Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
History
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
Erotic literature
Later was the same Sanzay ransomed by his friends, the which are folk
of honour and good estate in Brittany, and related to many great
persons, as to the Connétable de Sanzay,[38*] who was greatly attached
to his elder brother, and did help him much toward his deliverance.
Having won this, the Chevalier did come to Court, and held much
discourse to M. d’Estrozze and to me of his adventures and of divers
matters, and amongst other such he told us these stories.
6.
What are we to say now of some husbands which be not content only to
procure themselves entertainment and wanton pleasure with their wives,
but do give the desire therefor to others also, their companions,
friends and the like? For so have I known several which do praise their
wives to these, detail to them their beauties, picture to them their
members and various bodily parts, recount the pleasure that they have
with them, and the caresses their wives do use towards them, make them
kiss, touch and try them, and even behold them naked.
What do such deserve? Why! that they be cuckolded right off, as
did Gyges, by the means of his ring, to Candaules,[39] King of the
Lydians. For the latter, fool that he was, having bepraised to Gyges
the rare beauty of his wife, and at the last having shown her to him
stark naked, he fell so madly in love with her that he did what seemed
him good and brought Candaules to his death and made himself master
of his Kingdom. ’Tis said the wife was in such despite and despair
at having been so shown by her husband to another man, that she did
herself constrain Gyges to play this traitorous part, saying thus to
him: “Either must he that hath constrained and counselled you to such
a thing die by your hand, or else you, who have looked on me in my
nakedness, must die by the hand of another.” Of a surety was the said
King very ill advised so to rouse desire for a fresh dainty, so good
and sweet, which it rather behoved him to hold very specially dear and
precious.
Louis, Duke or Orleans,[39] killed at the Barbette Gate of Paris, did
the exact opposite. An arrant debaucher was he of the ladies of the
Court, and that even of the greatest among them all. For, having once a
very fair and noble lady to bed with him, so soon as her husband came
into his bedchamber to wish him good-morrow, he did promptly cover up
the lady’s head, the other’s wife’s that is, with the sheet, but did
uncover all the rest of her body, letting him see her all naked and
touch her at his pleasure, only with express prohibition on his life
not to take away the linen from off the face, nor to uncover it in any
wise,—a charge he durst not contravene. Then did the Duke ask him
several times over what he thought of this fair, naked body, whereat
the other was all astonished and exceeding content. At the last he did
get his leave to quit the chamber, and this he did without having ever
had the chance to recognize the woman for his own wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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