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 Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  When Michael leaves the next morning, I silently congratulate myself, thinking how far we’ve come, how much we put aside successfully for the benefit of our kids. Daisy takes only a few hours to break my reverie. “Mom, I gave it a chance and I’m so glad you and Dad aren’t fighting anymore, but I’m never doing this again. It felt so normal to be with you guys together, to be the family we were, and now I feel bereft all over again. It was a reminder of what we used to have that we will never have again. I feel worse than before,” she calmly states, and now I see it clearly too. I’m not going to be able to pick and choose when we are a family the way we used to be, the kids need it to be one way or the other. Either it’s over and they grieve and move on, or they get it back. Flashes of normalcy merely feel like a cruel taunt. I tell her I understand and thank her for trying. A few days later, I take a train back to the city to spend New Year’s Eve with #6, while Michael stays upstate to usher in 2019 with Georgia and Hudson, and Daisy heads off to visit friends. We had started an annual New Year’s Eve celebration with Erika and her family nineteen years earlier when I was pregnant with Daisy, over the years adding five children to the mix who tumbled around in penguin-like snowsuits while we grilled shish kebab on the deck. This beloved tradition is yet another casualty of the collapse of our marriage and tugs at a worry I’ve had recently as I’ve considered the long-term effects of our split. We had a circle of friends with whom we spent time as a couple and as a family, but the perfect balance of spouses and children has been altered irrevocably. I’m not worried about dividing up friends as I know some are steadfastly loyal to me, others to Michael, and yet others are struggling with how to embrace us both, which is what I want. I have never needed my friends more than I do now and I know the same is true for Michael – I may wish he spends the rest of his life bemoaning that he missed out on my sexual heyday, but I don’t want him to cry about it alone. I do, however, miss being part of a posse as a couple and family.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Because of the long and unceasing care that was lavished upon it, and also because the soil was enriched by the decomposing head inside the pot, the basil grew very thick and exceedingly fragrant. The young woman constantly followed this same routine, and from time to time she attracted the attention of her neighbours. And as they had heard her brothers expressing their concern at the decline in her good looks and the way in which her eyes appeared to have sunk into their sockets, they told them what they had seen, adding: ‘We have noticed that she follows the same routine every day.’ The brothers discovered for themselves that this was so, and having reproached her once or twice without the slightest effect, they caused the pot to be secretly removed from her room. When she found that it was missing, she kept asking for it over and over again, and because they would not restore it to her she sobbed and cried without a pause until eventually she fell seriously ill. And from her bed of sickness she would call for nothing else except her pot of basil. The young men were astonished by the persistence of her entreaties, and decided to examine its contents. Having shaken out the soil, they saw the cloth and found the decomposing head inside it, still sufficiently intact for them to recognize it as Lorenzo’s from the curls of his hair. This discovery greatly amazed them, and they were afraid lest people should come to know what had happened. So they buried the head, and without breathing a word to anyone, having wound up their affairs in Messina, they left the city and went to live in Naples. The girl went on weeping and demanding her pot of basil, until eventually she cried herself to death, thus bringing her ill-fated love to an end. But after due process of time, many people came to know of the affair, and one of them composed the song which can still be heard to this day: Whoever it was, Whoever the villain That stole my pot of herbs, etc. SIXTH STORYAndreuola loves Gabriotto. She tells him of a dream she has had, and he tells her of another. He dies suddenly in her arms, and whilst she and a maidservant of hers are carrying him back to his own house, they are arrested by the officers of the watch. She explains how matters stand, and the chief magistrate attempts to ravish her, but she wards him off. Her father is informed, her innocence is established, and he secures her release. Being determined not to go on living in the world, she enters a nunnery.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You can all imagine the girl’s distress and agony, for she loved him more dearly than her very self. Bursting into floods of tears, she called out to him over and over again, but all to no avail; and eventually, having run her fingers over the whole of his body and discovered that he was completely cold, she was forced to acknowledge that he was dead. Stricken with anguish, not knowing what to do or say, her tears streaming down her cheeks, she ran to fetch her maidservant, who knew about her affair with Gabriotto, and poured out all the sorrow and misery she was feeling. The two women wept for some time, gazing down together upon Gabriotto’s lifeless features, and then the girl said to her maidservant: ‘Now that God has taken this man away from me, I shall live no longer. But before I proceed to kill myself, I want us to do all things necessary to preserve my good name, to keep our love a secret, and to ensure that his body, from which his noble spirit has departed, will receive a proper burial.’ ‘Do not talk of killing yourself, my daughter,’ said the maidservant. ‘For though you may have lost him in this life, if you kill yourself you will lose him in the next life as well, because you will end up in Hell, which is the last place I would expect to find the soul of so virtuous a youth as Gabriotto. It is far better that you should be of good cheer and give some thought to assisting his soul by means of prayers and other good works, just in case he needs them on account of some peccadillo he may have committed. As to burying his body, the quickest way would be to do it here and now in the garden. Nobody will ever find out, because nobody knows that he was ever here. But if you do not like this idea, let us carry him from the garden and leave him outside, where he will be found in the morning and taken to his own house to be buried by his kinsfolk.’ Though she was filled with despair and wept the whole time, the girl was not deaf to her maidservant’s advice. Rejecting the first of her suggestions, she seized upon the second, saying: ‘I am sure that God would not wish me to permit so precious a youth, a man whom I love so deeply and to whom I am married, to be buried like a dog or left lying in the street. I have given him my own tears, and I am determined that he shall have the tears of his kinsfolk. What is more, I am beginning to see how we can manage it.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But perceiving that the sun was beginning to turn yellow and that his reign had come to a close, the king offered the fair ladies a most handsome apology for having foisted so disagreeable a theme as the misfortunes of lovers upon them. Having made his excuses, he stood up and removed the laurel wreath from his head. All the ladies wondered to which of them it would be given, and eventually he set it down with a flourish upon the fine blonde head of Fiammetta, saying: ‘I now bequeath you this crown, knowing that you are better able than any other to restore the spirits of our fair companions tomorrow after the rigours of the present day’s proceedings.’ Fiammetta, who had long, golden curls that cascaded down over delicate, pure white shoulders, a softly rounded face that glowed with the authentic hues of white lilies and crimson roses, a pair of eyes in her head that gleamed like a falcon’s, and a sweet little mouth with lips like rubies, answered Filostrato with a smile, saying: ‘I accept it with pleasure, Filostrato; and so that you may the more keenly appreciate the error of your ways, I desire and decree forthwith that each of us should be ready on the morrow to recount the adventures of lovers who survived calamities or misfortunes and attained a state of happiness.’ Fiammetta’s proposal met with general approval, and after summoning the steward and making appropriate arrangements, she rose to her feet and gaily dismissed the whole company till supper-time. So they all wandered off to amuse themselves until supper in whatever way they pleased, some of them remaining in the garden, of whose beauties one did not easily tire, whilst others ventured beyond its confines and made for the windmills, whose sails were turning in the evening breeze. When it was time for supper, they forgathered as usual beside the beautiful fountain, and partook of a most delicious meal, excellently served. Then, having risen from table, they devoted themselves to singing and dancing in their customary fashion, with Filomena leading the revels, and the queen said: ‘Filostrato, it is not my intention to depart from the ways of my predecessors. Like them, I too intend to command that a song should be sung, and since I am sure that your songs will be no less gloomy than your stories, I desire that you should choose one and sing it to us now, so that no day other than this will be blighted by your woes.’ Filostrato replied that he would be only too willing to obey, and launched immediately into a song, the words of which ran as follows: ‘With fitting tears, I show The mourning heart bereaved, Its faith in Love deceived. ‘Love, who first fixed into my heart She for whom now I sigh in vain, You showed me her so full of grace That I held light each bitter pain Which came to torment me So everlastingly.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  What a wonderful thing Love is, and how difficult it is to fathom its deep and powerful currents! The girl’s heart, which had remained sealed to Girolamo for as long as he was smiled upon by Fortune, was unlocked by his far from fortunate death. The flames of her former love were rekindled, and no sooner did she catch sight of his dead face than they were all instantly transformed into so much compassion that she edged her way forward, wrapped in her mantle, through the cluster of women mourners, coming to a halt only when she was almost on top of the corpse itself. Then with a piercing scream, she flung herself upon the dead youth, and if she failed to drench his face with her tears, that was because, almost as soon as she touched him, she died, like the young man, from a surfeit of grief. The woman, who had thus far failed to recognize her, crowded round to console her and urge her to her feet, but since she did not respond they tried to lift her themselves, only to discover that she was quite still and rigid. And when they finally succeeded in raising her, they saw at one and the same time that it was Salvestra and that she was dead. The women now had double cause for weeping, and they all began wailing again much more loudly than before. The news spread through the church to the men outside and reached the ears of her husband, who happened to be standing in their midst. Having burst into tears, he simply went on crying, oblivious to the efforts of various bystanders to console and comfort him; but eventually he told several of them about what had occurred the night before between this young man and his wife, thus clearing up the mystery of their deaths, and everyone was filled with enormous sorrow. The dead girl was taken up and decked out in all the finery with which we are wont to adorn the bodies of the dead, then she was laid on the selfsame bier upon which the young man was already lying. For a long time they mourned her, and afterwards the two bodies were interred in a single tomb: and thus it was that those whom Love had failed to join together in life were inseparably linked to each other in death. NINTH STORYGuillaume de Roussillon causes his wife to eat the heart of her lover, Guillaume de Cabestanh,1 whom he has secretly murdered. When she finds out, she kills herself by leaping from a lofty casement to the ground below, and is subsequently buried with the man she loved. The king had no intention of interfering with Dioneo’s privilege, and when, having planted no small degree of compassion in the hearts of her companions, Neifile’s story came to its conclusion, there being no others left to speak, he began as follows:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  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. 6 They 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! But Jamie seemed quite unconscious of outrage. From time to time she stood in the doorway peering over at Barbara’s wasted face, listening to Barbara’s painful breathing, and then she would turn her bewildered eyes on the nurse, on Mary, but above all on Stephen . ‘Jamie—come back and sit down by the stove; Mary’s there, it’s all right.’ Came a queer, halting voice that spoke with an effort: ‘But . . . Stephen . . . we quarrelled.’ ‘Come and sit by the stove—Mary’s with her, my dear.’ ‘Hush, please,’ said the nurse, ‘you’re disturbing my patient.’ 7 Barbara’s fight against death was so brief that it hardly seemed in the nature of a struggle. Life had left her no strength to repel this last foe—or perhaps it was that to her he seemed friendly.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  No man was ever more sorely distressed by the loss of the thing he loved than Filippo by the death of his wife. On finding himself bereft of the companion he adored, he firmly resolved to withdraw from the world and devote his life to the service of God, taking his little son with him. He therefore gave all he possessed to charity, and made his way forthwith to the slopes of Mount Asinaio,7 where he installed himself in a tiny little cave with his son, fasting and praying and living on alms. At all times, he took very great care not to let him see any worldly things, or even to mention their existence, lest they should distract him from his devotions. On the contrary, he was forever telling him about the glory of the life eternal, of God, and of the Saints, and all he taught him was to pray devoutly. He kept this up for a number of years, never permitting the boy to leave the cave or to see any living thing except for his father. Every so often, the good man came to Florence, where various kindly people supplied him with things he needed, and then he returned to his cave. But one day, his son, who by this time was eighteen years old, happened to ask Filippo, who had reached a ripe old age, where he was going. Filippo told him that he was going to Florence, whereupon the youth said: ‘Father, you are an old man now, and not as strong as you used to be. Why not take me with you on one of your excursions to Florence, introduce me to those charitable and devout people, and let me meet your friends? I am young, and stronger than you are, and if you do as I suggest, in future you’ll be able to send me to Florence whenever we need anything, and you can stay here.’ On reflecting that this son of his was now grown up and no longer likely to be attracted to worldly things because he was so inured to the service of God, the worthy man said to himself: ‘The fellow’s talking sense.’ And since he had to go to Florence anyway, he took him with him. When the young man saw the palaces, the houses, the churches and all the other things that meet the eye in such profusion throughout the city, he could not recall ever having seen such objects before and was filled with amazement. He questioned his father about many of them and asked him what they were called.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But Jamie seemed quite unconscious of outrage. From time to time she stood in the doorway peering over at Barbara’s wasted face, listening to Barbara’s painful breathing, and then she would turn her bewildered eyes on the nurse, on Mary, but above all on Stephen. ‘Jamie—come back and sit down by the stove; Mary’s there, it’s all right.’ Came a queer, halting voice that spoke with an effort: ‘But . . . Stephen . . . we quarrelled.’ ‘Come and sit by the stove—Mary’s with her, my dear.’ ‘Hush, please,’ said the nurse, ‘you’re disturbing my patient.’ 7Barbara’s fight against death was so brief that it hardly seemed in the nature of a struggle. Life had left her no strength to repel this last foe—or perhaps it was that to her he seemed friendly. Just before her death she kissed Jamie’s hand and tried to speak, but the words would not come—those words of forgiveness and love for Jamie. Then Jamie flung herself down by the bed, and she clung there, still in that uncanny silence. Stephen never knew how they got her away while the nurse performed the last merciful duties. But when flowers had been placed in Barbara’s hands, and Mary had lighted a couple of candles, then Jamie went back and stared quietly down at the small, waxen face that lay on the pillow; and she turned to the nurse: ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve done all that there is to do—and now I suppose you’ll want to be going?’ The nurse glanced at Stephen. ‘It’s all right, we’ll stay. I think perhaps—if you don’t mind, nurse . . .’ ‘Very well, it must be as you wish, Miss Gordon.’ When she had gone Jamie veered round abruptly and walked back into the empty studio. Then all in a moment the floodgates gave way and she wept and she wept like a creature demented. Bewailing the life of hardship and exile that had sapped Barbara’s strength and weakened her spirit; bewailing the cruel dispensation of fate that had forced them to leave their home in the Highlands; bewailing the terrible thing that is death to those who, still loving, must look upon it. Yet all the exquisite pain of this parting seemed as nothing to an anguish that was far more subtle: ‘I can’t mourn her without bringing shame on her name—I can’t go back home now and mourn her,’ wailed Jamie; ‘oh, and I want to go back to Beedles, I want to be home among our own people—I want them to know how much I loved her. Oh God, oh God! I can’t even mourn her, and I want to grieve for her home there in Beedles.’ What could they speak but inadequate words: ‘Jamie, don’t, don’t! You loved each other—isn’t that something? Remember that, Jamie.’ They could only speak the inadequate words that are given to people on such occasions.

• 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 The Decameron (1353)

  When he got up next morning, he left his servant behind and made his way, at what seemed a suitable hour, to the house of his former mistress. Since the door happened to be open, he went in, and there, sitting on the floor in a little room downstairs, he found his lady-love, all tearful and forlorn. Scarcely able to restrain himself from crying at this piteous spectacle, he walked over to where she was sitting. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘do not torment yourself: your troubles will soon be over.’ On hearing his voice, the lady looked up at him and sobbed, saying: ‘Good sir, you appear to be a pilgrim and a stranger; how can you know anything of my troubles and torments?’ ‘Madam,’ replied the pilgrim, ‘I come from Constantinople and I have just arrived in this city, to which I was sent by God to convert your tears into joy and deliver your husband from death.’ ‘But if you come from Constantinople,’ said the woman, ‘and if you have only just arrived, how can you know anything of me or my husband?’ Starting from the beginning, the pilgrim provided a full account of Aldobrandino’s predicament and told her exactly who she was, how long she had been married, and many other things that he knew concerning her private affairs. This recital greatly astonished the lady, who took him to be some kind of prophet and knelt down at his feet, beseeching him in God’s name, if he really had come to save Aldobrandino, to do so quickly before it was too late. ‘Stand up, my lady,’ said the pilgrim, assuming a very saintly air, ‘and cry no more. Listen closely to what I am about to say, and take good care never to repeat it to anyone. God has revealed to me that your tribulation arises from a certain sin you once committed, which He intends that you should purge, partially at any rate, by means of this present affliction. He is very anxious that you should make amends for it, because otherwise you would assuredly be plunged into much greater suffering.’ ‘I have committed many sins, sir,’ said the lady, ‘and I do not know which particular one it is that the Lord God desires me to atone for out of all the rest. So if you know which one it is, please tell me, and I shall do whatever I can to make amends for it.’ ‘I know very well what it is, madam,’ said the pilgrim. ‘And I shall now ask you a few questions about it, not for my own benefit, but merely to enable you to acknowledge the sin of your own free will, and repent more fully. But let us come to the point. Tell me, do you remember whether you ever had a lover?’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Moreover, since you felt bound to bring so much dishonour upon yourself, in God’s name you might at least have chosen someone whose rank was suited to your own. But of all the people who frequent my court, you have to choose Guiscardo, a youth of exceedingly base condition, whom we took into our court and raised from early childhood mainly out of charity. Your conduct has faced me with an appalling dilemma, inasmuch as I have no idea how I am to deal with you. I have already come to a decision about Guiscardo, who is under lock and key, having been arrested last night on my orders as he was emerging from the cavern; but God knows what I am to do with you. I am drawn in one direction by the love I have always borne you, deeper by far than that of any other father for a daughter; but on the other hand I seethe with all the indignation that the folly of your actions demands. My love prompts me to forgive you; my indignation demands that I should punish you without mercy, though it would be against my nature to do so. But before I reach any decision, I should like to hear what you have to say for yourself on the subject.’ And so saying, he lowered his gaze and began to wail as though he were a child who had been soundly beaten. Realizing, from what her father had said, that not only had her secret been discovered but Guiscardo was captured, Ghismonda was utterly overcome with sorrow, and needed all the self-control she possessed to prevent herself from screaming and sobbing as most other women would have done. But her proudness of heart more than made up for her shattered spirits, and by a miraculous effort of will, she remained impassive, and rather than make excuses for herself, she resolved to live no longer, being convinced that her Guiscardo was already dead. She therefore allowed no trace of contrition or womanly distress to cloud her features, but addressed her father in a firm, unworried voice, staring him straight in the face without a single tear in her eyes.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Raftery was aged, he was now eighteen, so that lameness in him was not easy of healing. His life in a city had tried him sorely, he had missed the light, airy stables of Morton, and the cruel-hard bed that lay under the tan of the Row had jarred his legs badly. The vet shook his head and looked very grave: ‘He’s an aged horse, you know, and of course in his youth you hunted him pretty freely—it all counts. Every one comes to the end of their tether, Miss Gordon. Yes, at times I’m afraid it is painful.’ Then seeing Stephen’s face: ‘I’m awfully sorry not to give a more cheerful diagnosis.’ Other experts arrived. Every good vet in London was consulted, including Professor Hobday. No cure, no cure, it was always the same, and at times, they told Stephen, the old horse suffered; but this she well knew—she had seen the sweat break out darkly on Raftery’s shoulders. So one morning she went into Raftery’s loosebox, and she sent the groom Jim out of the stable, and she laid her cheek against the beast’s neck, while he turned his head and began to nuzzle. Then they looked at each other very quietly and gravely, and in Raftery’s eyes was a strange, new expression—a kind of half-anxious, protesting wonder at this thing men call pain: ‘What is it, Stephen?’ She answered, forcing back her hot tears: ‘Perhaps, for you, the beginning, Raftery. . . .’ After a while she went to his manger and let the fodder slip through her fingers; but he would not eat, not even to please her, so she called the groom back and ordered some gruel. Very gently she readjusted the clothing that had slipped to one side, first the under-blanket then the smart blue rug that was braided in red—red and blue, the old stable colours of Morton. The groom Jim, now a thick-set stalwart young man, stared at her with sorrowful understanding, but he did not speak; he was almost as dumb as the beasts whom his life had been passed in tending—even dumber, perhaps, for his language consisted of words, having no small sounds and small movements such as Raftery used when he spoke with Stephen, and which meant so much more than words . She said: ‘I’m going now to the station to order a horse-box for to-morrow, I’ll let you know the time we start, later. And wrap him up well; put on plenty of clothing for the journey, please, he mustn’t feel cold.’ The man nodded. She had not told him their destination, but he knew it already; it was Morton. Then the great clumsy fellow must pretend to be busy with a truss of fresh straw for the horse’s bedding, because his face had turned a deep crimson, because his coarse lips were actually trembling—and this was not really so very strange, for those who served Raftery loved him.

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

  He married Idelette de Buren, the widow of an Anabaptist minister of Holland, whom he had converted to the Paedobaptist faith; he lived with her for nearly nine years, had three children who died in infancy, and remained a widower after her death. The only kind of female beauty which impressed him was, as he said, gentleness, purity, modesty, patience, and devotion to the wants of her husband; and these qualities he esteemed in his wife.615 Zwingli unfortunately broke his vow at Einsiedeln, while still a priest, and in receipt of a pension from the Pope. He afterwards married a worthy patrician widow with three children, Anna Reinhard von Knonau, who bore him two sons and two daughters, and lived to lament his tragic death on the field of battle, finding, like him, her only comfort in the Lord Jesus and the word of God.616 Ludwig Cellarius (Keller), Oecolampadius (the Reformer of Basel), Wolfgang Capito (the Reformer of Strassburg), and his more distinguished friend Martin Bucer (a widower who was always ready for union) were successively married to Wilibrandis Rosenblatt, the daughter of a Knight and colonel aid- de-camp of the Emperor Maximilian I. She accompanied Bucer to Cambridge in England, and after his death returned to Basel, the survivor of four husbands! She died Nov. 1, 1564.617 She must have had a remarkable attraction for Reformers. Oecolampadius thought her almost too young for his age of forty-five, but found her a "good Christian "and "free from youthful frivolity." She bore him three children,—Eusebius, Alitheia, and Irene.618 It was on the occasion of his marriage that Erasmus wrote to a friend (March 21, 1528): "Oecolampadius has lately married. His bride is not a bad-looking girl" [she was a widow]. "I suppose he wants to mortify his flesh. Some speak of the Lutheran cause as a tragedy, but to me it appears rather as a comedy, for it always ends in a wedding."619 Archbishop Cranmer appears in an unfavorable light. His first wife, "Black Joan," died in childbed before his ordination. Early in 1532, before he was raised to the primacy of Canterbury by Henry VIII. (August, 1532), he married a niece of the Lutheran preacher Osiander of Nürnberg, and concealed the fact, the disclosure of which would have prevented his elevation. The papal bulls of confirmation were dated February and March, 1533, and his consecration took place March 30, 1533. The next year he privately summoned his wife to England; but sent her away in 1539, when he found it necessary to execute the bloody articles of Henry VIII., which included the prohibition of clerical marriage. He lent a willing hand to the divorces and re-marriages of his royal master.

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

  Yet Chrysostom remains uncomfortably aware that the actual churches he knows in Antioch and Constantinople fall far short of such celestial harmony. Having inherited his vision of the church from such heroic predecessors as Justin, Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen, Chrysostom, measuring the church of his own day against theirs, alternatively grieves and lashes out in anger: Plagues, teeming with untold mischiefs, have come upon the churches. The primary offices have become marketable. Hence innumerable evils are arising, and there is no one to redress, no one to reprove them. Indeed, the disorder has taken on a kind of method and consistency of its own.24 Excessive wealth, enormous power, and luxury, Chrysostom charges, are destroying the integrity of the churches. Clerics, infected by the disease of “lust for authority,” are fighting for candidates on the basis of family prominence, wealth, or partisanship. Others support the candidacy of their friends, relatives, or flatterers, “but no one will look to the man who is really qualified.” They ignore, Chrysostom says, the only valid qualification, “excellence of character.”25 Pagans rightly ridicule the whole business: “ ‘Do you see,’ they say, ‘how all matters among the Christians are full of vainglory? And there is ambition among them, and hypocrisy. Strip them,’ they say, ‘of their numbers, and they are nothing.’ ”26 Could the vision forged by the embattled Christians of earlier times, who saw the church as an island of purity in an ocean of corruption, fit the circumstances of a state religion, a church that had come into imperial favor, wealth, and power? Chrysostom saw his church as still contending against powerful rivals.27 He did not consider the possibility that his vision of the church, sanctioned by nearly four centuries of tradition, might no longer fit the situation of his fellow Christians at the beginning of the fifth century. Now that the world had invaded the church and the church the world, new questions had arisen: How, for example, were Christians to envision the new role of a Christian emperor and the legitimacy of his rule, not only over unruly pagans, but over Christians themselves (notably including the increasing flood of nominal converts)? And how were Christians to account for the unsettling new prominence of the churches, in which becoming a bishop now guaranteed a man tax exemptions, vastly increased income, social power, and possibly even influence at court? The traditional Christian answers to the question of power no longer applied by the later fourth century, when not only Constantine but several others, including Theodosius the Great, had ruled as Christian emperors. Augustine’s opposite interpretation of the politics of Paradise—and, in particular, his insistence that the whole human race, including the redeemed, remains wholly incapable of self-government—offered Christians radically new ways to interpret this unprecedented situation.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As he was doing this, the maidservant arrived on the scene, and on entering the tower, no longer able to hold herself in check, she clapped her palms to the sides of her head and cried out: ‘My poor, sweet mistress, where are you?’ On hearing the maidservant’s voice, the lady called to her with all her strength, saying: ‘Here I am, my sister. Up here. Don’t cry, but just bring me my clothes, and quickly.’ No sooner did she hear the voice of her mistress, than her fears were almost entirely dispelled, and climbing the ladder, which by this time was all but repaired, she succeeded with the swineherd’s assistance in reaching the platform, where, finding her mistress lying naked on the floor, utterly broken and exhausted, looking more like a burnt log than a human form, she dug her nails into her face and burst into tears, as though she were gazing down upon a corpse. However, the lady implored her for God’s sake to be silent and help her to dress. And having learnt from the maid that no one knew where she had been, except for the swineherd and those who had brought her clothes, she felt somewhat relieved, and begged them for God’s sake never to breathe a word about it to anyone. 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.

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I leave our good name and our possessions in your hands; and since my return is far less certain than my departure, owing to any of a thousand accidents that may befall me, I want you to promise me this: that whatever should be my fate, failing positive news that I live, you will wait for a year and a month and a day before you remarry, beginning from this, the day of my departure.’ ‘Torello,’ she replied, weeping most bitterly, ‘how I am to bear all the sorrow into which I am plunged by your going away, I simply cannot tell. But if I am strong enough to survive it, and if anything should happen to you, rest assured that for as long as I live I shall be wedded to Messer Torello and his memory.’ ‘My lady,’ said Messer Torello, ‘I am convinced that you will do all in your power to keep such a promise; but you are young and beautiful, you come from a famous family, and as everyone knows, you are a woman of exceptional gifts. Hence I have no doubt that if I am reported as missing, many a fine gentleman will be seeking your hand from your brothers and kinsfolk, who will subject you to so much pressure, that whether you like it or not you will be forced to comply with their wishes. And that is why I do not ask you to wait any longer than the period I have stated.’ ‘I shall do my utmost to keep my promise,’ said the lady. ‘And even if I am forced to act differently, at least I shall follow these instructions of yours to the letter. But I pray to God that neither you nor I will be brought to any such extremity.’ Having uttered these words, the lady burst into tears and embraced Messer Torello. Then, taking a ring from her finger, she presented it to him saying:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Being determined that the affair should leave no stain upon the reputation either of themselves or of their sister, he decided that they must pass it over in silence and pretend to have neither seen nor heard anything until such time as it was safe and convenient for them to rid themselves of this ignominy before it got out of hand. Abiding by this decision, the three brothers jested and chatted with Lorenzo in their usual manner, until one day they pretended they were all going off on a pleasure-trip to the country, and took Lorenzo with them. They bided their time, and on reaching a very remote and lonely spot, they took Lorenzo off his guard, murdered him, and buried his corpse. No one had witnessed the deed, and on their return to Messina they put it about that they had sent Lorenzo away on a trading assignment, being all the more readily believed as they had done this so often before. Lorenzo’s continued absence weighed heavily upon Lisabetta, who kept asking her brothers, in anxious tones, what had become of him, and eventually her questioning became so persistent that one of her brothers rounded on her, and said: ‘What is the meaning of this? What business do you have with Lorenzo, that you should be asking so many questions about him? If you go on pestering us, we shall give you the answer you deserve.’ From then on, the young woman, who was sad and miserable and full of strange forebodings, refrained from asking questions. But at night she would repeatedly utter his name in a heart-rending voice and beseech him to come to her, and from time to time she would burst into tears because of his failure to return. Nothing would restore her spirits, and meanwhile she simply went on waiting. One night, however, after crying so much over Lorenzo’s absence that she eventually cried herself off to sleep, he appeared to her in a dream, pallid-looking and all dishevelled, his clothes tattered and decaying, and it seemed to her that he said: ‘Ah, Lisabetta, you do nothing but call to me and bemoan my long absence, and you cruelly reprove me with your tears. Hence I must tell you that I can never return, because on the day that you saw me for the last time, I was murdered by your brothers.’ He then described the place where they had buried him, told her not to call to him or wait for him any longer, and disappeared. Having woken up, believing that what she had seen was true, the young woman wept bitterly. And when she arose next morning, she resolved to go to the place and seek confirmation of what she had seen in her sleep.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He remarked on how delicious it looked, and the lady, whose appetite was excellent, began to eat it, finding it so tasty a dish that she ate every scrap of it. On observing that his lady had finished it down to the last morsel, the knight said: ‘What did you think of that, madam?’ ‘In good faith, my lord,’ replied the lady, ‘I liked it very much.’ ‘So help me God,’ exclaimed the knight, ‘I do believe you did. But I am not surprised to find that you liked it dead, because when it was alive you liked it better than anything else in the whole world.’ On hearing this, the lady was silent for a while; then she said: ‘How say you? What is this that you have caused me to eat?’ ‘That which you have eaten,’ replied the knight, ‘was in fact the heart of Guillaume de Cabestanh, with whom you, faithless woman that you are, were so infatuated. And you may rest assured that it was truly his, because I tore it from his breast myself, with these very hands, a little before I returned home.’ You can all imagine the anguish suffered by the lady on hearing such tidings of Cabestanh, whom she loved more dearly than anything else in the world. But after a while, she said: ‘This can only have been the work of an evil and treacherous knight, for if, of my own free will, I abused you by making him the master of my love, it was not he but I that should have paid the penalty for it. But God forbid that any other food should pass my lips now that I have partaken of such excellent fare as the heart of so gallant and courteous a knight as Guillaume de Cabestanh.’ And rising to her feet, she retreated a few steps to an open window, through which without a second thought she allowed herself to fall. The window was situated high above the ground, so that the lady was not only killed by her fall but almost completely disfigured. The spectacle of his wife’s fall threw Roussillon into a panic and made him repent the wickedness of his deed. And fearing the wrath of the local people and of the Count of Provence, he had his horses saddled and rode away. By next morning the circumstances of the affair had become common knowledge throughout the whole of the district, and people were sent out from the castles of the lady’s family and of Guillaume de Cabestanh to gather up the two bodies, which were later placed in a single tomb in the chapel of the lady’s own castle amid widespread grief and mourning. And the tombstone bore an inscription, in verse, to indicate who was buried there and the manner and the cause of their deaths.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘And you?’ he said. ‘What was your reaction to these falsehoods concerning your lady?’ ‘I was overcome with rage at the loss of my money,’ replied Bernabò, ‘and also with shame at the damage to my honour that I thought my wife had committed. And so I had her killed by one of my retainers, and according to his own account, she was immediately devoured by a pack of wolves.’ Sicurano then addressed the Sultan, who, though he had been listening carefully and taking it all in, was still in the dark about Sicurano’s motives in requesting and arranging this meeting. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘It will be quite obvious to you what a fine swain and a fine husband that good lady was blessed with. For the swain deprives her of her honour by besmirching her good name with lies, at the same time ruining her husband. And the husband, paying more attention to another man’s falsehoods than to the truth that years of experience should have taught him, has her killed and eaten by wolves. Moreover, both the suitor and the husband love and respect her so deeply that they are able to spend a long time in her company without even recognizing her. But in order that you shall be left in no possible doubt concerning the merits of these two gentlemen, I am ready, provided that you will grant me the special favour of pardoning the dupe and punishing the deceiver, to make the lady appear, here and now, before your very eyes.’ The Sultan, who was prepared to allow Sicurano a completely free hand in this affair, gave his consent and told him to produce the lady. Bernabò, being firmly convinced that she was dead, was unable to believe his ears, whilst Ambrogiuolo, for whom things were beginning to look desperate, was afraid in any case that he was going to have more than a sum of money to pay, and could not see that it would affect him either one way or the other if the lady really were to turn up. But if anything he was even more astonished than Bernabò. No sooner had the Sultan agreed to Sicurano’s request than Sicurano burst into tears and threw himself on his knees at the Sultan’s feet, at the same time losing his manly voice and the desire to persist in his masculine role. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I myself am the poor unfortunate Zinevra, who for six long years has toiled her way through the world disguised as a man, a victim of the false and wicked calumnies of this traitor Ambrogiuolo and of the iniquitous cruelty of this man who handed her over to be killed by one of his servants and eaten by wolves.’ Tearing open the front of her dress and displaying her bosom, she made it clear to the Sultan and to everyone else that she was indeed a woman.