Sadness

Passages

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

Page 16 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Trash (1988)

  I heard Mama’s indrawn breath. “I said don’t laugh. I’m telling you what I really believe.” I lifted my head. Jo sounded so sincere. I could almost feel Mama leaning toward her. “What I think is, if you were good to the people in your life, well then, you come back as a big dog. And . . .” Jo paused and tapped a finger on the bedframe. “If you were some evil son of a bitch, then you gonna come back some nasty little Pekingese.” Jo laughed then, a quick bark of a laugh. Mama joined in weakly. Then they were giggling together. “A Pekingese,” Mama said. “Oh yes.” I put my forehead against the mirror over the sink and listened. It was good to hear. When they settled down, I started to step past the curtain. But then Mama spoke and I paused. Her voice was soft, but firm. “I just want to go to sleep,” she said. “Just sleep. I never want to wake up again.” The next morning, Mama could not move her legs. She could barely breathe. There was a pain in her side, she said. Sweat shone on her forehead when she tried to talk. The blisters on her mouth had spread to her chin. “I’m afraid.” She gripped my hand so tightly I could feel the bones of my fingers rubbing together. “I know,” I told her. “But I’m here. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll stay right here.” Jo came in the afternoon. The doctor had already come and gone, leaving Mama’s left arm bound to a plastic frame and that tiny machine pumping more morphine. Mama seemed to be floating, only coming to the surface now and then. Every time her eyes opened, she jerked as if she had just realized she was still alive. “What did he say?” Jo demanded. I could barely look at her. “It was a stroke.” I cleared my throat. I spoke carefully, softly. “A little one in the night. He thinks there will be more, lots more. One of them might kill her, but it might not. She might go on a long time. They don’t know.” I watched Jo’s right hand search her jacket pockets until she found the pack of cigarettes. She put one in her mouth, but didn’t light it. She just looked at me while I looked back at her. “We have to make some decisions,” I said. Jo nodded. “I don’t want them to . . .” She lifted her hands and shook them. Her eyes were glittering in the fluorescent lighting. “To hurt her.” “Yeah.” I nodded gratefully. I could never have fought Jo if she had disagreed with me. “I told them we didn’t want them to do anything.” “Anything?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  For I once had a neighbour who, without the slightest cause, was forever beating his wife, so that on this one occasion I spoke ill of him to his wife’s kinsfolk, for I felt extremely sorry for that unfortunate woman. Whenever the fellow had had too much to drink, God alone could tell you how he battered her.’ Then the friar said: ‘Let me see now, you tell me you were a merchant. Did you ever deceive anyone, as merchants do?’ ‘Faith, sir, I did,’ said Ser Ciappelletto. ‘But all I know about him is that he was a man who brought me some money that he owed me for a length of cloth I had sold him. I put the money away in a box without counting it, and a whole month passed before I discovered there were four pennies more than there should have been. I kept them for a year with the intention of giving them back, but I never saw him again, so I gave them away to a beggar.’ ‘That was a trivial matter,’ said the friar, ‘and you did well to dispose of the money as you did.’ The holy friar questioned him on many other matters, but always he answered in similar vein, and hence the friar was ready to proceed without further ado to give him absolution. But Ser Ciappelletto said: ‘Sir, I still have one or two sins I have not yet told you about.’ The friar asked him what they were, and he said:

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

  We find them presented before Sigismund and prelates during the solemn discussions of the Council of Constance, as when the play of the Nativity and the Slaughter of the Innocents was acted at the Bishop of Salisbury’s lodgings,1417, and at St. Peter’s, as when the play of Susannah and the Elders was performed in honor of Leonora, daughter of Ferrante of Naples,1473. At a popular dramatization of the parable of the 10 Virgins in Eisenach,1324, the margrave, Friedrich, was so moved by the pleas of the 5 foolish maidens and the failure to secure the aid of Mary and the saints, that he cried out, "What is the Christian religion worth, if sinners cannot obtain mercy through the intercession of Mary?" The story went, that he became melancholy and died soon afterwards. Of the four English cycles of miracle plays, York, Chester, Coventry and Towneley or Wakefield, the York cycle dates back to 1360 and contained from 48 to 57 plays. Chester and Coventry were the traditional centres of the religious drama. The stage or pageant, as it was called, was wheeled through the streets. The playing was often in the hands of the guilds, such as the barbers, tanners, plasterers, butchers, spicers, chandlers.1265 The paying of actors dates from the 14th century. Chester cycles was Noah’s Flood, a subject popular everywhere in mediaeval Europe. After God’s announcement to the patriarch, his 3 sons and their wives offered to take hand in the building of the ark. Noah’s wife alone held out and scolded while the others worked. In spite of Noah’s well-known quality of patience, her husband exclaimed: — Lord, these women be crabbed, aye And none are meke, I dare well says. Nothing daunted, however, the patriarch went on with his hammering and hewing and remarked: — These bordes heare I pinne togither To bear us saffe from the weither, That we may rowe both heither and theither And saffe be from the fludde.1266 The ark finished, each party brought his portion of animals and birds. But when they were housed, Noah’s help-meet again proved a disturbing element. Noah bade Shem go and fetch her. Sem, sonne, loe! thy mother is wrawe (angry). Shem told her they were about to set sail, but still she resisted entreaty and all hands were called to join together and "fetch her in." One of the best of the English plays, Everyman, has for its subject the inevitableness of death and the judgment.1267 God sends Death to Everyman and, in his attempt to withstand his message, Everyman calls upon his friends Fellowship, Riches, Strength, Beauty and Good Works for help or, at least, to accompany him on his pilgrimage. This with one consent they refused to do. He then betook himself to Penance, and has explained to him the powers of the priesthood: —

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

  Against the proclivity of the gilds to fix the prices of their wares at unreasonable figures, Henry VII. set himself with determination. With the development of sheep-walks farm hands lost their employment.1347 To the author of Utopia the act of parliament in 1515, fixing wages, seemed to be "nothing else than a conspiracy of the rich against the poor," and, the laboring man was doomed to a life so wretched that even a beast’s life in comparison seemed to be enviable." The discoveries in the New World and the nautical exploits, which carried Portuguese sailors around the Cape of Good Hope, also stimulated this feeling of restlessness. While the horizon of the natural world was being enlarged and new highways of commerce were being opened, thoughtful men had questions whether the geography of the spiritual world, as outlined in the scholastic systems, did not need revision. The resurrection of the Bible as a popular book stimulated the curiosity and questioning. The Bible also was a new world. The trade, the enterprise, the thought awakened during the last 70 years of the Middle Ages were incomparably more vital than had been awakened by the Crusades and the Crusaders’ tales. When the Reformation came, the chief centres of business in Germany and England became, for the most part, seats of the new religious movement, Nürnberg, Ulm, Augsburg, Geneva, Strassburg, Frankfurt, Lübeck and London. The Renaissance, as has already been set forth, was another potent factor contributing to the forward impulse of the last century of the Middle Ages. All the faculties of man were to be recognized as worthy of cultivation. Europe arose as out of a deep sleep. Men opened their eyes and saw, as Mr. Taine put it. The Renaissance made the discovery of man and the earth. The Schoolmen had forgotten both. Here also a new world was revealed to view and Ulrich von Hutten, referring to it and to the age as a whole could exclaim, "O century, studies flourish, spirits are awaking. It is a pleasure to live!" But in the Renaissance Providence seems to have had the design of showing again that intellectual and artistic culture may flourish, while the process of moral and social decline goes on. No regenerating wave passed over Italy’s society or cleansed her palaces and convents. The outward forms of civilization did not check the inward decline. The Italian character, says Gregorovius, "in the last 30 years of the 15th century displays a trait of diabolical passion. Tyrannicide, conspiracies and deeds of treachery were universal." In the period of Athenian greatness, the process of the intellectual sublimation of the few was accompanied by the process of moral decay in the many. So now, art did not purify. The Renaissance did not find out what repentance was or feel the need of it.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘A fine lot, n’est-ce pas?’ he would say with a grin, ‘See that man? Ah, yes—a really great poet. He drank himself to death. In those days it was absinthe—they liked it because it gave them such courage. That one would come here like a scared white rat, but Crénom! when he left he would bellow like a bull—the absinthe, of course—it gave them great courage.’ Or: ‘That woman over there, what a curious head! I remember her very well, she was German. Else Weining, her name was—before the war she would come with a girl she’d picked up here in Paris, just a common whore, a most curious business. They were deeply in love. They would sit at a table in the corner—I can show you their actual table. They never talked much and they drank very little; as far as the drink went those two were bad clients, but so interesting that I did not much mind—I grew almost attached to Else Weining. Sometimes she would come all alone, come early. “Pu,” she would say in her hideous French; “Pu, she must never go back to that hell.” Hell! Sacrénom—she to call it hell! Amazing they are, I tell you, these people. Well, the girl went back, naturally she went back, and Else drowned herself in the Seine. Amazing they are—ces invertis, I tell you!’ But not all the histories were so tragic as this one; Monsieur Pujol found some of them quite amusing. Quarrels galore he was able to relate, and light infidelities by the dozen. He would mimic a manner of speech, a gesture, a walk—he was really quite a good mimic—and when he did this his friends were not bored; they would sit there and split their sides with amusement. And now Monsieur Pujol was laughing himself, cracking jokes as he covertly watched his clients. From where she and Mary sat near the door, Stephen could hear his loud, jovial laughter. ‘Lord,’ sighed Pat, unenlivened as yet by the beer; ‘some people do seem to feel real good this evening.’ Wanda, who disliked the ingratiating Pujol, and whose nerves were on edge, had begun to grow angry. She had caught a particularly gross blasphemy, gross even for this age of stupid blaspheming. ‘Le salaud!’ she shouted, then, inflamed by drink, an epithet even less complimentary. ‘Hush up, do!’ exclaimed the scandalized Pat, hastily gripping Wanda’s shoulder. But Wanda was out to defend her faith, and she did it in somewhat peculiar language.

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

  Salmon: Elkesai, Elkesaites, in Smith & Wace, vol. II. (1880) p. 95 98. M. N. Siouffi: Études sur la religion des Soubbas on Sabéens, leurs dogmes, leurs möurs. Paris, 1880. K. Kessler: Mandaeer, in Herzog, revised ed., IX. (1881), p. 205–222. AD. Hilgenfeld: Ketzergesch. des Urchristenthums, Leip., 1884 (421 sqq.). The Jewish Christianity, represented in the apostolic church by Peter and James, combined with the Gentile Christianity of Paul, to form a Christian church, in which "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature in Christ." I. A portion of the Jewish Christians, however, adhered even after the destruction of Jerusalem, to the national customs of their fathers, and propagated themselves in some churches of Syria down to the end of the fourth century, under the name of Nazarenes; a name perhaps originally given in contempt by the Jews to all Christians as followers of Jesus of Nazareth.776 They united the observance of the Mosaic ritual law with their belief in the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus, used the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, deeply mourned the unbelief of their brethren, and hoped for their future conversion in a body and for a millennial reign of Christ on the earth. But they indulged no antipathy to the apostle Paul, and never denounced the Gentile Christians and heretics for not observing the law. They were, therefore, not heretics, but stunted separatist Christians; they stopped at the obsolete position of a narrow and anxious Jewish Christianity, and shrank to an insignificant sect. Jerome says of them, that, wishing to be Jews and Christians alike, they were neither one nor the other.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Herbie was interested in him. But Herbie knew better than to reveal his attraction, and pantomimed his broken heart behind Lewis’s broad back. We found Lupita almost immediately. “Over here,” she called brightly. She waved us into the shadow between the painting and drawing studios, where she was alone. “Okay, Venus,” joked Herbie. “This better be good. I just left the man of my dreams to come and look for you.” Her eyes shined as she pulled a pint of Everclear from under her jacket. “You guys go ahead,” I said. “I’ll sit this one out.” I was trying to be good. It was then that I saw the rough smudge of dirt on Lupita’s jacket, the dainty lace of twigs on her thick black hair, and the bruise decorating her wrist. I thought of Clarence and Lewis walking smugly into the dance. I knew they’d had their way with her. It was more than I could bear. I took a drink, then another. I lost track of time. One minute we were all back in the canteen dancing in a line to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and then the next we were sitting under the moon out near the ditch with a stranger from town we’d hired to make a liquor run for us. The earth was spinning, and we were spinning with it. We leaned into the burn. Lupita told us about her life, about how her mother had died when she was ten years old and left her with her father. She told how her father would tie her hair up every morning with her mother’s ribbons before they left to work the fields together. Herbie showed us the scar on his back made by a man who beat him and then raped him for his girlish ways. He made it sound funny, but I didn’t laugh. I didn’t say anything: I was numb and flying far away, listening to the whir of the story as it unwound beneath the glowing moon. Herbie disappeared somewhere in the dark, and I could hear him throwing up. Someone was singing round-dance songs. A dog barked far, far away. Lupita had drifted into the bushes for what seemed years when the warning bell sounded from the girls’ dorm. The sky was still spinning, but I willed myself to walk, step by step, to find Lupita, to make it back to the dorm in time. I looked for her through the blur of stars and sadness. I lost her. Without warning I remembered the stacked stones in the quarry on the moon. I saw the unraveling story as it spun through time and space. And I

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

  Innocent III. Otto IV 1209–1215 Crowned by Innocent III 1209 Deposed by the Lateran Council 1215 1216–1227 Honorius III. Frederick II 1227–1241 Gregory IX. (Son of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily) 1241 Coelestine IV. Crowned emperor by Honorius III 1220 1241–1254 Innocent IV. Conrad IV 1250–1254 (Second son of Frederick II) Crowned king of the Romans 1237 Excommunicated, 1252, and again 1254 1254–1261 Alexander IV. Interregnum 1254–1273 1261–1264 Urban IV. Conradin 1265–1268 Clement IV. (Son of Conrad, the last of the Hohenstaufen, b. 1252) Beheaded. 1268 –––––––––– § 28. Adrian IV. and Frederick Barbarossa. Lives of Hadrian in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. I. III.—Migne, vol. 188.—Otto of Freising.—William of Newburgh, 2 vols. London, 1856.—R. Raby: Pope Hadrian IV. London, 1849.—Tarleton: Nicolas Breakspear, Englishman And Pope, 1896.—L. Ginnell: The Doubtful Grant of Ireland of Pope Adrian IV. to Henry II., 1899.—O. J. Thatcher: Studies conc. Adrian IV. Chicago, 1903. pp. 88.—Reuter: Alex. III., vol. I. 1–48, 479–487. Eugene III. was followed by Anastasius IV., whose rule lasted only sixteen months. His successor was Nicolas Breakspear, the first and the only Englishman that has (thus far) worn the tiara. He was the son of a poor priest of St. Albans. He went to France in pursuit of bread and learning, became a monk, prior, and abbot of the convent of St. Rufus, between Arles and Avignon. He studied theology and canon law. Eugene III. made him cardinal-bishop of Albano, and sent him as legate to Norway and Sweden, where he organized the Church and brought it into closer contact with Rome. He occupied the papal chair as Adrian IV., from 1154 to 1159, with great ability and energy. A beggar raised to the highest dignity in Christendom! The extremes of fortune met in this Englishman. Yet he felt happier in his poverty than in his power. He declared soon after his consecration that "the papal chair was full of thorns and the papal mantle full of holes and so heavy as to load down the strongest man." And after some experience in that high office, he said: "Is there a man in the world so miserable as a pope? I have found so much trouble in St. Peter’s chair that all the bitterness of my former life appears sweet in comparison."130 The Romans, under the lead of Arnold, requested him to resign all claim to temporal rule; but he refused, and after a bloody attack made by an Arnoldist upon one of the cardinals in the open street, he laid—for the first time in history—the interdict on the city. By this unbloody, yet awful and most effective, weapon, he enforced the submission of the people. He abolished the republican government, expelled Arnold and his adherents, and took possession of the Lateran.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2The motoring, of course, was the most tremendous fun, but—and it was a very large but indeed—when Stephen got home to Morton and the schoolroom, a little grey figure would be sitting at the table correcting an exercise book, or preparing some task for the following morning. The little grey figure might look up and smile, and when it did this its face would be charming; but if it refrained from smiling, then its face would be ugly, too hard and too square in formation—except for the brow, which was rounded and shiny like a bare intellectual knee. If the little grey figure got up from the table, you were struck by the fact that it seemed square all over—square shoulders, square hips, a flat, square line of bosom; square tips to the fingers, square toes to the shoes, and all tiny; it suggested a miniature box that was neatly spliced at the corners. Of uncertain age, pale, with iron-grey hair, grey eyes, and invariably dressed in dark grey, Miss Puddleton did not look very inspiring—not at all as one having authority, in fact. But on close observation it had to be admitted that her chin, though minute, was extremely aggressive. Her mouth, too, was firm, except when its firmness was melted by the warmth and humour of her smile—a smile that mocked, pitied and questioned the world, and perhaps Miss Puddleton as well. From the very first moment of Miss Puddleton’s arrival, Stephen had had an uncomfortable conviction that this queer little woman was going to mean something, was going to become a fixture. And sure enough she had settled down at once, so that in less than two months it seemed to Stephen that Miss Puddleton must always have been at Morton, must always have been sitting at the large walnut table, must always have been saying in that dry, toneless voice with the Oxford accent: ‘You’ve forgotten something, Stephen,’ and then, ‘the books can’t walk to the bookcase, but you can, so suppose that you take them with you.’ It was truly amazing, the change in the schoolroom, not a book out of place, not a shelf in disorder; even the box lounge had had to be opened and its dumb-bells and clubs paired off nicely together—Miss Puddleton always liked things to be paired, perhaps an unrecognized matrimonial instinct. And now Stephen found herself put into harness for the first time in her life, and she loathed the sensation. There were so many rules that a very large time-sheet had had to be fastened to the blackboard in the schoolroom. ‘Because,’ said Miss Puddleton as she pinned the thing up, ‘even my brain won’t stand your complete lack of method, it’s infectious; this time-sheet is my anti-toxin, so please don’t tear it to pieces!’

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  It was an initiation of sorts, either for love or as a mark of blood, to show bravery or to record a particular event, a breakup or an accomplishment. Years later I picked up my daughter from Indian school near Gallup and met the boyfriend she was mourning because they had to part for summer vacation. His hand blazed with her initials carved in a heart. The cuts were still weeping blood. I knew I had trouble. I marked myself once with a knife. I was disappearing into the adolescent sea of rage and destruction. The mark of pain assured me of my own reality. The cut could speak. It had a voice that cried out when I could not make a sound in my defense. I never made such a mark again. Instead I chose to slash art onto canvas, pencil marks onto paper, and when I could no longer carry the burden of history, I found other openings. I found stories. This next story I found in my memory in a tangle of Indian school stories. It is partially fictionalized. I thought of the old man as we huddled in the ditch behind the dorms, passing around a bottle of sticky sweet cherry vodka. Alcohol kept away the cold and the ghosts of sadness, and after a few sips I was free to remember. One night the moon was full, bright, with an aura of ice as earth headed toward winter. It was in the time when our father was still with us. He hadn’t come home again, and my mother waited up for him in front of the television, the blue flickering glow switching back and forth between light and dark. The luminous road to the moon was strong and familiar as I made my way to the old man who was my guardian there. We did not need words to talk. That night he took me to a stone quarry, and we walked to the edge where the scrap pieces were piled together. Below it we could see the world I had come from. Across town, my father was coming out of Cain’s Ballroom with a blond woman on his arm. They were kissing and laughing. We could see my mother doze as the television screen blurred, and then the baby awakened and she went to him, changed his diaper, and held him close to her neck as she turned on the light in the kitchen to make his bottle. This was the first time we had come to this place together. I knew then that it would be a very long time before I would see the old man again, and I felt sad. We watched the story below us as it unwound through time and space, unraveling like my mother’s spools of threads when she accidentally dropped them. But I would not recall any of it for years.

• From Trash (1988)

  “I’m getting out of here, and I’m never coming back,” she told me the first morning of that week. By the end of the week, she had done it, though the apartment was half a mile up the highway, and even smaller than Jo’s. I saw it only once, a place devoid of furniture or grace, but built like a fortress. “Mine,” Arlene had said, a world of rage compressed into the word. Lying on the old narrow Hollywood bed again, I remembered the look on Arlene’s face. It was identical to the expression I had seen on Jo when I was packing my boxes to drive to Louisville. “We’ll never see your ass again,” Jo had said. Her mouth pulled down in a mock frown, then crooked up into a grin. “Not in this lifetime.” All these years later I could look back and it was exactly as if I were watching a movie of it, a scene that closed in on Jo’s black eyes and the bitter pleasure she took in saying “your ass.” I know my mouth had twisted to match hers. We had thought ourselves free, finally away and gone. But none of it had come out the way we had thought it would. I hadn’t lasted two years in Louisville, and Arlene had never gotten more than three miles from the Frito Lay plant. Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama. “Take me shopping,” Mama begged me every afternoon, as if no time at all had passed. I had looked at her neck and seen how gray and sweaty the skin had gone and known in that moment that the chemo had not worked out as we hoped. “Tomorrow,” I had promised Mama, and talked her into lying down early. Then gone back to curl up in bed and pretend to read so that I could be left alone. Every night for the two weeks I stayed there I would listen to Jack’s hacking through the bedroom wall. Every time he coughed, my back pulled tight. I tried to shut him out, listening past him for Mama lying on the couch in the living room. She talked to herself once she thought we were asleep. It sounded as if she were retelling stories. Little snatches would drift down the hall. “Oh James, God that James . . .” Her voice went soft. I listened to unintelligible whispers till she said, “When Arlene was born . . .” Then she faded out again. In the background, Jack’s snoring grated low and steady. I curled my fists under the sheets until I fell asleep.

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

  [The Germans, who received the empire from the Pope, were formerly most zealous against heresy, but now give birth to the most dangerous errors.] Quod eo magis dolemus ibi269 evenisse, quod eandem nationem et nos et Praedecessores nostri in visceribus semper gesserimus caritatis. Nam post translatum ex Grecis a Romana Ecclesia in eosdem Germanos imperium, iidem Praedecessores nostri et nos ejusdem Ecclesiae advocates defensoresque ex eis semper accepimus; quos quidem Germanos, Catholicae veritatis vere germanos, constat haeresum [haeresium] acerrimos oppugnatores270 semper fuisse: cujus rei testes sunt laudabiles illae constitutiones Germanorum Imperatorum pro libertate Ecclesiae, proque expellendis exterminandisque ex omni Germania haereticis, sub gravissimis poenis, etiam amissionis terrarum et dominiorum, contra receptatores vel non expellentes olim editae, et à nostris Praedecessoribus confirmatae, quae si hodie servarentur, et nos et ipsi utique hae molestiâ careremus. Testis est in Concilio Constantiensi Hussitarum ac Wiccleffistarum, necnon Hieronymi Pragensis damnata ac punita perfidia. Testis est totiens contra Bohemos Germanorum sanguis effusus. Testis denique est praedictorum errorum, seu multorum ex eis per Coloniensem et Lovaniensem Universitates, utpote agri dominici piissimas religiosissimasque cultrices, non minus docta quam vera ac sancta confutatio, reprobatio, et damnatio. Multa quoque alia allegare possemus, quae, ne historiam texere videamur, praetermittenda censuimus. Pro pastorals igitur officii, divinâ gratiâ, nobis injuncti cura, quam gerimus, praedictorum errorum virus pestiferum ulterius tolerare seu dissimulare sine Christianae, religionis nota, atque orthodoxae fidei injuria nullo modo possumus. Eorum autem errorum aliquos praesentibus duximus inferendos, quorum tenor sequitur, et est talis: — [Forty-one heretical sentences selected from Luther’s writings.] I. Haeretica sententia est, sed usitata, Sacramenta novae legis justificantem gratiam illis dare, qui non ponunt obicem. II. In puero post baptismum negare remanens peccatum, est Paulum et Christum simul conculcare. III. Fomes peccati, etiam si nullum adsit actuale peccatum, moratur exeuntem a corpore animam ab ingressu coeli. IV. Imperfecta caritas morituri fert secum necessario magnum timorem, qui se solo satis est facere poenam purgatorii, et impedit introitum regni. V. Tres esse partes poenitentiae, contritionem, confessionem, et satisfactionem, non est fundatum in sacra scriptura, nec in antiquis sanctis Christianis doctoribus. VI. Contritio, quae paratus per discussionem, collectionem,271 et deteststionem peccatorum, qua quis recogitat annos suos in amaritudine animae suae, ponderando peccatorum gravitatem, multitudinem, foeditatem, amissionem aeternae beatitudinis, ac aeternae damnationis acquisitionem, haec contritio facit hypocritam, immo magis peccatorem. VII. Verissimum est proverbium, et omnium doctrina de contritionibus hucusque data praestantius, de cetero non facere, summa poenitentia, optima poenitentia, nova vita. VIII. Nullo modo praesumas confiteri peccata venialia, sed nec omnia mortalia, quia impossibile est, ut omnia mortalia cognoscas: unde in primitiva Ecclesia solum manifesta mortalia confitebantur. IX. Dum volumus omnia pure confiteri, nihil aliud facimus, quam quod misericordiae Dei nihil volumus relinquere ignoscendum. X. Peccata non sunt illi remissa, nisi remittente sacerdote credat sibi remitti; immo peccatum maneret nisi remissum crederet; non enim sufficit remissio peccati et gratiae donatio, sed oportet etiam credere esse remissum.

• From Trash (1988)

  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. Mavis crossed her arms. Jo shrugged and leaned over to pull the thin blanket further up Mama’s bruised shoulders. In her sleep Mama said softly, “Please.” Then in a murmur so soft it could have been a blessing, “Goddamn, goddamn.” I reached past Jo and took Mama’s free hand in mine. “It’s OK. It’s OK,” I said. Mama’s face smoothed. Her mouth went soft, but her fingers in mine clutched tightly. “That window isn’t supposed to be open,” Mavis said suddenly. “You get it shut.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Though the physicians applied the most prompt and efficient remedies they could devise, it was some little time before they managed to restore his circulation and straighten out his limbs, and but for his relative youth and the advent of milder weather, he would never have recovered at all. However, having regained his health and vigour, he suppressed his hatred of the widow and pretended to be far more enamoured of her than he had ever been before. Now, after a certain amount of time had elapsed, Fortune supplied the scholar with a chance to gratify his longing for revenge. For the young man who was the object of the widow’s affection, paying no heed whatever to the love that she bore him, fell in love with another woman and resolved to have nothing more to do with her, so that she pined away in tears and bitter lamentations. But her maid, feeling very sorry for her and finding no way of assuaging the grief that had seized her mistress in the loss of her lover, conceived the foolish idea that the young man might be persuaded to return to his former love by the application of some form of magic. And since she supposed that the scholar, whom she regularly caught sight of in the neighbourhood as he passed by the house in his usual fashion, must be a great expert in the art of magic, she broached the idea to her mistress. The lady was not very intelligent, and it never occurred to her that if the scholar had known anything about magic he would have used it on his own behalf. She therefore took the maid’s suggestion seriously, and told her to go and find out at once whether he would do it. And in return for his assistance, she would promise him faithfully to give him whatever he wanted. The maid scrupulously delivered the message, on hearing which the scholar was overjoyed, and said to himself: ‘Praise be to God, for with His assistance, the time has come for me to punish the wicked hussy for the wrong she did me in exchange for all the love I bore her.’ And turning to the maid, he said: ‘Tell my lady not to worry about this, for even if her lover were in India, I should make him return to her at once and ask her forgiveness for flouting her wishes. Tell her that she has only to fix a time and a place, and I shall explain to her what she must do in order to remedy matters. And do please give her my kindest regards.’ The maid took his answer to her mistress, and it was arranged that they should meet in the church of Santa Lucia, near the Prato gate.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘You say you will make an effort. But how? By doing things in three easy stages, and springing to attention with a blow from a cudgel? I’ve noticed, of course, what a fine, strong fellow you’ve become since I saw you last. Be off with you, and put your efforts into staying alive, for it seems to me that you won’t survive much longer, you have such a sickly and emaciated look about you. Oh, and another thing. Even if Paganino leaves me (and he seems to have no such intention, provided I want to stay), I would never come back to you in any case, because if you were to be squeezed from head to toe there wouldn’t be a thimbleful of sauce to show for it. Life with you was all loss and no gain as far as I was concerned, so if there were to be a next time, I would be trying my luck elsewhere. Once and for all, then, I repeat that I intend to stay here, where there are no holy days and no vigils. And if you don’t clear off quickly I shall scream for help and claim you were trying to molest me.’ On seeing that the situation was hopeless, and realizing for the first time how foolish he had been to take a young wife when he was so impotent, Messer Ricciardo walked out of the room, feeling all sad and forlorn, and although he had a long talk with Paganino, it made no difference whatever. And so finally, having achieved precisely nothing, he left the lady there and returned to Pisa, where his grief threw him into such a state of lunacy that whenever people met him in the street and put any question to him, the only answer they got was: ‘There’s never any rest for the bar.’8 Shortly afterwards he died, and when the news reached Paganino, knowing how deeply the lady loved him, he made her his legitimate wife. And without paying any heed to holy days or vigils or observing Lent, they worked their fingers to the bone and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So it seems to me, dear ladies, that our friend Bernabò, by taking the course he pursued with Ambrogiuolo, was riding on the edge of a precipice. * * * This story threw the whole company into such fits of laughter that there was none of them whose jaws were not aching, and the ladies unanimously agreed that Dioneo was right and that Bernabò had been an ass. But now that the tale was ended, the queen waited for the laughter to subside, and then, seeing that it was late and everyone had told a story, and realizing that her reign had come to an end, she removed the garland from her own head in the usual way, and, placing it on Neifile’s, she said to her with a laugh:

• From Carmina (-50)

  Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi, qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus, flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur, ut cedant certis sidera temporibus, ut Triuiam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 5 dulcis amor giro deuocet aereo: idem me ille Conon caelesti numine uidit e Beroniceo uertice caesariem fulgentem clare, quam multis illa dearum leuia protendens brachia pollicita est, 10 qua rex tempestate nouo auctus hymenaeo uastatum finis iuerat Assyrios, dulcia nocturnae portans uestigia rixae, quam de uirgineis gesserat exuuiis. estne nouis nuptis odio Venus? idque parentum 15 frustratur falsis gaudia lacrimulis, ubertim thalami quas intra limina fundunt? non, ita me diui, uera gemunt, iuerint. id mea me multis docuit regina querellis inuisente nouo proelia torua uiro. 20 et tu non orbum luxti deserta cubile, sed fratris cari flebile discidium? cum penitus maestas exedit cura medullas! ut tibi tunc toto pectore sollicitae sensibus ereptis mens excidit! at te ego certe 25 cognoram a parua uirgine magnanimam. anne bonum oblita es facinus, quo regium adepta es coniugium, quod non fortior ausit alis? sed tum maesta uirum mittens quae uerba locuta es! Iuppiter, ut tristi lumina saepe manu! 30 quis te mutauit tantus deus? an quod amantes non longe a caro corpore abesse uolunt? atque ibi me cunctis pro dulci coniuge diuis non sine taurino sanguine pollicita es, si reditum tetulisset. is haut in tempore longo 35 captam Asiam Aegypti finibus addiderat. quis ego pro factis caelesti reddita coetu pristina uota nouo munere dissoluo. inuita, o regina, tuo de uertice cessi, inuita: adiuro teque tuumque caput, 40 digna ferat quod siquis inaniter adiurarit: sed qui se ferro postulet esse parem? ille quoque euersus mons est, quem maximum in oris progenies Thiae clara superuehitur, cum Medi peperere nouum mare, cumque iuuentus 45 per medium classi barbara nauit Athon. quid facient crines, cum ferro talia cedant? Iuppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat, et qui principio sub terra quaerere uenas institit ac ferri stringere duritiem! 50 abiunctae paulo ante comae mea fata sorores lugebant, cum se Memnonis Aethiopis unigena impellens nutantibus aera pennis obtulit Arsinoes Locridos ales equos, isque per aetherias me tollens abuolat umbras 55 et Veneris casto collocat in gremio. ipsa suum Zephyritis eo famulum legarat, Graia Canopieis incola litoribus. hic iuueni Ismario ne solum in limine caeli ex Ariadneis aurea temporibus 60 fixa corona foret, sed nos quoque fulgeremus deuotae flaui uerticis exuuiae, uuidulum a fluctu cedentem ad templa deum me sidus in antiquis diua nouum posuit. Virginis et saeui contingens namque Leonis 65 lumina, Callisto iuxta Lycaoniam, uertor in occasum, tardum dux ante Booten, qui uix sero alto mergitur Oceano. sed quamquam me nocte premunt uestigia diuum, lux autem canae Tethyi restituit, 70 (pace tua fari hic liceat, Ramnusia uirgo, namque ego non ullo uera timore tegam, nec si me infestis discerpent sidera dictis, condita quin ueri pectoris euoluam): non his tam laetor rebus, quam me afore semper, 75 afore me a dominae uertice discrucior, quicum ego, dum uirgo quondam fuit, omnibus expers unguentis, una milia multa bibi. nunc uos, optato quas iunxit lumine taeda, non post unanimis corpora coniugibus 80 tradite nudantes reiecta ueste papillas, quin iucunda mihi munera libet onyx, uester onyx, casto petitis quae iura cubili. sed quae se impuro dedit adulterio, illius a mala dona leuis bibat irrita puluis: 85 namque ego ab indignis praemia nulla peto. sed magis, o nuptae, semper concordia uestras semper amor sedes incolat assiduus. tu uero, regina, tuens cum sidera diuam placabis festis luminibus Venerem, 90 sanguinis expertem non [+]uestris[+] esse tuum me, sed potius largis affice muneribus. sidera corruerint utinam! coma regia fiam, proximus Hydrochoi fulgeret Oarion!

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Not so very long ago, there lived in Perugia1 a rich man called Pietro di Vinciolo, who, perhaps to pull the wool over the eyes of his fellow-citizens or to improve the low opinion they had of him, rather than because of any real wish to marry, took to himself a wife. But the unfortunate part about it, considering his own proclivities, was that he chose to marry a buxom young woman with red hair and a passionate nature, who would cheerfully have taken on a pair of husbands, let alone one, and now found herself wedded to a man whose heart was anywhere but in the right place. Having in due course discovered how matters stood, his wife, seeing that she was a fair and lusty wench, blooming with health and vitality, was greatly upset about it, and every so often she gave him a piece of her mind, calling him the foulest names imaginable. She was miserable practically the whole time, but one day, realizing that if she went on like this her days might well be ended before her husband’s ways were mended, she said to herself: ‘Since this miserable sinner deserts me to go clogging through the dry,2 I’ll get someone else to come aboard for the wet. I married the wretch, and brought him a good big dowry, because I knew he was a man and thought he was fond of the kind of thing that other men like, as is right and proper that they should. If I hadn’t thought he was a man, I should never have married him. And if he found women so repugnant, why did he marry me in the first place, knowing me to be a woman? I’m not going to stand for it any longer, I have no desire to turn my back on the world, nor have I ever wanted to, otherwise I’d have gone into a nunnery; but if I have to rely on this fellow for my fun and games, the chances are that I’ll go on waiting until I’m an old woman. And what good will it do me then, in my old age, to look back and complain about the way I wasted my youth, which this husband of mine teaches me all too well how to enjoy? He has shown me how to lead a pleasurable life, but whereas in his case the pleasure can only be condemned, in my own it will commend itself to all, for I shall simply be breaking the laws of marriage, whereas he is breaking those of Nature as well.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The spark in question was called Ruggieri da Jeroli, a man of noble birth, but of lewd life and blameworthy carriage, insomuch that he had left himself neither friend nor kinsman who wished him well or cared to see him and was defamed throughout all Salerno for thefts and other knaveries of the vilest; but of this the lady recked little, he pleasing her for otherwhat, and with the aid of a maid of hers, she wrought on such wise that they came together. After they had taken some delight, the lady proceeded to blame his past way of life and to pray him, for the love of her, to desist from these ill fashions; and to give him the means of doing this, she fell to succouring him, now with one sum of money and now with another. On this wise they abode together, using the utmost discretion, till it befell that a sick man was put into the doctor's hands, who had a gangrened leg, and Master Mazzeo, having examined the case, told the patient's kinsfolk that, except a decayed bone he had in his leg were taken out, needs must he have the whole limb cut off or die, and that, by taking out the bone, he might recover, but that he would not undertake him otherwise than for a dead man; to which those to whom the sick man pertained agreed and gave the latter into his hands for such. The doctor, judging that the patient might not brook the pain nor would suffer himself to be operated, without an opiate, and having appointed to set about the matter at evensong, let that morning distil a certain water of his composition, which being drunken by the sick man, should make him sleep so long as he deemed necessary for the performing of the operation upon him, and fetching it home, set it in his chamber, without telling any what it was.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Alas, my sweet master, I know not what to do nor what to say. I have just received a letter from my brother, who writes from Messina, telling me that unless I send him a thousand gold florins without fail within the next seven days, by selling and pawning everything I have in the house, he will lose his head on the block. I have no idea how I am to find so large a sum at such short notice. If only I had a fortnight at my disposal, I should be able to raise twice the amount by collecting a certain sum of money that is owed to me, or I could sell one of the family estates. But since this is out of the question, I wish I’d been struck dead before this dreadful news had ever reached my ears…’ At which point she broke off, appearing sorely distressed, and the tears rolled down her cheeks in a never-ending torrent. Salabaetto, who in the heat of his amorous passion had mislaid a substantial part of his wits, thought that her tears were genuine, and her words even more so. And he replied: ‘Be of good cheer, my lady, for though I couldn’t supply you with a thousand, I could certainly let you have five hundred gold florins, if you are sure you can repay me within the next fortnight. Fortunately for you, I managed only yesterday to dispose of my cargo of woollens, otherwise I shouldn’t have been able to lend you a groat.’ ‘Do you mean to say,’ said the lady, ‘that you have been short of money? Why on earth didn’t you ask me for some? I don’t have a thousand, but I could easily have given you a hundred, and possibly two. And now that you have told me all this, I simply wouldn’t have the heart to accept your offer of assistance.’ Deeply touched by these sentiments, Salabaetto replied: ‘That is no reason for you to refuse, my lady. If my own need had been as great as yours, I should certainly have asked for your help.’