ntenance
the ugliest and most misshapen that ever was seen; for indeed she was
flat-nosed, wry-mouthed, and thick-lipped, with huge, ill-set teeth, eyes
that squinted and were ever bleared, and a complexion betwixt green and
yellow, that shewed as if she had spent the summer not at Fiesole but at
Sinigaglia: besides which she was hip-shot and somewhat halting on the
right side. Her name was Ciuta, but, for that she was such a scurvy bitch
to look upon, she was called by all folk Ciutazza.(1) And being thus
misshapen of body, she was also not without her share of guile. So the
lady called her and said:--"Ciutazza, so thou wilt do me a service
to-night, I will give thee a fine new shift." At the mention of the shift
Ciutazza made answer:--"So you give me a shift, Madam, I will throw
myself into the very fire." "Good," said the lady; "then I would have
thee lie to-night in my bed with a man, whom thou wilt caress; but look
thou say never a word, that my brothers, who, as thou knowest, sleep in
the next room, hear thee not; and afterwards I will give thee the shift."
"Sleep with a man!" quoth Ciutazza: "why, if need be, I will sleep with
six." So in the evening Master Rector came, as he had been bidden; and
the two young men, as the lady had arranged, being in their room, and
making themselves very audible, he stole noiselessly, and in the dark,
into the lady's room, and got him on to the bed, which Ciutazza, well
advised by the lady how to behave, mounted from the other side. Whereupon
Master Rector, thinking to have the lady by his side, took Ciutazza in
his arms, and fell a kissing her, saying never a word the while, and
Ciutazza did the like; and so he enjoyed her, plucking the boon which he
had so long desired.

The rector and Ciutazza thus closeted, the lady charged her brothers to
execute the rest of her plan. They accordingly stole quietly out of their
room, and hied them to the piazza, where Fortune proved propitious beyond
what they had craved of her; for, it being a very hot night, the bishop
had been seeking them, purposing to go home with them, and solace himself
with their society, and quench his thirst. With which desire he
acquainted them, as soon as he espied them coming into the piazza; and so
they escorted him to their house, and there in the cool of their little
courtyard, which was bright with many a lamp, he took, to his no small
comfort, a draught of their good wine. Which done:--"Sir," said the young