The Heptameron

by Marguerite de Navarre

  He was as stricken with grief as ever a brother who loves his sister with all his heart could be or should be. He asked the chambermaid who had committed such a hideous crime. She replied that she did not know, that no one had come into the room except her master and that he had gone away not a moment ago. The brother went into the gentleman’s room and, failing to find him there, concluded at once that it must have been he who had perpetrated the deed. Without further inquiry he jumped on his horse, rode after him, and met him coming back after chasing the friar, whom to his great chagrin he had been unable to catch.

  ‘Defend yourself!’ cried the brother as soon as he caught sight of his brother-in-law. ‘Base coward and villain! I trust in God that with the sword I bear I shall take revenge on you this day!’

  The husband attempted to explain, but the other man was bearing down on him with his sword, and he was forced to defend himself before he could find out what the cause of the challenge was. They dealt one another so many blows in the course of the ensuing struggle that they were eventually obliged through loss of blood and fatigue to separate and rest. Once they had regained their breath, the husband turned to the other and said:

  ‘Brother, what has happened to turn our friendship, which in the past has always been so close, into this cruel battle?’

  ‘And what can have caused you to put to death my sister, the best woman who ever lived? And in a way so foul that under pretext of wishing to sleep with her you enter her room only to strangle her and hang her with the cord from your own bed?’

  Hearing these words, the husband, more dead than alive, went towards his brother-in-law, placed his arms around him, and said: ‘Is it possible? Is it possible that you’ve found your sister in this state?’

  When he was assured that such was indeed the case, he went on: ‘Listen, my brother, I beg you. Listen to the reason why I left the house.’

  He told the whole story, and the part the Franciscan friar had played in it. The brother was overcome with dismay, and, bitterly regretting the way he had attacked him, begged for forgiveness.

  ‘I have wronged you. Forgive me,’ he said.

  And the husband replied: ‘If I have wronged you, then I am punished for it. For I am badly wounded and I do not think I shall live.’

  The brother-in-law set the wounded man on to his horse again as best he could, and led him back to the house, where the very next day he died. He then confessed before the dead man’s relatives that he had been the cause of his death and was advised, in order that justice might be satisfied, to go and seek pardon from King Francis, first of that name. Once husband, wife and child had been laid honourably to rest, he left on Good Friday to seek remission from the royal court. His quest was successful, and he obtained his pardon through the good offices of François Olivier, who was the Chancellor of Alençon at that time, and who, because of his excellent qualities, was later chosen by the King to be Chancellor of France.

  *

  ‘Ladies, the story I’ve told you is very true, and now you’ve heard it, I don’t think there’ll be one amongst you who won’t think twice before giving that sort of pilgrim shelter under your roof. Remember, too, that the most venomous poison is the poison that has been kept concealed.’

  ‘But what a great fool the husband was,’ said Hircan, ‘to invite a gallant like that to supper with a wife as beautiful and good as his was!’

  ‘I remember a time,’ said Geburon, ‘when there wasn’t a house in the country that didn’t have a room dedicated to the use of the good fathers. Nowadays though, everyone knows what they’re like, and people are more frightened of them than they are of outlaws and bandits.’

  ‘In my opinion,’ said Parlamente, ‘if a woman is in bed, she should never let a priest in her room unless it’s to administer the sacraments of the Church. If I ever have one in my room, you can take it as a sure sign that I’m about to breathe my last!’

  ‘If the whole world were as severe as you,’ observed Ennasuite, ‘the poor priests would be worse than excommunicated, being separated from women in that fashion.’

  ‘No need to worry about that!’ Saffredent said. ‘They’ll never want for women!’

  ‘It’s extraordinary!’ said Simontaut. ‘They’re the ones who tie us to our wives in the bonds of matrimony, and then they’re low enough to try to undo those bonds and make us break the very vows they made us take in the first place!’

  ‘It is a great shame,’ said Oisille, ‘that men who are in charge of the administration of the sacraments should play about with them in this frivolous way. They ought to be burned alive!’

  ‘You’d do better to show them respect than to [burn them,]’ Saffredent said. ‘Flattering them would be more advantageous than insulting them. After all, they’re the ones with the real power to do the dishonouring and the burning. So, sinite eos, * and let’s see who’s going to take over from Oisille.’

  ‘I call upon Dagoucin,’ said Oisille. ‘I can see that he’s falling into deep contemplation – he must have something interesting to tell us.’

  ‘Since I cannot and dare not say what is in my mind,’ he answered, ‘I will tell you instead about a certain man who suffered because of a certain lady’s cruelty, but later on benefited greatly from it. Love, when he is powerful and strong, holds himself in such high regard that he wishes to walk around completely naked and finds it irksome, even unbearable to be covered up. Yet, Ladies, often it happens that those who follow his counsel and venture to uncover their love too soon, receive little return on their pains. And that is exactly what happened to a gentleman of Castile, whose story you shall hear forth with.’

  STORY TWENTY-FOUR

  At the [court] of Castile in the time of a king and queen whose names I shall not reveal there was a gentleman so perfect in appearance and character that there was not his like in the whole of Spain. Everyone marvelled at his fine qualities, but even more at the strangeness of his character, for to no one’s knowledge had he ever loved or served any lady. At that court there were many ladies who were fit to turn ice to fire, yet not one of them had had the power to capture the heart of Elisor, for such was the gentleman’s name.

  The Queen, a lady of great virtue, but by no means exempt from that fire which burns the more the less it is made known, had observed that this gentleman had entered the service of none of her ladies, and she wondered at it. Then one day she asked him whether it could be possible that he really was as much without love as he pretended. He replied that if she could but see his heart as clearly as she could see his face, she would not have asked that question. Eager to know what he meant, she pressed him so closely that he confessed, saying that he was in love with a lady whom he esteemed the most virtuous lady in the whole of Christendom. Whereupon she did everything she possibly could to find out who the lady was, begging, beseeching, even commanding him to tell her. But to no avail. Then she pretended to be exceedingly angry with him, and swore that she would never speak to him again, unless he named the lady with whom he was so much in love. His distress was so great that he was forced to say that it would be as death to him to be obliged to confess to her. But seeing that he was in danger of being cast from her sight and from her favour simply for not revealing a truth in itself so honourable that no one could ever have taken it amiss, he said in fear and trembling:

  ‘Madame, I have neither the strength nor the courage to tell you. But the next time that you go out hunting, I shall show her to you, and I am sure that you will find her the most beautiful and the most perfect lady in all the world.’

  This reply led the Queen to go hunting somewhat sooner than she would otherwise have done. When Elisor heard of this, he prepared to attend her majesty as usual. He had a huge steel mirror fashioned into a cuirass. This he strapped across his chest and concealed it beneath a voluminous cloak of heavy black cloth richly [embroidered] with thread of gold. He was mounted on a black horse, richly caparisoned, and decked with all the trappings a horse could require. The h
arness was gold, and enamelled in black in the Moorish style. On his head was a hat of black silk to which was attached an emblem, bearing as its device a figure of Love concealed by Force, the whole richly adorned with precious stones. His sword and dagger also were finely wrought and likewise decorated with fine devices. In short, he was well accoutred. Even more imposing was his horsemanship. So skilfully did Elisor handle his mount that those who saw him deserted the pleasures of the hunt in order to watch him race and jump. After he had escorted the Queen to the place where the nets were spread to trap the quarry, he dismounted from his noble steed and came to help the Queen climb down from her palfrey. As she held out her arms, he opened the cloak that had been gathered across his chest, and held her, revealing the mirror of his breastplate and saying: ‘Madame, behold, I beseech you!’ Without waiting for a reply, he set her gently on the ground.

  When the hunt was over, the Queen went back to the castle without saying a word to Elisor. But after supper, she summoned him to her, and told him that he was the greatest liar she had ever seen, for he had promised that during the hunt he would show her the lady who was his love, and this he had not done. She was resolved, therefore, no longer to hold him in esteem. Elisor, fearing lest the Queen had misunderstood his words, replied that he had not failed to obey her command, for he had shown her not only the woman he loved most in all the world, but also the thing in all the world that he most loved. Then the Queen, feigning not to understand, said that she was not aware that he had shown her any of her ladies.

  ‘That is true, Madame,’ said Elisor, ‘but [what] did I show you as you got down from your horse?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ replied the Queen, ‘except a mirror across your chest.’

  ‘In this mirror, Madame,’ said Elisor, ‘what did you see?’

  ‘I saw nothing but myself!’ answered the Queen.

  Then Elisor said:

  ‘Therefore, Madame, I have kept my promise and obeyed your command, for there is no image within my heart, nor shall there ever be, save that image which you saw reflected on my breast without. That image alone will I love, revere and adore not as a woman, but as my God on earth in whose hands I place my life, humbly beseeching you that my deep and perfect love, which has been life itself to me while it remained concealed, should not be my death now that it is revealed. And if I am not worthy to look upon you or to be accepted as your servant, then at the least suffer me to live as hitherto I have, in the contentment I derive from the knowledge that my heart has dared to build its love in such a perfect and worthy place. I cannot hope for any satisfaction save that of knowing that my love is so deep and so perfect that I must content myself with loving, though I can never be loved. And if, in the knowledge of my great love for you, you should be no more pleased than before to look graciously upon me, then I beg that at the least you will not take my life, which consists for me in the joy of gazing upon you as I always have. That which you grant me is no more than that which I needs must have to sustain me in my extremity. Had I less than this, then you would be the less adored, for thus would you lose the best and the most devoted servant that you ever had or could ever have again.’

  Now it may have been that the Queen wished to appear other than she really was; it may have been that she wished to put Elisor’s love to the test of time; it may have been that she loved another man whom she did not wish to abandon for Elisor; or it may have been that she wished to hold him in reserve in case the other man should offend. Whatever the reason, she now replied, in a tone that expressed neither anger nor pleasure:

  ‘Elisor, I shall not ask you, as if I were entirely ignorant of the power that love exerts over the hearts of men, what madness has driven you to undertake a love so arduous and so exalted as the love you profess for me. For I know that the heart of man is so little at his command, that it is not within his power to choose whom to love and whom to hate. But since you have concealed your feelings so well, I wish to ask you how long ago you first began to feel them?’

  Elisor looked at her beautiful face, and seeing that she was asking about the sickness with which he was afflicted, hoped that she would bring him some relief. But he saw too that his questioner’s countenance was chaste and grave and he began to be afraid, for it was as if he was standing before a judge, awaiting a sentence which he knew would be given against him. Yet in spite of this he swore that his love had taken root in his heart when he had still been very young, although it had only been for the past seven years that he had begun to feel a pain, which in truth was not real pain but rather a sickness which had brought such happiness that to be cured now would be his death.

  ‘As you have given such long proof of your steadfastness,’ said the Queen, ‘it is not fitting that I should be [more] precipitate in believing you than you have been in declaring your love to me. Therefore, if it is as you have told me, I wish to test the truth so thoroughly that I shall never be able to doubt it. Once you have proved yourself, I shall believe that your feelings really are as you have sworn they are. And when I know for certain that you are what you declare, then you shall find me to be even as you desire.’

  Elisor implored her to put him to whatever test she might wish. For there was nothing in the world, no matter how arduous, that he would not gladly undertake in order to have the [joy] of knowing that she acknowledged his love for her. He implored her, then, to command of him whatever she might wish.

  ‘Elisor,’ she began, ‘if you love me as deeply as you say, then I am sure that in your desire to win my favour no task will seem too hard. Therefore I command you, on pain of forfeiting for ever that which you most desire to have and most fear to lose, that when tomorrow morning breaks you shall, without seeing me again, depart from this court, and that you shall go to a place where for seven whole years you shall not hear word of me, nor I of you. You, who have loved now for seven years, you know that you love me; but only when I too have had seven years in which to put your love to the test, only then shall I too know for certain that your love is true; only then shall I believe that which mere words are unable to make me believe or comprehend.’

  On hearing this cruel command, Elisor began to think that it was her intention to remove him from her presence, but in the hope that the test would speak more eloquently on his behalf than words themselves, he accepted the command, saying:

  ‘If I have lived for seven years without any hope, keeping the fire of my love concealed, how much more easily, how much more hopefully, shall I bear the next seven, now that my love is known! But, Madame, since in obeying your command I am deprived of the only joy the world affords me, what hope do you give me that at the end of these seven years you will recognize me as your most loyal and faithful servant?’

  The Queen drew a ring from her finger, and said: ‘I give you this ring. Cut it into two equal halves. I shall keep one, and you the other, so that if time erases the memory of your face, I shall nevertheless be able to recognize you, since your half of the ring will match mine.’

  Elisor took the ring, and broke it in two, giving one piece to the Queen, and keeping the other for himself. Then, more dead than the dead themselves, he took his leave and retired to his quarters to make preparations for his departure. All his attendants and servants he sent back home, while he, accompanied only by one valet, went away to a place so remote that neither his family nor his friends could receive any news of him for the whole seven years. Of his manner of life during this time, of the sorrows he endured through his separation, nothing may be known. But no one who has ever loved can fail to imagine what they must have been. On the very day the seven years elapsed the Queen was approached on her way to mass by a hermit with a long beard who kissed her hand and presented her with a petition. She did not read it immediately – [contrary to her usual custom, which was to receive all such petitions and read them personally,] however poor the people who had presented them. However, half-way through mass, she opened it and found the half of the ring which she had given to Elisor.
Her surprise was great, but not unmingled with pleasure, and before she had read the contents, she instructed her chaplain to bring to her the venerable hermit who had presented the petition. The chaplain looked everywhere for him, but failed to discover his whereabouts. The only thing anyone could tell him was that he had been seen on a horse. But nobody knew which way he was going. Meanwhile the Queen read the petition that had been handed to her. It turned out to be a letter composed in the most elegant manner. If it were not for my desire that you should know the contents of this letter, I should never have dared to translate it. For, Ladies, you must understand, the Castilian language is beyond compare as a means of expressing the passion [of love]. The substance of it is as follows: