Christian ethics -- Fiction; Christian fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
Wise. No, not a good while after: and when he was asked the reason,
he would make this slighty answer, Who would keep a Cow of their own,
that can have a quart of milk for a penny? {154a} Meaning, Who would be
at the charge to have a Wife, that can have a Whore when he listeth?
So villanous, so abominable did he continue after the death of his
wife. Yet at last there was one was too hard for him. For, getting of
him to her upon a time, and making of him sufficiently drunk, she was
so cunning as to get a promise of marriage of him, and so held him to
it, and forced him to marry her. {154b} And she, as the saying is, was
as good as he, {154c} at all his vile and ranting tricks: she had her
companions as well as he had his, and she would meet them too at the
Tavern and Ale-house, more commonly than he was aware of. To be plain,
she was a very Whore, and had as great resort came to her, where time
and place was appointed, as any of them all. Aie, and he smelt it too,
but could not tell how to help it. For if he began to talk, she could
lay in his dish the whores that she knew he haunted, and she could fit
him also with cursing and swearing, for she would give him Oath for
Oath, and Curse for Curse.
Atten. What kind of oaths would she have?
Wise. Why damn her, and sink her, and the like.
Atten. These are provoking things.
Wise. So they are: but God doth not altogether let such things goe
unpunished in this life. Something of this I have shewed you already,
and will here give you one or two Instances more.
There lived, saith one, {154d} in the year 1551. in a city of Savoy,
a man who was a monstrous Curser and Swearer, and though he was often
admonished and blamed for it, yet would he by no means mend his
manners. At length a great plague happening in the City, he withdrew
himself into a Garden, where being again admonished to give over his
wickedness, he hardned his heart more, Swearing, Blaspheming God, and
giving himself to the Devil: And immediately the Devil snatched him
up suddenly, his wife and kinswoman looking on, and carried him quite
away. The Magistrates advertised hereof, went to the place and examined
the Woman, who justified the truth of it.
Also at Oster in the Dutchy of Magalapole, (saith Mr. Clark) a wicked
Woman, used in her cursing to give herself body and soul to the Devil,
and being reproved for it, still continued the same; till (being at a
Wedding-Feast) the Devil came in person, and carried her up into the
Air, with most horrible outcries and roarings: And in that sort carried
her round about the Town, that the Inhabitants were ready to dye for
fear: And by and by he tore her in four pieces, leaving her four
quarters in four several high-wayes; and then brought her Bowels to the
Marriage-feast, and threw them upon the Table before the Maior of the
Town, saying, Behold, these dishes of meat belong to thee, whom the
like destruction waiteth for, if thou dost not amend thy wicked life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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