arged him follow on; whereupon quoth he, "Fair ladies, it occurreth
to me to tell you a little story against those who continually offend
against us, without being open to retaliation on our part, to wit, the
clergy, who have proclaimed a crusade against our wives and who,
whenas they avail to get one of the latter under them, conceive
themselves to have gained forgiveness of fault and pardon of penalty
no otherwise than as they had brought the Soldan bound from
Alexandria to Avignon.[365] Whereof the wretched laymen cannot return
them the like, albeit they wreak their ire upon the priests' mothers
and sisters, doxies and daughters, assailing them with no less ardour
than the former do their wives. Wherefore I purpose to recount to you
a village love-affair, more laughable for its conclusion than long in
words, wherefrom you may yet gather, by way of fruit, that priests are
not always to be believed in everything.

[Footnote 365: Where the papal court then was. See p. 257, note.]

You must know, then, that there was once at Varlungo,--a village very
near here, as each of you ladies either knoweth or may have heard,--a
worthy priest and a lusty of his person in the service of the ladies,
who, albeit he knew not overwell how to read, natheless regaled his
parishioners with store of good and pious saws at the elmfoot on
Sundays and visited their women, whenas they went abroad anywhither,
more diligently than any priest who had been there aforetime, carrying
them fairings and holy water and a stray candle-end or so, whiles even
to their houses. Now it chanced that, among other his she-parishioners
who were most to his liking, one pleased him over all, by name
Mistress Belcolore, the wife of a husbandman who styled himself
Bentivegna del Mazzo, a jolly, buxom country wench, brown-favoured and
tight-made, as apt at turning the mill[366] as any woman alive.
Moreover, it was she who knew how to play the tabret and sing 'The
water runneth to the ravine' and lead up the haye and the round, when
need was, with a fine muckender in her hand and a quaint, better than
any woman of her neighbourhood; by reason of which things my lord
priest became so sore enamoured of her that he was like to lose his
wits therefor and would prowl about all day long to get a sight of
her. Whenas he espied her in church of a Sunday morning, he would say
a Kyrie and a Sanctus, studying to show himself a past master in
descant, that it seemed as it were a