio carrying Alessandro on his shoulders, dressed in Scannadio’s clothes, and was greatly amazed by this evident proof of their courage. But for all her amazement, she was convulsed with laughter when she saw Alessandro being dropped, and when she saw them running away. Delighted at the turn which events had taken, and giving thanks to God for ridding her from their tiresome attentions, she withdrew from the window and retired to her room, declaring to her maidservant that her two suitors must without a doubt be very much in love with her, as it seemed they had followed her instructions to the letter. Rinuccio was heartbroken over what had happened, and cursed his evil luck, but instead of going home, he waited till the officers had gone, and returned to the place where he had dumped Alessandro. He then began to grope about on hands and knees in search of the body so that he could carry out the rest of his assignment, but being unable to find it, he assumed it had been taken away by the officers, and sadly made his way back home. Not knowing what else he could do, Alessandro likewise returned home without ever having discovered who had fetched him from the tomb, feeling bitterly disappointed that things should have turned out so disastrously. Next morning, when Scannadio’s tomb was found open and there was no sign of the corpse (Alessandro having rolled it down into the lower depths), the whole of Pistoia was alive with rumours as to what exactly had happened, the more simple-minded concluding that Scannadio had been spirited away by demons. Each of the lady’s suitors informed her what he had done and what had happened, and, apologizing on this account for not carrying out her instructions to the full, demanded her forgiveness and her love. But she pretended not to believe them, and by curtly replying that she wanted no more to do with either of them, as they had failed to carry out her bidding, she neatly rid herself of both.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And out of fear lest they should make a public laughing-stock of him, from that day forth he pampered and fêted them on a much more lavish scale than ever before. So now you have heard how wisdom is imparted to anyone who has not acquired much of it in Bologna.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  A little before dawn, she heard a loud trampling of horses’ hooves, so she got up and made her way into a spacious yard at the rear of the cottage. Along one of its sides, she saw a great pile of hay, in which she decided to hide, so that if these strangers came to the cottage, she would not be so easily found. No sooner had she finished concealing herself, than the horsemen, a large band of marauders, arrived at the door of the cottage. Having forced the old people to open the door, they pushed their way inside, where they found the girl’s nag still fully saddled, and demanded to know who was there. Seeing no sign of the girl, the good man replied: ‘There is no one here apart from ourselves. But this nag, whoever it ran away from, turned up here yesterday evening, and we brought it into the house so that it would not be devoured by wolves.’ ‘In that case,’ the gang’s leader replied, ‘since he doesn’t belong to anyone we shall take him along with us.’ The bandits dispersed through the cottage, and some of them found their way into the yard, where they put off their lances and wooden shields. But one of their number, having nothing better to do, happened to hurl his lance into the hay, coming within an ace of killing the hidden girl, who all but gave herself away as the head of the lance skimmed her left breast, passing so close to her body that it tore through her clothes. She very nearly let out a great scream, fearing that she would come to serious harm, but remembered just in time where she was and kept quiet, trembling from head to foot. The men roamed freely about the house in small groups, and having cooked themselves some goat’s meat and one or two other things they had brought with them, they ate and drank to their hearts’ content. They then went about their business, taking the girl’s nag with them, and when they were at a safe distance from the cottage, the good man turned to his wife, and said: ‘Whatever became of the young woman who came to us yesterday evening? I haven’t set eyes on her from the time we got up.’ The good woman said she had no idea, and went off to look for her. On realizing that the men had gone away, the girl clambered out of the hay. The old man was greatly relieved to discover that she had not fallen into their clutches, and since it was now growing light he said to her: ‘Now that the day is breaking, we shall go with you, if you like, to a castle which is only five miles away, where you will find yourself in good hands.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Well, he took a fancy to me, and what with my fear of him on the one hand and my love for him on the other, a month or two ago I was obliged to become his mistress. When he discovered you were not going to be here last night, he talked me into allowing him into your house to sleep with me in my room. He said he was thirsty, but I hadn’t a drop of wine or water to offer him. I couldn’t go downstairs without being seen by your good lady, who was in the drawing-room, but I remembered having seen a bottle of water in your bedroom, and so I ran to fetch it, gave it him to drink, and put the bottle back again where I had found it. They tell me you’ve been playing merry hell about it, and I freely confess that it was wrong of me to do it, but then everybody makes a blunder occasionally. I can only say that I am very sorry, not only for doing what I did, but also for Ruggieri’s sake, because he is about to lose his life over it. I therefore beseech you with all my heart to forgive me and let me go and see what I can do to help Ruggieri.’ Angry though he was to hear what she had done, the doctor had difficulty in keeping a straight face. ‘You have been hoist with your own petard,’ he replied. ‘For you thought you had a young man who would shake your skin-coat well and truly last night, instead of which you had a slug-abed. Now go and see about saving your lover, and take good care in future not to bring him into the house again, otherwise I shall make you pay for it twice over.’ Feeling that she had emerged with flying colours from the first of her engagements, the maid hurried round as quickly as possible to the prison and