Volume 1 — TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK.116
Reading edition
TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK.116
Of a young wife who was made a fool of by her old husband.
A native of Florence, already old, espoused a young maid, whom the matrons had instructed to resist the first assault of her husband on the wedding night, and to yield herself as reluctantly as possible. She refused, therefore, point-blank, to accede to his desires.
The husband, ‘decks cleared for action and with all sail furled,’ was astonished by this refusal, and asked why she would not give way to his wishes. The virgin replied that she had a pain in her head; whereupon the husband ‘disarmed,’ lay down on his side, and slept till morn.
The young wife, when she perceived that her husband left her alone, felt remorse in that she had followed the counsels of the gossips; she aroused her husband, and told him that she no longer had a pain in the head.
“Ah!” quoth the husband. “I, now, have a pain ... in another part.”117 And he left his wife virgin as before.
‘Tis a good plan, therefore, to accept what may be profitable and pleasant when ‘tis offered.
EXCURSUS to TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK.
Quoting from Mérard de Saint-Just, (Espiègleries Joyeusetés), Poggio’s translator gives a variant in verse of the foregoing story. We reproduce it in less ambitious English prose:—
“Pierre the Red, wrapped in his bed-clothes, felt himself stimulated by the burning flame of the god of love, and he invited his wife to come straightway to his arms. It chanced that she was praying, and she made reply: ‘Wait a while.’ And whilst her Paters and her Agnus’ and her Aves were accomplished, Pierre’s ardour had had time to grow cold. She entered the bed, but the chilled husband maintained his pretence. She drew near him; he did not budge. ‘Beloved, what dost wish? I have said my prayers.’—’Good,’ quoth Pierre the Red. ‘But I have grown soft.’”