Allegories; Frame stories; Plague -- Europe -- History -- Fiction; Storytelling -- Fiction
here where you now are." "Therein," said Nicostratus, "thou wast
certainly deluded, for, since thou clombest the pear-tree, we have not
budged a jot, save as thou seest." Then said Pyrrhus:--"Why make more
words about the matter? See you I certainly did; and, seeing you, I saw
you lying upon your own." Nicostratus' wonder now waxed momently,
insomuch that he said:--"I am minded to see if this pear-tree be
enchanted, so that whoso is in it sees marvels;" and so he got him up
into it. Whereupon the lady and Pyrrhus fell to disporting them, and
Nicostratus, seeing what they were about, exclaimed:--"Ah! lewd woman,
what is this thou doest? And thou, Pyrrhus, in whom I so much trusted!"
And so saying, he began to climb down. Meanwhile the lady and Pyrrhus had
made answer:--"We are sitting here:" and seeing him descending, they
placed themselves as they had been when he had left them, whom
Nicostratus, being come down, no sooner saw, than he fell a rating them.
Then quoth Pyrrhus:--"Verily, Nicostratus, I now acknowledge, that, as
you said a while ago, what I saw when I was in the pear-tree was but a
false show, albeit I had never understood that so it was but that I now
see and know that thou hast also seen a false show. And that I speak
truth, you may sufficiently assure yourself, if you but reflect whether
'tis likely that your wife, who for virtue and discretion has not her
peer among women, would, if she were minded so to dishonour you, see fit
to do so before your very eyes. Of myself I say nought, albeit I had
liefer be hewn in pieces than that I should so much as think of such a
thing, much less do it in your presence. Wherefore 'tis evident that 'tis
some illusion of sight that is propagated from the pear-tree; for nought
in the world would have made me believe that I saw not you lying there in
carnal intercourse with your wife, had I not heard you say that you saw
me doing that which most assuredly, so far from doing, I never so much as
thought of." The lady then started up with a most resentful mien, and
burst out with:--"Foul fall thee, if thou knowest so little of me as to
suppose that, if I were minded to do thee such foul dishonour as thou
sayst thou didst see me do, I would come hither to do it before thine
eyes! Rest assured that for such a purpose, were it ever mine, I should
deem one of our chambers more meet, and it should go hard but I would so
order the matter that thou shouldst never know aught of it." Nicostratus,
having heard both, and deeming that what they both averred must be true,
to wit, that they would never have ventured upon such an act in his
presence, passed from chiding to talk of the singularity of the thing,
and how marvellous it was that the vision should reshape itself for every
one that clomb the tree. The lady, however, made a show of being
distressed that Nicostratus should so have thought of her,
and:--"Verily," quoth she, "no woman, neither I nor another, shall again
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