enturato giovane che fu morto non amasti voi mai, ma
Tedaldo Elisei si._)]

'Madam,' rejoined the pilgrim, 'it is this sin alone that now
afflicteth you. I know for certain that Tedaldo did you no manner of
violence; whenas you fell in love with him, you did it of your own
free will, for that he pleased you; and as you yourself would have it,
he came to you and enjoyed your privacy, wherein both with words and
deeds you showed him such complaisance that, if he loved you before,
you caused his love redouble a thousandfold. And this being so (as I
know it was) what cause should have availed to move you so harshly to
withdraw yourself from him? These things should be pondered awhile
beforehand and if you think you may presently have cause to repent
thereof, as of ill doing, you ought not to do them. You might, at your
pleasure, have ordained of him, as of that which belonged to you, that
he should no longer be yours; but to go about to deprive him of
yourself, you who were his, was a theft and an unseemly thing, whenas
it was not his will. Now you must know that I am a friar and am
therefore well acquainted with all their usances; and if I speak
somewhat at large of them for your profit, it is not forbidden me, as
it were to another; nay, and it pleaseth me to speak of them, so you
may henceforward know them better than you appear to have done in the
past.

Friars of old were very pious and worthy men, but those who nowadays
style themselves friars and would be held such have nothing of the
monk but the gown; nor is this latter even that of a true friar, for
that,--whereas of the founders of the monastic orders they[177] were
ordained strait and poor and of coarse stuff and demonstrative[178] of
the spirit of the wearers, who testified that they held things
temporal in contempt whenas they wrapped their bodies in so mean a
habit,--those of our time have them made full and double and glossy
and of the finest cloth and have brought them to a quaint pontifical
cut, insomuch that they think it no shame to flaunt it withal
peacock-wise, in the churches and public places, even as do the laity
with their apparel; and like as with the sweep-net the fisher goeth
about to take many fishes in the river at one cast, even so these,
wrapping themselves about with the amplest of skirts, study to
entangle therein great store of prudish maids and widows and many
other silly women and men, and this is their chief concern over any
other e