The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (38 page)

This magnifico's wife was a good loving soul that had mettle enough in her to make a good wit of, but being never removed from under her mother's and her husband's wing,
it was not moulded and fashioned as it ought. Causeless distrust is able to drive deceit into a simple woman's head. I durst pawn the credit of a page, which is worth ames ace
²⁰¹
at all times, that she was immaculate honest till she met with us in prison. Marry, what temptations she had then, when fire and flax were put together, conceit with yourselves, but hold my master excusable.

Alack, he was too virtuous to make her vicious; he stood upon religion and conscience, what a heinous thing it was to subvert God's holy ordinance. This was all the injury he would offer her: sometimes he would imagine her in a melancholy humour to be his Geraldine, and court her in terms correspondent. Nay, he would swear she was his Geraldine, and take her white hand and wipe his eyes with it, as though the very touch of her might staunch his anguish. Now would he kneel and kiss the ground as holy ground which she vouchsafed to bless from barrenness by her steps. Who would have learned to write an excellent passion might have been a perfect tragic poet had he but attended half the extremity of his lament. Passion upon passion would throng one on another's neck. He would praise her beyond the moon and stars, and that so sweetly and ravishingly as I persuade myself he was more in love with his own curious-forming fancy than her face; and truth it is, many become passionate lovers only to win praise to their wits.

He praised, he prayed, he desired and besought her to pity him that perished for her. From this his entranced mistaking ecstasy could no man remove him. Who loveth resolutely will include everything under the name of his love. From prose he would leap into verse, and with these or such-like rhymes assault her:

If I must die, Oh, let me choose my death:
Suck out my soul with kisses, cruel maid;
In thy breasts crystal balls embalm my breath:
Dole it all out in sighs when I am laid.
Thy lips on mine like cupping-glasses clasp,
Let our tongues meet and strive as they would sting;
Crush out my wind with one straight girting
²⁰²
grasp;
Stabs on my heart keep time whilst thou dost sing.
Thy eyes like searing irons burn out mine,
In thy fair tresses stifle me outright,
Like Circes change me to a loathsome swine,
So I may live for ever in thy sight.
    Into heaven's joys none can profoundly see,
    Except that first they meditate on thee.

Sadly and verily, if my master said true, I should, if I were a wench, make many men quickly immortal. What is't, what is't for a maid fair and fresh to spend a little lipsalve on a hungry lover? My master beat the bush and kept a coil and a prattling, but I caught the bird:
²⁰³
simplicity and plainness shall carry it away in another world. God wot he was Petro Desperato, when I, stepping to her with a Dunstable
²⁰⁴
tale, made up my market. A holy requiem to their souls that think to woo a woman with riddles. I had some cunning plot, you must suppose, to bring this about. Her husband had abused her, and it was very necessary she should be revenged. Seldom do they prove patient martyrs who are punished unjustly: one way or other they will cry quittance whatsoever it cost them. No other apt means had this poor she-captivated Cicely, to work her noddy-peak
²⁰⁵
husband a proportionable plague for his jealousy, but to give his head his full loading of infamy. She thought she would make him complain for something, that now was so hard bound with an heretical opinion. How I dealt with her, guess, gentle reader,
subaudi
²⁰⁶
that I was in prison and she my silly jailor.

Means there was made after a month's or two durance
by Mr John Russell,
²⁰⁷
a gentleman of King Henry the Eighth's chamber, who then lay lieger
²⁰⁸
at Venice for England, that our cause should be favourably heard. At that time was Monsieur Petro Aretino
²⁰⁹
searcher and chief Inquisitor to the college of courtesans. Divers and sundry ways was this Aretino beholding to the King of England, especially for, by this foresaid John Russell, a little before, he had sent him a pension of four hundred crowns yearly during his life. Very forcibly was he dealt withal, to strain the utmost of his credit for our delivery out of prison. Nothing at his hands we sought but that the courtesan might be more narrowly sifted and examined. Such and so extraordinary was his care and industry herein, that, within few days after, Mistress Tabitha and her pander cried
Peccavi, confiteor
, and we were presently discharged, they for example sake executed. Most honourably, after our enlargement, of the state were we used, and had sufficient recompense for all our troubles and wrongs

Before I go any further, let me speak a word or two of this Aretine. It was one of the wittiest knaves that ever God made. If out of so base a thing as ink there may be extracted a spirit, he writ with nought but the spirit of ink, and his style was the spirituality of arts and nothing else; whereas all others of his age were but the lay temporalty of inkhorn terms.
²¹⁰
For indeed they were mere temporisers and no better. His pen was sharp-pointed like a poniard; no leaf he wrote on but was like a burning-glass to set on fire all his readers. With more than musket-shot did he charge his quill, where he meant to inveigh. No hour but he sent a whole legion of devils into some herd of swine or other. If
Martial
²¹¹
had ten muses, as he saith of himself, when he but tasted a cup of wine, he had ten score when he determined to tyrannize; ne'er a line of his but was able to make a man drunken with admiration. His sight pierced like lightning into the entrails of all abuses. This I must needs say, that most of his learning he got by hearing the lectures at Florence. It is sufficient that learning he had and a conceit exceeding all learning, to quintessence everything which he heard. He was no timorous servile flatterer of the commonwealth wherein he lived. His tongue and his invention were forborne; what they thought, they would confidently utter. Princes he spared not, that in the least point transgressed. His life he contemned
²¹²
in comparison of the liberty of speech. Whereas some dull-brain maligners of his accuse him of that treatise
De Tribus Impostoribus Mundi
,
²¹³
which was never contrived without a general council of devils, I am verily persuaded it was none of his, and of my mind are a number of the most judicial Italians. One reason is this: because it was published forty years after his death, and he never in his lifetime wrote anything in Latin. Certainly I have heard that one of Machevel's followers and disciples was the author of that book, who, to avoid discredit, filched it forth under Aretine's name a great while after he had sealed up his eloquent spirit in the grave. Too much gall did that wormwood of Ghibelline wits put in his ink, who engraved that rhubarb epitaph
²¹⁴
on this excellent poet's tombstone. Quite forsaken of all good angels was he, and utterly given over to artless envy. Four universities honoured Aretine with these rich titles:
Il
flagello de' principi, Il veritiero, Il divino
, and
L'unico Aretino
.
²¹⁵

The French King, Francis the First, he kept in such awe, that to chain his tongue he sent him a huge chain of gold, in the form of tongues fashioned. Singularly hath he commented of the humanity of Christ.
²¹⁶
Besides, as Moses set forth his Genesis, so hath he set forth his Genesis also, including the contents of the whole Bible. A notable treatise hath he compiled, called
I sette Psalmi poenetentiarii
.
²¹⁷
All the Thomasos have cause to love him, because he hath dilated so magnificently of the life of Saint Thomas.
²¹⁸
There is a good thing that he hath set forth,
La vita della virgine Maria
,
²¹⁹
though it somewhat smell of superstition, with a number more, which here, for tediousness, I suppress. If lascivious he were, he may answer with Ovid,
Vita vere–cunda est, musa iocosa mea est
: ‘My life is chaste, though wanton be my verse.' Tell me, who is travelled in histories: what good poet is, or ever was there, who hath not had a little spice of wantonness in his days? Even Beza
²²⁰
himself, by your leave. Aretine, as long as the world lives, shalt thou live. Tully, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca were never such ornaments to Italy as thou hast been. I never thought of Italy more religiously than England till I heard of thee. Peace to thy ghost, and yet methinks so indefinite a spirit should have no peace or intermission of pains, but be penning ditties to the archangels in another world. Puritans, spew forth the venom of your dull inventions. A toad swells with thick troubled poison; you swell with poisonous perturbations. Your malice hath not a clear dram of any inspired disposition.

My principal subject plucks me by the elbow. Diamante, Castaldo's ye magnifico's wife, after my enlargement, proved to be with child, at which instant there grew an unsatiable famine in Venice wherein, whether it were for mere niggardise or that Castaldo still ate out his heart with jealousy, Saint Anne be our record, he turned up the heels very devoutly. To Master Aretine after this once more very dutifully I appealed, requested him of favour, acknowledged former gratuities. He made no more humming or halting, but, in despite of her husband's kinsfolks, gave her her
Nunc dimittis
, and so established her free of my company.

Being out, and fully possessed of her husband's goods, she invested me in the state of a monarch. Because the time of childbirth drew nigh, and she could not remain in Venice but discredited, she decreed to travel withersoever I would conduct her. To see Italy throughout was my proposed scope, and that way if she would travel, have with her, I had where–withal to relieve her.

From my master by her full-hand provokement, I parted without leave: the state of an earl he had thrust upon me before, and now I would not abate him an ace of it. Through all the cities passed I by no other name but the young Earl of Surrey; my pomp, my apparel, train and expense was nothing inferior to his; my looks were as lofty, my words as magnifical. Memorandum: that Florence being the principal scope of my master's course, missing me, he journeyed thither without interruption. By the way as he went, he heard of another Earl of Surrey besides himself, which caused him make more haste to fetch me in, whom he little dreamed of had such art in my budget to separate the shadow from the body. Overtake me at Florence he did, where, sitting in my pontificalibus
²²¹
with my courtesan at supper, like Antony and Cleopatra when they quaffed standing bowls of wine spiced with pearl together, he stole in ere we sent for him, and bad much good it us, and asked us whether we wanted any guests. If he had asked me whether I would have hanged myself, his question had been more
acceptable. He that had then ungartered me might have plucked out my heart at my heels.

My soul, which was made to soar upward, now sought for passage downward; my blood, as the rushing Sabine maids, surprised on the sudden by the soldiers of Romulus, ran to the noblest of blood amongst them for succour, that were in no less (if not greater) danger, so did it run for refuge to the noblest of his blood about my heart assembled, that stood in more need itself of comfort and refuge. A trembling earthquake or shaking fever assailed either of us; and I think unfeinedly, if he, seeing our faintheart agony, had not soon cheered and refreshed us, the dogs had gone together by the ears under the table for our fear-dropped limbs.

Instead of menacing or affrighting me with his sword or his frowns for my superlative presumption, he burst out into laughter above ela,
²²²
to think how bravely napping he had took us, and how notably we were damped and struck dead in the nest with the unexpected view of his presence.

‘Ah,' quoth he, ‘my noble Lord' (after his tongue had borrowed a little leave of his laughter), ‘is it my luck to visit you thus unlooked for? I am sure you will bid me welcome, if it be but for the name's sake. It is a wonder to see two English earls of one house at one time together in Italy.' I hearing him so pleasant, began to gather up my spirits, and replied as boldly as I durst: ‘Sir, you are welcome. Your name which I borrowed I have not abused. Some large, sums of money this my sweet mistress Diamante hath made me master of, which I knew not how better to employ for the honour of my country than by spending it munificently under your name. No Englishman would I have renowned for bounty, magnificence and courtesy but you; under your colours all my meritorious works I was desirous to shroud. Deem it no insolence to add increase to your fame. Had I basely and beggarly, wanting ability to support any part of your royalty, undertook the
estimation of this high calling, your allegement of injury had been the greater, and my defence less authorized. It will be thought but a policy of yours thus to send one before you who, being a follower of yours, shall keep and uphold the estate and port of an earl. I have known many earls myself that in their own persons would go very plain, but delighted to have one that belonged to them (being loaden with jewels, apparelled in cloth of gold and all the rich embroidery that might be) to stand bareheaded unto him; arguing thus much, that if the greatest men went not more sumptuous, how more great than the greatest was he that could command one going so sumptuous. A nobleman's glory appeareth in nothing so much as in the pomp of his attendants. What is the glory of the sun, but that the moon and so many millions of stars borrow their lights from him? If you can reprehend me of any one illiberal licentious action I have disparaged your name with, heap shame on me prodigally; I beg no pardon or pity.'

Non veniunt in idem pudor et amor
:
²²³
he was loth to detract from one that he loved so. Beholding with his eyes that I clipped not the wings of his honour, but rather increased them with additions of expense, he entreated me as if I had been an ambassador. He gave me his hand and swore he had no more hearts but one, and I should have half of it, in that I so enhanced his obscured reputation. ‘One thing', quoth he, ‘my sweet Jack, I will entreat thee (it shall be but one), that, though I am well pleased thou shouldest be the ape of my birthright – as what nobleman hath not his ape and his fool? – yet that thou be an ape without a clog,
²²⁴
not carry thy courtesan with thee.' I told him that a king could do nothing without his treasury; this courtesan was my purse-bearer, my countenance and supporter. My earldom I would sooner resign than part with such a special benefactor. ‘Resign it I will, however, since I am thus challenged of stolen goods by the true owner. Lo, into my former state I return again; poor Jack Wilton and
your servant am I, as I was at the beginning, and so will I persever to my life's ending.'