This is what Renaldo said, whom I have spoke of in a former discourse, when telling of the poor afflicted Ginevra. As to this, I did once know a very honourable lady and a great one, whom her lover did one day find in her closet, translating that famous stanza of the said Renaldo beginning, _Una donna deve dunque morire_,—“A lady fair was like to die,” into French verse, as fair and fairly wrought, as ever I have seen,—for I did see the lines after. On his asking her what she had writ there, she replied: “See, a translation I have just made, which is at once mine own judgment by me delivered, and a sentence pronounced in your favour for to content you in that you desire,—and only the execution doth now remain;” and this last, the reading done, was promptly carried out. A better sentence i’faith than was ever given in the Bailey Court of the Paris Parliament![86] For of all the fine words and excellent arguments wherewith Ariosto hath adorned Renaldo’s speech, I do assure you the lady forgat never an one to translate and reproduce them all well and thoroughly, so as the translation was as meet as ever the original to stir the heart. Thus did she let her lover plainly understand she was ready enough to save his life, and not inexorable to his supplication, while he was no less apt to seize his opportunity. Why then shall a lady, when that Nature hath made her good and full of pity, not use freely the gifts given her, without ingratitude to the giver, and without resistance and contradiction to her laws? This was the view of a fair lady I have heard speak of, which watching her husband one day walking up and down in a great hall, cannot refrain her from turning to her lover and saying, “Just look at our good man pacing there; has not he the true build of a cuckold? Surely I should have gone sore against dame Nature, seeing she had created him and destined him for this, an if I had contradicted her intent and given her the lie!” I have heard speak of another lady, which did thus complain of her husband, which did treat her ill and was ever jealously spying on her, suspecting she was making him a set of horns: “Nay! he is too good,” she would cry to her lover; “he thinks his fire is a match for mine. Why! I do put his out in a turn of the hand, with four or five drops of water. But for mine, which hath a very different depth of furnace, I do need a flood. For we women be of our nature like dropsical folk or a sandy ditch, which the more water they swallow, the more they want.”