Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/334

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ND to speak truth, suchlike harsh, chill medicines should be left to poor nuns and prescribed to them only, which for all their fasting and mortifying of the flesh, be oft times sore assailed, poor creatures, with temptations of the flesh. An if only they had their freedom, they would be ready enough, at least some would, to take like refreshment with their more worldly sisters, and not seldom do they repent them of their repentance. This is seen with the Roman courtesans, as to one of whom I must tell a diverting tale. She was vowed to take the veil, but before her going finally to the nunnery, a former lover of hers, a gentleman of France, doth come to bid her farewell, ere she entered the cloister forever. But before leaving her, he did ask one more gratification of his passion, and she did grant the same, with these words: Fate dunque presto; ch' adesso mi veranno cercar per far mi monaca, e menare al monasterio,—"Do it quick then, for they be coming directly to make me a nun and carry me off to cloister." We must suppose she was fain to do it this once as a final treat, and say with the Roman poet: Tandem hæc olim meminisse juvabit,—"'Twill be good to remember in future days this last delight." A strange repentance insooth and a quaint novitiate! But truly when once they be professed, at any rate the good-looking ones, (though of course there be exceptions), I do believe they live more on the bitter herb of repentance than any other bodily or spiritual sustenance.

Some however there be which do contrive a remedy for this state of things, whether by dispensation or by sheer