Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/167

152 the Heptameron affords many an example, oddly twisted through a tangle of worldliness, gallantry, and gross indecency. Oisille always ranges herself on the side of constancy and chivalry against Hircan and Saffredant, who are supporters of the loose old adage that—

She will not allow them with impunity to call a constant, chaste, unfortunate love, madness and folly. "Do you call it folly," she cries, "to love honestly in youth and then to turn that affection to the love of God?" And she reprimands the arrogant licentiousness of these gay youths; recommending to them the older-fashioned ideal of reverence and humility on the part of the lover.

In a fine passage, she defends these virtues against Hircan, who, with a sneer, declares that chastity is not only praiseworthy, it is even miraculous.

"It is no miracle," replies Oisille.

"Not," says Hircan, "to those who are already angelized."

"Nay," answers Oisille, "I do not only speak of those who by the grace of God are quite transformed in Him, but of the coarsest, rudest spirits one may see here below in the world of men; and, if you choose, you may discover those who have so at their heart and affection on finding the perfection of science, that they have not only forgotten the pleasures of the flesh, but even its necessities, even eating and thinking; for as much as the soul penetrates within the body, by so much the flesh becomes insensible. Thus it happens that those who love beautiful, honest, and virtuous women, have no grosser desire than to look on them