[001]
Most noble damsels, for whose solace I
addressed me to this long
and toilsome task, meseems that, aided by the Divine grace, the
bestowal whereof I impute to the efficacy of your pious prayers, and
in no wise to merits of mine, I have now brought this work to the
full and perfect consummation which in the outset thereof I promised
you. Wherefore, it but remains for me to render, first to God, and
then to you, my thanks, and so to give a rest to my pen and weary
hand. [002]But this I purpose not to allow them, until, briefly, as to
questions tacitly mooted--for well assured I am that these stories
have no especial privilege above any others, nay, I forget not that at
the beginning of the Fourth Day I have made the same plain--I
shall have answered certain trifling objections that one of you, maybe,
or some other, might advance.
[003]
Peradventure, then, some of you will
be found to say that I have used excessive license in the writing
of these stories, in that I have caused ladies at times to tell, and
oftentimes to list, matters that, whether to tell or to list, do not well
beseem virtuous women. The which I deny, for that there is none
of these stories so unseemly, but that it may without offence be told
by any one, if but seemly words be used; which rule, methinks, has
here been very well observed.
[004]
But assume we that 'tis even so (for
with you I am not minded to engage in argument, witting that you
would vanquish me), then, I say that for answer why I have so done,
reasons many come very readily to hand. In the first place, if aught
of the kind in any of these stories there be, 'twas but such as was
demanded by the character of the stories, which let but any person
of sound judgment scan with the eye of reason, and 'twill be abundantly
manifest that, unless I had been minded to deform them, they
could not have been otherwise recounted.
[005]
And if, perchance, they
do, after all, contain here and there a trifling indiscretion of speech,
such as might ill sort with one of your precious prudes, who weigh
words rather than deeds, and are more concerned to appear, than to
be, good, I say that so to write was as permissible to me, as 'tis to
men and women at large in their converse to make use of such terms
as hole, and pin, and mortar, and pestle, and
sausage, and polony, and
plenty more besides of a like sort.
[006]
And therewithal privilege no
less should be allowed to my pen than to the pencil of the painter,
who without incurring any, or at least any just, censure, not only
will depict St. Michael smiting the serpent, or St. George the
dragon, with sword or lance at his discretion; but male he paints us
Christ, and female Eve, and His feet that for the salvation of our
race willed to die upon the cross he fastens thereto, now with one,
now with two nails.
