he) to see so great a mischiefe and wicked fact, which my neighbours
wife committed, but I must run away: O harlot as she is, how hath she
dishonoured her husband, I sweare by the goddesse Ceres, that if I had
[not] seene it with mine eyes, I would never I have beleeved it. His
wife desirous to know the matter, desired him to tell what she had
done: then hee accorded to the request of his wife, and ignorant of the
estate of his own house, declared the mischance of another. You shall
understand (quoth he) that the wife of the Fuller my companion, who
seemed to me a wise and chast woman, regarding her own honesty and
profit of her house, was found this night with her knave. For while we
went to wash our hands, hee and she were together: who being troubled
with our presence ran into a corner, and she thrust him into a mow made
with twigs, appoynted to lay on clothes to make them white with the
smoake of fume and brymstone. Then she sate down with us at the table
to colour the matter: in the meane season the young man covered in the
mow, could not forbeare sneesing, by reason of the smoake of the
brymstone. The good man thinking it had beene his wife that sneesed,
cryed, Christ helpe. But when he sneesed more, he suspected the matter,
and willing to know who it was, rose from the table, and went to the
mow, where hee found a young man welnigh dead with smoke. When hee
understood the whole matter, he was so inflamed with anger that he
called for a sword to kill him, and undoubtedly he had killed him, had
I not restrained his violent hands from his purpose, assuring him, that
his enemy would dye with the force of his brimstone, without the harme
which he should doe. Howbeit my words would not appease his fury, but
as necessity required he tooke the young man well nigh choked, and
carried him out at the doores. In the meane season, I counsailed his
wife to absent her selfe at some of her Neighbours houses, till the
choller of her husband was pacified, lest he should be moved against
her, as he was against the young man. And so being weary of their
supper, I forthwith returned home. When the Baker had told his tale,
his impudent wife began to curse and abhorre the wife of the Fuller,
and generally all other wives, which abandon their bodies with any
other then with their owne Husbands, breaking the faith and bond of
marriage, whereby she said, they were worthy to be burned alive. But
knowing her owne guilty conscience and proper whoredome, lest her lover
should be hurt lying in the bin, she willed her husband to goe to bed,
but he having eaten nothing, said that he would sup before he went to
rest: whereby shee was compelled to maugre her eies, to set such things
on the Table as she had prepared for her lover.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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