Grief

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)

  The lady could not descend by herself, and so, after some little discussion, the swineherd hoisted her on to his shoulders and carried her safely down the ladder and out of the tower, leaving the maidservant to make her own way down. But being in too much of a hurry, the poor maidservant missed her footing as she was descending the ladder, and fell to the ground, breaking her thigh in the process, whereupon she began to roar with agony like a wounded lion. Having set the lady down on the grass, the swineherd returned to see what was wrong with the maidservant, and on finding she had broken her thigh, he brought her forth in the same fashion, setting her on the grass by the side of her mistress. When the lady saw that, on top of her other afflictions, the person on whose assistance she most depended had broken her thigh, she burst yet again into tears, weeping so bitterly that not only was the swineherd unable to console her, but he too started to cry. But as the sun was by now beginning to set, and the hapless lady was anxious that they should be away from there before nightfall, she prevailed upon him to go back to his house, whence, having enlisted the aid of his wife and two of his brothers, he returned with a plank on which they placed the maidservant and conveyed her to the house. Meanwhile, the lady’s spirits having been restored by a draught of cool water and a torrent of sympathy, the swineherd hoisted her once more on to his shoulders, and carried her home, setting her down in her own bedroom. His wife prepared a bowl of gruel for the lady, after which she undressed her and put her to bed. Between them they arranged that both the lady and her maid should be taken to Florence later that same night, and this was duly done. On returning to Florence, the lady, who was by no means deficient in guile, wove a completely fictitious account of how she and her maid had sustained their injuries, and persuaded her brothers, sisters, and everyone else that it had all come about through the machinations of evil spirits. The physicians promptly set to work upon the lady, but since she shed the whole of her skin several times over because it kept sticking to the bedclothes, she suffered untold agony and torment before they succeeded in curing her of her raging fever and other infirmities. They also attended to the maidservant’s thigh, which in due course mended itself.

• From Carmina (-50)

  nil mihi tam ualde placeat, Ramnusia uirgo, quod temere inuitis suscipiatur heris. quam ieiuna pium desideret ara cruorem, docta est amisso Laudamia uiro, 80 coniugis ante coacta noui dimittere collum, quam ueniens una atque altera rursus hiems noctibus in longis auidum saturasset amorem, posset ut abrupto uiuere coniugio, quod scibant Parcae non longo tempore abisse, 85 si miles muros isset ad Iliacos. nam tum Helenae raptu primores Argiuorum coeperat ad sese Troia ciere uiros, Troia (nefas) commune sepulcrum Asiae Europaeque, Troia uirum et uirtutum omnium acerba cinis, 90 qualiter et nostro letum miserabile fratri attulit. ei misero frater adempte mihi, ei misero fratri iucundum lumen ademptum, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus, omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, 95 quae tuus in uita dulcis alebat amor. quem nunc tam longe non inter nota sepulcra nec prope cognatos compositum cineris, sed Troia obscena, Troia infelice sepultum detinet extremo terra aliena solo. 100 ad quam tum properans fertur simul undique pubes Graeca penetralis deseruisse focos, ne Paris abducta gauisus libera moecha otia pacato degeret in thalamo. quo tibi tum casu, pulcerrima Laudamia, 105 ereptum est uita dulcius atque anima coniugium: tanto te absorbens uertice amoris aestus in abruptum detulerat barathrum, quale ferunt Grai Pheneum prope Cylleneum siccare emulsa pingue palude solum, 110 quod quondam caesis montis fodisse medullis audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades, tempore quo certa Stymphalia monstra sagitta perculit imperio deterioris heri, pluribus ut caeli tereretur ianua diuis, 115 Hebe nec longa uirginitate foret. sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altior illo, qui actutum domitum ferre iugum docuit. nam neque tam carum confecto aetate parenti una caput seri nata nepotis alit, 120 qui cum diuitiis uix tandem inuentus auitis nomen testatas intulit in tabulas, impia derisi gentilis gaudia tollens, suscitat a cano uolturium capiti: nec tantum niueo gauisa est ulla columbo 125 compar, quae multo dicitur improbius oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, quam cum praecipue multiuola est mulier. sed tu horum magnos uicisti sola furores, ut semel es flauo conciliata uiro. 130 aut nihil aut paulo cui tum concedere digna lux mea se nostrum contulit in gremium, quam circumcursans hinc illinc saepe Cupido fulgebat crocina candidus in tunica. quae tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo, 135 rara uerecundae furta feremus herae, ne nimium simus stultorum more molesti. saepe etiam Iuno, maxima caelicolum, coniugis in culpa flagrantem contudit iram, noscens omniuoli plurima facta Iouis. 140 at, quia nec diuis homines componier aequum est, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ingratum tremuli tolle parentis onus. nec tamen illa mihi dexstra deducta paterna fraglantem Assyrio uenit odore domum, sed furtiua dedit mira munuscula nocte, 145 ipsius ex ipso dempta uiri gremio. quare illud satis est, si nobis is datur unis quem lapide illa diem candidiore notat. hoc tibi, quod potui, confectum carmine munus pro multis, Alli, redditur officiis, 150 ne uestrum scabra tangat rubigine nomen haec atque illa dies atque alia atque alia.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There was nobody at hand to revive her with cold water or other remedies, and hence it was some time before she came to her senses. When, eventually, the strength returned to her poor exhausted body, bringing with it further tears and lamentations, she called out over and over again to her children and searched high and low for them in every cavern she could find. But when she saw that her efforts were useless and that the night was approaching, she began, prompted by an instinctive feeling that all was not entirely lost, to devote some attention to her own predicament. And, leaving the shore, she returned to the cave where she was in the habit of giving vent to her tears and sorrow. She had had nothing to eat since midday, and a little after tierce on the following morning, having spent the night in great fear and incredible anguish, she was compelled to start eating grass in order to appease her hunger. Having fed herself to the best of her ability, she then started brooding, tearfully, about what was to become of her. And whilst in the midst of these various reflections, she caught sight of a doe, which came towards her and disappeared into a nearby cave, emerging shortly afterwards and then running away into the woods. Getting up from where she was sitting, she entered the cave from which the doe had emerged, and inside she saw two newly born roebucks, no more than a few hours old, which seemed to her the sweetest and most charming sight it was possible to imagine. And since her own milk was not yet dry after her recent confinement, she picked them up tenderly and applied them to her breast. They showed no sign of refusing this favour, but took suck from her as though she were their own mother; and from then on they made no distinction between their mother and herself. Thus the lady felt she had found some company on this deserted island, and having become just as familiar with the doe as with the two roebucks, she resolved to remain there for the rest of her days on a diet of grass and water, bursting into tears whenever she remembered her past life with her husband and children. As a result of leading this sort of life, the gentle woman had turned quite wild when, a few months later, a small Pisan ship happened to be driven in by a storm, casting anchor in the same little bay where she herself had arrived, and lying there for several days.

• From Trash (1988)

  I held Mama’s free hand anyway, stepping away every time the doctor came in to wash with the soap the hospital provided. Mavis let me have a bottle of her own lotion when my fingers began to dry and the skin along my thumbs split. “Aloe vera and olive oil,” she told me. “Use it on your mama, too.” I took the bottle over to rub it into the paper-thin skin on the backs of Mama’s hands. She barely seemed to notice, though a couple of her veins had leaked enough to make swollen, blue-black blotches. Mama’s eyes tracked past me and even as I rubbed one hand, the fingers of the other reached for the morphine pump. That drip, that precious drip. Mama no longer hissed and gasped with every breath. Now she murmured and whispered, sang a little, even said recognizable names sometimes—my sisters, her sisters, and people long dead. Every once in a while, her voice would startle, the words suddenly clear and outraged. “Goddamn!” loud in the room. Then, “Get me a cigarette, get me a cigarette,” as she came awake. Angry and begging at the same time, she cursed, “Goddamn it, just one,” before the morphine swept in and took her down again. That was not our mama. Our mama never begged, never backed up, never whined, moaned, and thrashed in her sheets. My sister Jo and I stared at her. This mama was eating us alive. Every time she started it again, that litany of curses and pleas, I hunkered down further in my seat. Jo rocked in her chair, arms hugging her shoulders and head down. Arlene, the youngest of us, had wrung her hands and wiped her eyes, and finally, deciding she was no use, headed on home. Jo and I had stayed, unspeaking, miserable, and desperate. On the third night after they gave her the pump, Mama hit some limit the nurses seemed determined to ignore. Her thumb beat time, but the pump lagged behind and the curses returned. The pleas became so heartbroken I expected the paint to start peeling off the walls. The curses became mewling growls. Finally, Jo gave me a sharp look and we stood up as one. She went over to try to force the window open, pounding the window frame till it came loose. I dug around in Jo’s purse, found her Marlboros, lit one, and held it to Mama’s lips. Jo went and stood guard at the door. Mama coughed, sucked, and smiled gratefully. “Baby,” she whispered. “Baby,” and fell asleep with ashes on her neck. Jo walked over and took the cigarette I still held. “Stupid damn rules,” she said bitterly. Mavis came in then, sniffed loudly, and shook her head at us. “You know you can’t do that.” “Do what?” Jo had disappeared the smoke as if it had never been.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  She thereupon collapsed in tears at his feet, and Messer Negro too began to cry, for he was by nature generous and affectionate, and he was getting on in years. And so, with tears in his eyes, he helped her tenderly to her feet, saying: ‘My daughter, it was always my dearest wish that you should marry a man whom I considered worthy of you; and if you did indeed choose such a man, and he was pleasing to you, then I could have wished for nothing better. All the same, I am saddened to think that you did not trust me sufficiently to tell me about him, the more so on discovering that you have lost him even before I had any inkling of the matter. But still, since this is the way of it, I intend that he should be paid the same respect, now that he is dead, that I would willingly have paid to him for your sake if he were still alive; in other words, I intend to honour him as my son-in-law.’ And, turning to his sons and kinsfolk, he instructed them to see that suitably splendid and honourable arrangements were put in hand for Gabriotto’s funeral. News of what had happened had meanwhile reached the ears of the young man’s kinsfolk, who had now arrived upon the scene together with nearly all the men and women in the city. The body was therefore laid upon Andreuola’s piece of silk cloth in the midst of all her roses and placed in the centre of the courtyard, where it publicly received the tears, not only of Andreuola and of Gabriotto’s kinswomen, but of nearly all the women in the city and many of the men. And it was from the palace yard, in the style not of a plebeian but of a patrician, that his remains were taken with very great reverence to their burial, borne on the shoulders of the highest nobles in the land. After the funeral, the chief magistrate repeated his previous offer and Messer Negro talked the matter over with his daughter, but she would have nothing to do with it. And within the space of a few days, it being her father’s will that her own wishes should be scrupulously observed in this respect, she and her maidservant entered a convent of great renown for its sanctity, where they thenceforth lived long and virtuous lives as nuns. SEVENTH STORYSimona loves Pasquino; they are together in a garden; Pasquino rubs a sage-leaf against his teeth, and dies. Simona is arrested, and, with the intention of showing the judge how Pasquino met his death, she rubs one of the same leaves against her own teeth, and dies in identical fashion.

• From Carmina (-50)

  LXV Etsi me assiduo confectum cura dolore seuocat a doctis, Ortale, uirginibus, nec potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis: namque mei nuper Lethaeo in gurgite fratris 5 pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem, Troia Rhoeteo quem subter litore tellus ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis. alloquar, audiero numquam .... loquentem, numquam ego te, uita frater amabilior, 10 aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo, semper maesta tua carmina morte tegam, qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris Daulias, absumptei fata gemens Itylei. sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto 15 haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta uagis nequiquam credita uentis effluxisse meo forte putes animo. ut missum sponsi furtiuo munere malum procurrit casto uirginis e gremio, 20 quod miserae oblitae molli sub ueste locatum, dum aduentu matris prosilit, excutitur: atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu, huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor. LXVI

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Mary found some fuel and lighted the stove, then she started to tidy the disordered studio. Flakes of flue lay here and there on the floor; thick dust was filming the top of the piano. Barbara had been waging a losing fight—strange that so mean a thing as this dust should, in the end, have been able to conquer. Food there was none, and putting on her coat Mary finally went forth in quest of milk and other things likely to come in useful. At the foot of the stairs she was met by the concierge; the woman looked glum, as though deeply aggrieved by this sudden and very unreasonable illness. Mary thrust some money into her hand, then hurried away intent on her shopping. When she returned the doctor was there; he was talking very gravely to Stephen: ‘It’s double pneumonia, a pretty bad case—the girl’s heart’s so weak. I’ll send in a nurse. What about the friend, will she be any good?’ ‘I’ll help with the nursing if she isn’t,’ said Mary. Stephen said: ‘You do understand about the bills—the nurse and all that?’ The doctor nodded. They forced Jamie to eat: ‘For Barbara’s sake . . . Jamie, we’re with you, you’re not alone, Jamie.’ She peered with her red-rimmed, short-sighted eyes, only half understanding, but she did as they told her. Then she got up without so much as a word, and went back to the room with the eye-shaped window. Still in silence she squatted on the floor by the bed, like a dumb, faithful dog who endured without speaking. And they let her alone, let her have her poor way, for this was not their Calvary but Jamie’s. The nurse arrived, a calm, practical woman: ‘You’d better lie down for a bit,’ she told Jamie, and in silence Jamie lay down on the floor. ‘No, my dear—please go and lie down in the studio.’ She got up slowly to obey this new voice, lying down, with her face to the wall, on the divan. The nurse turned to Stephen: ‘Is she a relation?’ Stephen hesitated, then she shook her head. ‘That’s a pity, in a serious case like this I’d like to be in touch with some relation, some one who has a right to decide things. You know what I mean—it’s double pneumonia.’ Stephen said dully: ‘No—she’s not a relation.’ ‘Just a friend?’ the nurse queried. ‘Just a friend,’ muttered Stephen. 6They went back that evening and stayed the night. Mary helped with the nursing; Stephen looked after Jamie. ‘Is she a little—I mean the friend—is she mental at all, do you know?’ The nurse whispered, ‘I can’t get her to speak—she’s anxious, of course; still, all the same, it doesn’t seem natural.’ Stephen said: ‘No—it doesn’t seem natural to you.’ And she suddenly flushed to the roots of her hair. Dear God, the outrage of this for Jamie!

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2There were times when their friendship seemed well-nigh perfect, the perfect thing that they would have it to be, and on such a day of complete understanding, Stephen suddenly spoke to Martin about Morton. They two were alone together in her study, and she said: ‘There’s something I want to tell you—you must often have wondered why I left my home.’ He nodded: ‘I’ve never quite liked to ask, because I know how you loved the place, how you love it still . . .’ ‘Yes, I love it,’ she answered. Then she let every barrier go down before him, blissfully conscious of what she was doing. Not since Puddle had left her had she been able to talk without restraint of her exile. And once launched she had not the least wish to stop, but must tell him all, omitting no detail save one that honour forbade her to give—she withheld the name of Angela Crossby. ‘It’s so terribly hard on Mary,’ she finished; ‘think of it, Mary’s never seen Morton; she’s not even met Puddle in all these years! Of course Puddle can’t very well come here to stay—how can she and then go back to Morton? And yet I want her to live with my mother . . . But the whole thing seems so outrageous for Mary.’ She went on to talk to him of her father: ‘If my father had lived, I know he’d have helped me. He loved me so much, and he understood—I found out that my father knew all about me, only—’ She hesitated, and then: ‘Perhaps he loved me too much to tell me.’ Martin said nothing for quite a long time, and when he did speak it was very gravely: ‘Mary—how much does she know of all this?’ ‘As little as I could possibly tell her. She knows that I can’t get on with my mother, and that my mother won’t ask her to Morton; but she doesn’t know that I had to leave home because of a woman, that I was turned out—I’ve wanted to spare her all I could.’ ‘Do you think you were right?’ ‘Yes, a thousand times.’ ‘Well, only you can judge of that, Stephen.’ He looked down at the carpet, then he asked abruptly: ‘Does she know about you and me, about . . .’ Stephen shook her head: ‘No, she’s no idea. She thinks you were just my very good friend as you are to-day. I don’t want her to know.’ ‘For my sake?’ he demanded. And she answered slowly: ‘Well, yes, I suppose so . . . for your sake, Martin.’ Then an unexpected, and to her very moving thing happened; his eyes filled with pitiful tears: ‘Lord,’ he muttered, ‘why need this have come upon you—this incomprehensible dispensation? It’s enough to make one deny God’s existence!’

• From Trash (1988)

  I spent that night in my mama’s kitchen, talking long-distance to my lover up North about how everybody had looked, and the way Katy’s last boyfriend had glared at me from beside his parole officer. I’d hugged the phone to my ear, that yellow cowboy shirt between my fists, wringing it until I was shredding the yoke, pulling the snaps off, ripping the seams. I’d torn that shirt apart, talked for hours, but never gotten around to crying. I didn’t cry until months later in the Women’s Center bathroom. I’d been stone sober, but I was standing up to piss, my knees slightly bent, my jeans down around my ankles, my head turned to the side so I could see myself in the mirror. It was the way Katy had insisted we piss when we went road-tripping. “You’re the dyke,” she’d always said. “Keep your health. Learn to piss like a boy and keep your butt dry.” “Piss like a boy,” I’d whispered into the mirror, into Katy’s painful memory. And just that easy her face was there, her full swollen mouth mocking me, whispering back, “Like a dyke. You the dyke here, girl. I sure an’t.” So then I’d cried, sobbed and cried, and beaten on that mirror with my fists until the women outside came to try and see what was going on. I’d shut up, washed my face, and told them nothing. What could I tell them, anyway? My ghost lover just came back and made me piss all over my jeans. My ghost lover is haunting me, and the trick is I am glad to see her. Katy hands me the joint again, moving her small hands delicately. She smiles when she sees where my glance is trained. She flexes her fist, opens the fingers, and wags them in front of my nose. I laugh and take the joint again. “I loved that shirt. It was the best present you ever got me.” “You forgetting those black gloves with the rhinestones on the back I got in that shop on Peachtree Street. We always got the best stuff in Atlanta. Didn’t we?” “You just about got us busted in Atlanta.” “Oh hell, you were just a nervous Nellie. Thought you were the only woman capable of sleight of hand. You just never trusted me, girl.” “You were always so stoned. You did stupid things.” “I did wonderful things. I did amazing things, and stoned only made me better, made me smoother. Loosened me up and made me psychic. I was doing acid when I got you those gloves. That windowpane Blackie sold us.” “Purple haze. You always talk about the windowpane, but we only did it once. You talk about the windowpane ’cause you like to scare people with the notion of you sticking it in your eyes.” “I only did it once with you. I did it lots with Mickey.

• From Carmina (-50)

  Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistolium, naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis subleuem et a mortis limine restituam, quem neque sancta Venus molli requiescere somno 5 desertum in lecto caelibe perpetitur, nec ueterum dulci scriptorum carmine Musae oblectant, cum mens anxia peruigilat: id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicum, muneraque et Musarum hinc petis et Veneris: 10 sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Malli, neu me odisse putes hospitis officium, accipe, quis merser fortunae fluctibus ipse, ne amplius a misero dona beata petas. tempore quo primum uestis mihi tradita pura est, 15 iucundum cum aetas florida uer ageret, multa satis lusi: non est dea nescia nostri, quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem: sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors abstulit. o misero frater adempte mihi, 20 tu mea tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus, omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, quae tuus in uita dulcis alebat amor. cuius ego interitu tota de mente fugaui 25 haec studia atque omnis delicias animi. quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo esse, quod hic quisquis de meliore nota frigida deserto tepefacsit membra cubili, id, Malli, non est turpe, magis miserum est. 30 ignosces igitur, si, quae mihi luctus ademit, haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeo. nam, quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, hoc fit, quod Romae uiuimus: illa domus, illa mihi sedes, illic mea carpitur aetas: 35 huc una ex multis capsula me sequitur. quod cum ita sit, nolim statuas nos mente maligna id facere aut animo non satis ingenuo, quod tibi non utriusque petenti copia posta est: ultro ego deferrem, copia siqua foret. 40 * Non possum reticere, deae, qua me Allius in re iuuerit aut quantis iuuerit officiis, ne fugiens saeclis obliuiscentibus aetas illius hoc caeca nocte tegat studium: sed dicam uobis, uos porro dicite multis 45 milibus et facite haec carta loquatur anus. . . . . . . . . notescatque magis mortuus atque magis, nec tenuem texens sublimis aranea telam in deserto Alli nomine opus faciat. 50 nam, mihi quam dederit duplex Amathusia curam, scitis, et in quo me corruerit genere, cum tantum arderem quantum Trinacria rupes lymphaque in Oetaeis Malia Thermopylis, maesta neque assiduo tabescere pupula fletu 55 cessaret tristique imbre madere genae. qualis in aerei perlucens uertice montis riuus muscoso prosilit e lapide, qui cum de prona praeceps est ualle uolutus, per medium densi transit iter populi, 60 dulce uiatori lasso in sudore leuamen, cum grauis exustos aestus hiulcat agros: hic, uelut in nigro iactatis turbine nautis lenius aspirans aura secunda uenit iam prece Pollucis, iam Castoris implorata, 65 tale fuit nobis Allius auxilium. is clausum lato patefecit limite campum, isque domum nobis isque dedit dominam, ad quam communes exerceremus amores. quo mea se molli candida diua pede 70 intulit et trito fulgentem in limine plantam innixsa arguta constituit solea. coniugis ut quondam flagrans aduenit amore Protesilaeam Laudamia domum inceptam frustra, nondum cum sanguine sacro 75 hostia caelestis pacificasset heros.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘I can’t write any more, it’s gone from me, Puddle — he’s taken it with him.’ And then would come tears, and the tears would go splashing down on to the paper, blotting the poor in- adequate lines that meant little or nothing as their author well knew, to her own added desolation. There she would sit like a woebegone child, and Puddle would think how childish she seemed in this her first encounter with grief, and would marvel because of the physical strength of the creature, that went so ill with those tears. And because her own tears were vexing her eyes she must often speak rather sharply to Stephen. Then Stephen would go off and swing her large dumb-bells, seeking the relief of bodily movement, seeking to wear out her muscular body because her mind was worn out by Sorrow. August came and Williams got the hunters in from grass. Stephen would sometimes get up very early and help with the exercising of the horses, but in spite of this the old man’s heart misgave him, she seemed strangely averse to discussing the hunting. He would think: ‘ Maybe it’s ’er father’s death, but the in- stinct be pretty strong in ’er blood, she’ll be all right after ’er’s ’ad ’er first gallop.’ And perhaps he might craftily point to Raftery. “Look, Miss Stephen, did ever you see such quarters? ’E’s a mighty fine doer, keeps ’imself fit on grass! I do believe as ’e does it on purpose; I believe ’e’s afraid ’e’ll miss a day’s huntin’.’ THE WELL OF LONELINESS 137 But the autumn slipped by and the winter was passing. Hounds met at the very gates of Morton, yet Stephen forbore to send those orders to the stables for which Williams was anxiously waiting. Then one morning in March he could bear it no longer, and he suddenly started reproaching Stephen: ‘ Yer lettin’ my orses go stale in their boxes. It’s a scandal, Miss Stephen, and you such a rider, and our stables the finest bar none in the county, and yer father so almighty proud of yer ridin’! And then: ‘ Miss Stephen — yer’ll not give it up? Won’t yer’ hunt Raftery day after to-morrow? The ’ounds is meetin’ quite near by Upton — Miss Stephen, say yer won’t give it all up!’ There were actually tears in his worried old eyes, and so to console him she answered briefly: ‘ Very well then, I’ll hunt the day after to-morrow.’ But for some strange reason that she did not understand, this prospect had quite ceased to give her pleasure. 2

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As for the common people and a large proportion of the bourgeoisie, they presented a much more pathetic spectacle, for the majority of them were constrained, either by their poverty or the hope of survival, to remain in their houses. Being confined to their own parts of the city, they fell ill daily in their thousands, and since they had no one to assist them or attend to their needs, they inevitably perished almost without exception. Many dropped dead in the open streets, both by day and by night, whilst a great many others, though dying in their own houses, drew their neighbours’ attention to the fact more by the smell of their rotting corpses than by any other means. And what with these, and the others who were dying all over the city, bodies were here, there and everywhere. Whenever people died, their neighbours nearly always followed a single, set routine, prompted as much by their fear of being contaminated by the decaying corpse as by any charitable feelings they may have entertained towards the deceased. Either on their own, or with the assistance of bearers whenever these were to be had, they extracted the bodies of the dead from their houses and left them lying outside their front doors, where anyone going about the streets, especially in the early morning, could have observed countless numbers of them. Funeral biers would then be sent for, upon which the dead were taken away, though there were some who, for lack of biers, were carried off on plain boards. It was by no means rare for more than one of these biers to be seen with two or three bodies upon it at a time; on the contrary, many were seen to contain a husband and wife, two or three brothers and sisters, a father and son, or some other pair of close relatives. And times without number it happened that two priests would be on their way to bury someone, holding a cross before them, only to find that bearers carrying three or four additional biers would fall in behind them; so that whereas the priests had thought they had only one burial to attend to, they in fact had six or seven, and sometimes more. Even in these circumstances, however, there were no tears or candles or mourners to honour the dead; in fact, no more respect was accorded to dead people than would nowadays be shown towards dead goats. For it was quite apparent that the one thing which, in normal times, no wise man had ever learned to accept with patient resignation (even though it struck so seldom and unobtrusively), had now been brought home to the feeble-minded as well, but the scale of the calamity caused them to regard it with indifference.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The women would have comforted her and bidden her arise, not yet knowing her; but after they had bespoken her awhile in vain, they sought to lift her and finding her motionless, raised her up and knew her at once for Salvestra and for dead; whereupon all who were there, overcome with double pity, set up a yet greater clamour of lamentation. The news soon spread abroad among the men without the church and came presently to the ears of her husband, who was amongst them and who, without lending ear to consolation or comfort from any, wept a great while; after which he recounted to many of those who were there the story of that which had befallen that night between the dead youth and his wife; and so was the cause of each one's death made everywhere manifest, the which was grievous unto all. Then, taking up the dead girl and decking her, as they use to deck the dead, they laid her beside Girolamo on the same bier and there long bewept her; after which the twain were buried in one same tomb, and so these, whom love had not availed to conjoin on life, death conjoined with an inseparable union." THE NINTH STORY [Day the Fourth] SIR GUILLAUME DE ROUSSILLON GIVETH HIS WIFE TO EAT THE HEART OF SIR GUILLAUME DE GUARDESTAING BY HIM SLAIN AND LOVED OF HER, WHICH SHE AFTER COMING TO KNOW, CASTETH HERSELF FROM A HIGH CASEMENT TO THE GROUND AND DYING, IS BURIED WITH HER LOVER Neifile having made an end of her story, which had awakened no little compassion in all the ladies her companions, the king, who purposed not to infringe Dioneo his privilege, there being none else to tell but they twain, began, "Gentle ladies, since you have such compassion upon ill-fortuned loves, it hath occurred to me to tell you a story whereof it will behove you have no less pity than of the last, for that those to whom that which I shall tell happened were persons of more account than those of whom it hath been spoken and yet more cruel was the mishap that befell them.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then loud sobbing as though some very young child had fallen down and hurt itself badly. And there in a small, creaky, wicker bath-chair sat Williams, being bumped along over the paddock by a youthful niece, who had come to Morton to take care of the old and now feeble couple; for Williams had had his first stroke that Christmas, in addition to which he was almost childish. God only knew who had told him this thing; the secret had been very carefully guarded by Stephen, who, knowing his love for the horse, had taken every precaution to spare him. Yet now here he was with his face all twisted by the stroke and the sobs that kept on rising. He was trying to lift his half-paralysed hand which kept dropping back on to the arm of the bath-chair; he was trying to get out of the bath-chair and run to where Raftery lay stretched out in the sunshine; he was trying to speak again, but his voice had grown thick so that no one could understand him. Stephen thought that his mind had begun to wander, for now he was surely not screaming ‘Raftery’ any more, but something that sounded like: ‘Master!’ and again, ‘Oh, Master, Master!’ She said: ‘Take him home,’ for he did not know her; ‘take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all—it’s against my orders. Who told him about it?’ And the young girl answered: ‘It seemed ’e just knowed—it was like as though Raftery told ’im. . . .’ Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. ‘Who be you?’ he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. ‘It be good to be seein’ you, Master—seems like a long while. . . .’ His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment. Stephen bent over him. ‘Williams, I’m Stephen—don’t you know me? It’s Miss Stephen. You must go straight home and get back to bed—it’s still rather cold on these early spring mornings—to please me, Williams, you must go straight home. Why, your hands are frozen!’ But Williams shook his head and began to remember. ‘Raftery,’ he mumbled, ‘something’s ’appened to Raftery.’ And his sobs and his tears broke out with fresh vigour, so that his niece, frightened, tried to stop him. ‘Now uncle be qui-et I do be-seech ’e! It’s so bad for ’e carryin’ on in this wise. What will auntie say when she sees ’e all mucked up with weepin’, and yer poor nose all red and dir-ty? I’ll be takin’ ’e ’ome as Miss Stephen ’ere says. Now, uncle dear, do be qui-et!’

• From Trash (1988)

  “We are not stupid. We do pretty well with what we have.” I’d set out to put that on the page—but often I would go south. By that I mean I would not wind up where I intended. I started “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee” to work out in my own mind what it must have been like to have been my grandmother—and her mother, my great-grandma about whom I knew almost nothing, except that her children hated her and that she had lived a long time. How’d that work? I wondered, and made up a fictional Mattie Lee, a pretend Shirley. I gave the children names that actually figured in my grandmother’s conversations—names of cousins, second cousins, and lost uncles. I worked it out as if it were a movie, or the kind of story people in my family simply would not tell. Contrary to the myth of southern families passing stories along on the porch, people in my family kept secrets and only hinted at what might have happened. Some days I think the way to make a storyteller is to refuse to tell her what happened—as my mama and aunts did with me. I had to make up my great-grandmother, and I did it in a story that was originally to be about her daughter—a story I started when I was still in college, and my mother told me my grandmother had died—but three months after the funeral was past, and long past any hope I might have had of going to Greenville, attending the funeral or learning anything about how she had died. “In a ditch,” my Uncle Jack told me a decade later. “Had a stroke halfway between our house and your Uncle Bo’s. Just lay down and died.” “Oh.” I just stood there. “Oh.” I was living in Tallahassee then, in a feminist collective household, and fiercely determined to learn more about my grandmother, my aunts, even legendary Great-grandma Shirley. But my uncle’s brutal comment was all I gathered in that visit, and almost as soon as I asked about it, one of my aunts denied that was how it happened. “She didn’t die down there. She died in the hospital two whole days later. She just fell in that ditch and lay there awhile before we went out and found her.”

• From Trash (1988)

  A t a picnic at my aunt’s farm, the only time the whole family ever gathered, my sister Billie and I chased chickens into the barn. Billie ran right through the open doors and out again, but I stopped, caught by a shadow moving over me. My Cousin Tommy, eight years old as I was, swung in the sunlight with his face as black as his shoes—the rope around his neck pulled up into the sunlit heights of the barn, fascinating, horrible. Wasn’t he running ahead of us? Someone came up behind me. Someone began to scream. My mama took my head in her hands and turned my eyes away. Jesse and I have been lovers for a year now. She tells me stories about her childhood, about her father going off each day to the university, her mother who made all her dresses, her grandmother who always smelled of dill bread and vanilla. I listen with my mouth open, not believing but wanting, aching for the fairy tale she thinks is everyone’s life. “What did your grandmother smell like?” I lie to her the way I always do, a lie stolen from a book. “Like lavender,” stomach churning over the memory of sour sweat and snuff. I realize I do not really know what lavender smells like, and I am for a moment afraid she will ask something else, some question that will betray me. But Jesse slides over to hug me, to press her face against my ear, to whisper, “How wonderful to be part of such a large family.” I hug her back and close my eyes. I cannot say a word. I was born between the older cousins and the younger, born in a pause of babies and therefore outside, always watching. Once, way before Tommy died, I was pushed out on the steps while everyone stood listening to my Cousin Barbara. Her screams went up and down in the back of the house. Cousin Cora brought buckets of bloody rags out to be burned. The other cousins all ran off to catch the sparks or poke the fire with dogwood sticks. I waited on the porch making up words to the shouts around me. I did not understand what was happening. Some of the older cousins obviously did, their strange expressions broken by stranger laughs. I had seen them helping her up the stairs while the thick blood ran down her legs. After a while the blood on the rags was thin, watery, almost pink. Cora threw them on the fire and stood motionless in the stinking smoke.

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

  The Almighty God himself had revealed it unto him, that he ought to live according to the mode of the Holy Gospel. He reminded them how the first members loved to live in poor and abandoned churches. He bade them not accept churches or houses, except as it might be in accordance with the rule of holy poverty they had professed. He forbade their receiving bulls from the papal court, even for their personal protection. At the same time, he pledged his obedience to the minister-general and expressed his purpose to go nowhere and do nothing against his will "for he is my lord." Through the whole of the document there runs a chord of anguish.809 Francis’ heart was broken. Never strong, his last years were full of infirmities. Change of locality brought only temporary relief. The remedial measures of the physician, such as the age knew, were employed. An iron, heated to white heat, was applied to Francis’ forehead. Francis shrank at first, but submitted to the treatment, saying, "Brother Fire, you are beautiful above all creatures, be favorable to me in this hour." He jocosely called his body, Brother Ass.810 The devotion of the people went beyond all bounds. They fought for fragments of his clothing, hairs from his head, and even the parings of his nails. Two years before his death Francis composed the Canticle to the Sun, which Renan has called the most perfect expression of modern religious feeling.811 It was written at a time when he was beset by temptations, and blindness had begun to set in. The hymn is a pious outburst of passionate love for nature. It soars above any other pastorals of the Middle Ages. Indeed Francis’ love for nature is rare in the records of his age, and puts him into companionship with that large modern company who see poems in the clouds and hear symphonies in flowers. He loved the trees, the stones, birds, and the plants of the field. Above all things he loved the sun, created to illuminate our eyes by day, and the fire which gives us light in the night time, for "God has illuminated our eyes by these two, our brothers." Francis had a message for the brute creation and preached to the birds. "Brother birds," he said on one occasion, "you ought to love and praise your Creator very much. He has given you feathers for clothing, wings for flying, and all things that can be of use to you. You have neither to sow, nor to reap, and yet He takes care of you." And the birds curved their necks and looked at him as if to thank him. He would have had the emperor make a special law against killing or doing any injury to, our sisters, the birds."812 Later tradition narrated very wonderful things about his power over nature,813 as for example the taming of the fierce wolf of Gubbio. He was the terror of the neighborhood.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  The persecutions, the massacres, the martyrdom of the prophet, the bloody flux and the black canker and desolate graves, had cemented them into a unit, and every successive wagon train for many years was like new flight out of Egypt. The Old Testament parallel was like a bugle in the brain; some of them probably even hoped for a pursuing Pharaoh and a dividing of waters. They had found their strength: Mormonism in exodus was a herd, like a herd of buffalo, and its strength was the herd strength and the cunning of the tough old bulls who ran the show. Brigham Young was no seer and revelator, but a practical leader, an organizer and colonizer of very great stature. WALLACE STEGNER, MORMON COUNTRY As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Porter Rockwell—the Destroying Angel, Joseph Smith’s staunch bodyguard and enforcer—hurtled toward Nauvoo at full gallop, seething with rage. It was June 28, 1844. Twelve hours earlier the Mormon prophet had been shot dead in the Carthage jail by a band of Illinois militiamen, despite Governor Thomas Ford’s personal promise that Joseph would be protected from harm. When Rockwell reached Nauvoo, he shouted the grim news as he rode through the streets of the waking city: “Joseph is killed—they have killed him! Goddamn them! They have killed him!” The Saints reacted to Joseph’s death with woe and staggering grief, vowing through their tears to exact revenge. First, however, they had to address a more pressing concern: the survival of Mormonism. The ten thousand mourners filing through Joseph’s mansion to pay their respects and view his corpse despaired over who among the living would be able to lead the church through the months of critical peril that loomed. As distinguished historian D. Michael Quinn noted in his book The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, “Institutionally, Mormonism faced a dilemma of paramount consequence at Smith’s death in June 1844: Can the church survive without the founding prophet? Like the removal of a keystone from an arch, would the entire structure collapse?” Joseph had neglected to provide his followers with a clear mechanism for determining his successor. Indeed, over the years he had hinted at various conflicting criteria for the transfer of power. The result, owing to his untimely demise, was a leadership vacuum that several would-be prophets scrambled to fill. Among the leading claimants were: • Joseph’s eldest son, Joseph Smith III, who was only eleven years old when his father was killed and whom the prophet probably intended to be his successor when the boy became an adult. • Joseph’s younger brother Samuel H. Smith. • Sidney Rigdon, the influential theologian whom Joseph had picked as his vice-presidential running mate in his 1844 campaign for the United States presidency—despite the fact that Rigdon, who suffered from “nervous spasms and swoonings,” was emotionally erratic and unreliable. • Brigham Young, the stalwart, ambitious president of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  They were like pregnant women, full- bosomed, courageous, great green-girdled mothers of splendid sons! Thus through all those summer months, she sat and watched the hills, and Sir Philip would sit with her—they would sit hand in hand. And because she felt grateful she gave much to the poor, and Sir Philip went to church, which was seldom his custom, and the Vicar came to dinner, and just towards the end many matrons called to give good advice to Anna. But: ‘Man proposes—God disposes,’ and so it happened that on Christmas Eve, Anna Gordon was delivered of a daughter; a narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered little tadpole of a baby, that yelled and yelled for three hours without ceasing, as though outraged to find itself ejected into life. 2 Anna Gordon held her child to her breast, but she grieved while it drank, because of her man who had longed so much for a son. And seeing her grief, Sir Philip hid his chagrin, and he fondled the baby and examined its fingers. ‘What a hand!’ he would say. ‘Why it’s actually got nails on all its ten fingers: little, perfect, pink nails!’ Then Anna would dry her eyes and caress it, kissing the tiny hand. He insisted on calling the infant Stephen, nay more, he would have it baptized by that name. ‘We’ve called her Stephen so long,’ he told Anna, ‘that I really can’t see why we shouldn’t go on—’ Anna felt doubtful, but; Sir Philip was stubborn, as he could be at times over whims. The Vicar said that it was rather unusual, so to mollify him they must add female names. The child was baptized in the village church as Stephen Mary Olivia Gertrude—and she throve, seeming strong, and when her hair grew it was seen to be auburn like Sir Philip’s. There was also a tiny cleft in her chin, so small just at first that it looked like a shadow; and after a while when her eyes lost the blueness that is proper to puppies and other young things, Anna saw that her eyes were going to be hazel—and thought that their expression was her father’s. On the whole she was quite a well-behaved baby, owing, no doubt, to a fine constitution.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  As more and more Saints were killed, the Missourians walked right up to the shop, poked the barrels of their guns between the logs, and fired at the heap of groaning bodies from point-blank range. When the Missourians detected no further movement inside, they entered and found a ten-year-old boy, Sardius Smith, cowering under the bellows. The youth begged for his life, but a Missourian named William Reynolds put a gun to the boy’s head. Sardius’s younger brother, who was shot through the hip but survived by feigning death beneath the corpses, later reported that one of the Gentiles begged Reynolds not to shoot Sardius, on account of his youth, at which point Reynolds responded by explaining that Mormon children needed to be exterminated because “nits will make lice.” And then he dispassionately blasted the top of the boy’s skull off. All told, eighteen Saints were slaughtered in and around the blacksmith shop. The event became known as the Haun’s Mill Massacre, and was stamped into the Latter-day Saints’ collective memory. More than 160 years later, Mormons still speak of it with indignation and undiminished rage. Joseph Smith was sixteen miles away when the carnage occurred at Haun’s Mill, supervising the defense of Far West, which was being surrounded by ten thousand Missouri troops. He learned of the calamity the night after it happened, and sank into a black depression. Over the months since the discord had escalated into increasingly bloody clashes, Joseph had waffled between aggressively fighting back and seeking a peaceful end to the conflict through compromise. After the massacre at Haun’s Mill, the prophet seemed to suddenly recognize that if he engaged in a full-blown war with the Gentiles, he and his followers would be annihilated. Immediately upon having this epiphany, Joseph dispatched five Mormons to meet with the Gentiles and “beg like a dog for peace.” The general of the Missouri Militia informed them that there was only one way for the Saints to avert imminent eradication: without delay, they would have to deliver Joseph and six other Mormon leaders to face charges of treason; provide monetary compensation to the Missourians for property that had been plundered and destroyed; surrender all Mormon weapons; and then abandon the state of Missouri altogether. The conditions were unreasonably harsh, yet Joseph had no real choice but to accept them. Addressing the faithful in Far West, he put on a brave face and announced, “I shall offer myself up as a sacrifice to save your lives and save the Church. Be of good cheer, my brethren. Pray earnestly to the Lord to deliver your leaders from their enemies. I bless you all in the name of Christ.” The Saints surrendered on November 1. Joseph, his brother Hyrum, and five other Mormon leaders were taken into custody by the Missourians, hastily court-martialed, and found guilty of treason—a capital crime.