1.16.2
“Then God, Lord of Death and Life, decreed that one of those priests who service the laity in certain far-off parts (meaning that they eat and drink in people’s houses instead of at the monastery and mingle with their congregants, against the custom of monks, who mix with people only when they have to) should die, causing the abbot to send me to that country to adopt the same position as the deceased (meaning to substitute for him, not to be buried along with him). On my arrival, my congregation received me generously and with open arms, while I demonstrated god-fearingness and chastity to them and my virtues became well known among them. A merchant, one to whom God had denied the pleasure of children, even invited me into his home and asked me to lodge with him, in the hope that, by virtue of my presence, God would ‘open his wife’s womb,’ as it says in the Old Testament,233 and children be born to him. This wife was beautiful, slender of figure, and well-endowed of chest, fond of dissolute pleasure, revelry, and zest (God be praised — the mere thought of women produces the urge to write in rhymed prose!), so I stayed with him a while, living in the most luxurious style.
1.16.3
“Then it occurred to me to flirt with his wife and to pursue her, be her close companion and woo her. She responded to my enticements, paying no attention to the tip of my nose, for it is in women’s nature to incline to what’s close, ignoring what’s far away (and I’m sure you’re aware of what one woman said, concerning ‘long converse and closeness in bed.’)234 The world now appeared to my eyes at its best, I forgot the many hardships that, at the monastery, I’d had to digest, and I said to myself, ‘So long as my good fortune persists and its currents serve, I shall make up to myself for all the good things of which I saw no use when I was a weaver, a cook, and a recluse,’ and I made it a rule that my pleasures with her be measured—taking care that I be pleasured once for each day past (like any man with his lawful wedded wife) and then once again for the present (which of course didn’t last), as incitement and impulse might take me — and kept count, soon reaching a huge amount. The husband, having no ill thoughts and being of a trusting disposition, was quite unperturbed, and, with no suspicions to distract him from his work, pleasure’s fruits were there for the plucking, the cups of our joy undisturbed.
1.16.4
“Now here’s an amazing thing that deserves to be recorded in books — she’d pick quarrels with the maid, both in her husband’s presence and when he was delayed, and abuse her in front of him in the nastiest way, thus forestalling any suspicions of his that might come into play—she fearing no consequences from this, nor being concerned at what might happen should she the said maid dismiss, for she’d fired many a maid before, for good reasons and for poor, after subjecting them to every kind of insult, and making them to hatred and anger inclined; and this is one of the miracles of women and their strange uniqueness, to the essence of whose extraordinary secret we men are blind. In sum, I was entranced by her beauty, just as I marveled at her art, and I dwelt with her in this state in extreme delight, like one married without having to pay a bride-price, coddled after calamities, indulging without restraint my every appetite.(1)
1.16.5
“Then I started another count, longer and more extended than the first, for, as the easy life made me reckless and I felt safe from any blow that fate might deal, I couldn’t stop thinking I should combine the two cs,235 for ‘much prosperity brings much weal’ and rarely have I seen one truckle with the first who does not also indulge in the second and similar worldly attachments — such as shuffling gaming arrows and twirling bones,236 cheating at games and accusing others of the same, trading in livestock as yet unborn and usury, shooting arrows and brandishing spears, arrow-shooting contests and casting lots, flushing game and picking up the dice before a throw, cheating and selling things at arbitrary prices, inciting others to shuffle the gaming arrows and inciting them to lay bets, betting and laying stakes, dealing in grain futures and selling dates while still on the tree, selling seed before it has matured and other fast practice, swapping commodities and making bargains, bartering and defrauding, swindling and misrepresenting, concealing defects and delaying payment of debts, selling grain on the basis of the weight of a single sample and deferring (while at the same time increasing the amount of) a debt, offering blandishments and contracting to buy things on the basis of a description only — at which point [i.e., when he has lost], he wanders, making do with nothing to eat but bread made of sorghum, and he cheats and plots, swindles and lies, jokes around, behaves like a lunatic, and tries to con people, taking his clothes off, stripping naked, and using them as stakes for his bets.(2) So I met with a man of whom I’d heard it said he practiced this profession and devoted himself to it seriously and without digression, devoting to it great pains and expending on it much of his gains, while confining his thoughts to that alone. To cut things short, and without having to further lengthy rhyme resort, I went into the same trade with him.” (Here ends the priest’s rhymed prose.)