“In like fashion messer Marcantonio della Torre^[225] addressed the Bishop of Padua. There being a nunnery at Padua in charge of a friar reputed to be of very pure life and learned as well, it came to pass that, as the friar frequented the convent familiarly and often confessed the nuns, five of them (more than half of all there were) became pregnant; and the affair being discovered, the friar wished to flee but knew not how. The bishop had him taken into custody, and he soon confessed that he had brought the five nuns to this pass, being tempted of the devil; wherefore the bishop was firmly resolved to punish him roundly. But as the man was learned, he had many friends who all tried to help him, and along with the rest messer Marcantonio went to the bishop to implore some measure of pardon for him. The bishop would in no wise listen to them; and after they had pleaded hard, and recommended the culprit, and urged in excuse the opportunities of his position, the frailty of human nature, and many other things,—at last the bishop said: ‘I will do nothing for him, because I shall have to render God an account of the matter.’ And when they repeated their arguments, the bishop said: ‘What answer shall I make to God on the Day of Judgment, when he says to me, Give an account of thy stewardship?’^[226] Then messer Marcantonio at once said: ‘My Lord, say that which the Evangelist says: Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold I have gained besides them five talents more.’^[227] Whereupon the bishop could not keep from laughing, and greatly softened his anger and the punishment intended for the offender.

62.—“It is also amusing to interpret names, and to pretend some reason why the man who is spoken of bears such a name, or why something is done. As a few days ago, when Proto da Lucca^[228] (who is very amusing, as you know) asked for the bishopric of Caglio, the Pope replied: ‘Knowest thou not that in the Spanish tongue caglio means I keep silence? And thou art a babbler; wherefore it would be unseemly for a bishop never to be able to repeat his title without telling an untruth. So be thou silent (caglia) now.’ Here Proto made a reply, which, although it was not of this sort, yet was not less to the point; for having several times repeated his request, and seeing that it was of no avail, at last he said: ‘Holy Father, if your Holiness grant me this bishopric, it will not be without advantage, for I shall leave your Holiness two offices (ufficii).’ ‘And what offices have you to leave?’ said the Pope. Proto replied: ‘The full office (ufficio grande), and the Madonna’s office (ufficio della Madonna).’^[229] Then the Pope could not keep from laughing, although he was a very grave man.

“Still another man at Padua said that Calfurnio^[230] was so named because he was accustomed to heat (scaldare) ovens (forni). And when I one day asked Fedra^[231] why it was that on Good Friday, while the Church offered prayer not only for Christians but even for pagans and Jews, no mention is made of cardinals along with bishops and other prelates,—he answered me that cardinals were included in that prayer which says: ‘Let us pray for heretics and schismatics.’

“And our friend Count Ludovico said that the reason why I censured a lady for using a certain cosmetic that gave a high polish, was because I saw myself in her face, when it was painted, as in a mirrour; and being ill favoured I could have no wish to see myself.

“Of this kind was that retort of messer Camillo Paleotto^[232] to messer Antonio Porcaro,^[233] who, in speaking of a companion who told the priest at confession that he fasted zealously, attended mass and the sacred offices, and did all the good in the world, said: ‘The man praises himself instead of owning his sins;’ to which messer Camillo replied: ‘Nay, he confesses these things because he thinks it a great sin to do them.’

“Do you not remember what a good thing my lord Prefect said the other day? When Giantommaso Galeotto^[234] was surprised at a man’s asking two hundred ducats for a horse, because, as Giantommaso said, it was not worth a farthing and among other defects was so afraid of weapons that no one could make it come near them,—my lord Prefect (wishing to twit the man with cowardice) said: ‘If the horse has this trick of running away from weapons, I wonder that he does not ask a thousand ducats for it.’

63.—“Moreover the very same word is sometimes employed, but in a sense different from the usual one. As when my lord Duke,^[2] being about to cross a very rapid river, said to a trumpeter: ‘Cross over’ (passa); and the trumpeter turned cap in hand, and said respectfully: ‘After your Lordship’ (passi la Signoria Vostra).

“Another amusing kind of banter is where a man takes the speaker’s words but not his sense. As was the case this year when a German at Rome, meeting one evening with our friend messer Filippo Beroaldo,^[235] whose pupil he was, said: Domine magister, Deus det vobis bonum sero;^[236] and Beroaldo at once replied: Tibi malum cito.^[237]

“Again, Diego de Chignones^[238] being at the Great Captain’s^[239] table, another Spaniard, who was eating with them, said: ‘Vino,‘ meaning to ask for drink; Diego replied: ’Y no lo conocistes,’^[240] meaning to taunt the man with being a heretic.^[241]

“Another time messer Giacomo Sadoleto^[242] asked Beroaldo,^[235] who was saying how much he wished to go to Bologna: ‘What is it that so presses you at this time to leave Rome, where there are so many pleasures, to go to Bologna, which is full of turmoil?’ Beroaldo replied: ‘On three counts I am forced to go to Bologna,’ and lifted three fingers of his left hand to enumerate three reasons for his going; when messer Giacomo quickly interrupted him and said: ‘These three Counts that make you go to Bologna are: first, Count Ludovico da San Bonifacio; second, Count Ercole Rangone; third, the Count of Pepoli.’ Whereupon everyone laughed, because these three Counts had been pupils of Beroaldo, and were fine youths studying at Bologna.^[243]

“Now we laugh heartily at this kind of witticism, because it carries with it a response different from the one we are expecting to hear, and in such matters we are naturally amused by our very mistake and laugh to find ourselves cheated of what we expect.

64.—“But the modes of speech and the figures that are graceful in grave and serious talk, are nearly always becoming in pleasantries and games as well. You see that words set in opposition produce much grace, when one contrasting clause is balanced by another. The same method is often very witty. Thus a Genoese, who was very prodigal in spending, was reproached by a very miserly usurer, who said to him: ‘When will you ever cease throwing away your riches?’ And he replied: ‘When you cease stealing other men’s.’

“And since, as we have said, the same situations that give opportunity for biting pleasantries may also give opportunity for serious words of praise,—it is a very graceful and becoming method in either case for a man to admit or confirm what another speaker says, but to interpret it in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people’s name, saying: ‘I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking evil,’ and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him, said to the bystanders: ‘Bear witness all of you to what by his own mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.’

“This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada^[244] in complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already old, he said to her: ‘My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever made.’

65.—“Just as serious sayings are useful for praising, in like fashion we find great utility also in jocose sayings for taunting, and in well arranged metaphors, especially if they take the form of repartee, and if he who replies preserves the same metaphor used by his interlocutor. And of this kind was the answer made to messer Palla degli Strozzi,^[245] who being exiled from Florence, sent back a servant on a certain matter of business and said to him rather threateningly: ‘Thou wilt tell Cosimo de’ Medici from me that the hen is hatching.’^[246] The messenger did the errand commanded him, and Cosimo at once replied without hesitation: ‘And thou wilt tell messer Palla from me that hens cannot hatch well away from their nests.’

“Again, with a metaphor messer Camillo Porcaro^[247] gracefully praised my lord Marcantonio Colonna;^[248] who, having heard that messer Camillo had been extolling in an oration certain Italian gentlemen famous as warriors, and had spoken very highly of him among the rest, he expressed his thanks and said: ‘Messer Camillo, you have treated your friends as some merchants treat their money when it is found to contain a false ducat; for in order to be rid of it, they put the piece among many good ones, and in this way pass it on. So you, to do me honour (although I am of little worth), have put me in company with such worthy and excellent cavaliers, that by virtue of their merit I shall perhaps pass as good.’ Then messer Camillo replied: ‘Those who forge ducats are wont to gild them so well that they seem to the eye much finer than the good ones; so, if there were forgers of men as there are of ducats, we should have reason to suspect that you were false, being as you are of far finer and brighter metal than any of the rest.’

“You see that this situation gave opportunity for both kinds of witticism; and so do many others, of which countless instances could be given and especially in serious sayings. Like the one uttered by the Great Captain, who, being seated at table and all the places being already taken, saw that there remained standing two Italian cavaliers who had served very gallantly in the war; and he at once rose himself and caused all the others to rise and make room for these two, saying: ‘Allow these cavaliers to sit at their meat, for had it not been for them, the rest of us should now have no meat to eat.’ Another time he said to Diego Garzia,^[249] who was urging him to retire from a dangerous position where the cannon shot were falling: ‘Since God hath put no fear in your heart, do not try to put any in mine.’

“And King Louis,^[250] who is to-day king of France, being told soon after his accession that then was the time to punish his enemies who had so grievously wronged him while he was Duke of Orleans, replied that it was not seemly for the King of France to avenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans.

66.—“Taunts are also often humourously uttered with a grave air and without exciting laughter. As when Djem Othman,^[251] brother to the Grand Turk,^[252] being a captive at Rome, said that jousting as we practise it in Italy seemed to him too great a matter for play and too paltry for earnest. And on being told how agile and active King Ferdinand the Younger was in running, leaping, vaulting, and the like,—he said that in his country slaves practised these exercises, while gentlemen studied the liberal arts from boyhood, and prided themselves thereon.

“Almost of the same kind, too, but somewhat more laughable, was what the Archbishop of Florence said to the Alexandrian cardinal:^[253] that men have only their goods, their body, and their soul; their goods are put in peril by the lawyers, their body by the physicians, and their soul by the theologians.”

Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied:

“To this you might add what Nicoletto^[254] said: that we seldom find a lawyer who goes to law, a physician who takes physic, or a theologian who is a good Christian.”

67.—Messer Bernardo laughed, then went on:

“Of these there are countless instances, uttered by great lords and very weighty men. But we often laugh at similes also, such as the one that our friend Pistoia^[255] wrote to Serafino: ‘Send back the wallet that looks like you;’ because, if you remember rightly, Serafino looked very like a wallet.

“Moreover there are some who delight to liken men and women to horses, dogs, birds, and often to chests, stools, carts, candle-sticks; which is sometimes good and sometimes very flat. Therefore in this it is needful to consider time, place, persons, and the other things that we have mentioned so many times.”

Then my lord Gaspar Pallavicino said:

“An amusing comparison was the one that our friend my lord Giovanni Gonzaga^[256] made between Alexander the Great and his own son Alessandro.”^[257]

“I do not know it,” replied messer Bernardo.

My lord Gaspar said:

“My lord Giovanni was playing with three dice, and as was his wont had lost many ducats and was still losing; and his son my lord Alessandro (who, although only a lad, is as fond of play as the father is) stood looking at him with great attention and seemed very sad. Count Pianella,^[258] who was present with many other gentlemen, said: ‘You see, my Lord, that my lord Alessandro is little pleased at your losing, and is waiting anxiously for you to win so that he may have some of your winnings. Therefore put him out of his misery, and before you lose everything give him at least a ducat, in order that he too may go and play with his fellows.’ Then my lord Giovanni said: ‘You are wrong, for Alessandro is not thinking of any such trifle. But as it is written that when he was a boy, Alexander the Great began to weep on hearing that his father Philip^[259] had won a great battle and subdued some kingdom, and when he was asked why he wept, he replied that it was because he feared his father would subdue so many lands as to leave nothing for him to subdue; in the same way my son Alessandro is now grieving and about to weep, seeing that I his father am losing, because he fears I am losing so much that I shall leave nothing for him to lose.’”

68.—After some laughter at this, messer Bernardo continued:

“Moreover we must avoid impiety in our witticism, (because from this it is only a step to try to be jocular by blaspheming and to invent new forms of blasphemy); otherwise we seem to seek applause by that for which we deserve not only blame but heavy punishment, which is an abominable thing. And therefore those of us who like to show their pleasantry by little reverence to God, deserve to be chased from the society of every gentleman.

“And they, no less, who are indecent and foul of speech, and show no respect for ladies’ presence and seem to have no other pleasure than to make them blush with shame, and who to that end are continually seeking witticisms and arguzie. As in Ferrara this year at a banquet attended by many ladies, there were a Florentine and a Sienese, who are usually hostile, as you know. To taunt the Florentine, the Sienese said: ‘We have married Siena to the Emperor and have given him Florence for dowry.’ He said this because it was reported at the time that the Sienese had given the Emperor a certain sum of money and that he had taken their city under his protection. The Florentine quickly retorted: ‘Siena will first be possessed’ (he used the Italian word, but with the French meaning); ‘then the dowry will be disputed at leisure.’^[260] You see that the retort was clever, but, being made in the presence of ladies, it became indecent and unseemly.”

69.—Then my lord Gaspar Pallavicino said:

“Women delight to hear nothing else; and you would deprive them of it. Moreover for my part I have found myself blushing with shame at words uttered by women far oftener than by men.”

“Of such women I was not speaking,” said messer Bernardo; “but of virtuous ladies, who deserve reverence and honour from every gentleman.”

My lord Gaspar said:

“We should have to invent a subtle rule by which to distinguish them, for most often those who are seemingly the best, in fact are quite the contrary.”

Then messer Bernardo said, laughing:

“If we had not present here my lord Magnifico, who is everywhere accounted the champion of women, I should undertake to answer you; but I am unwilling to do him wrong.”

Here my lady Emilia said, also laughing:

“Women have need of no champion against an accuser of so little weight. So leave my lord Gaspar in his perverse opinion,—which arises from his never having found a lady to look at him, rather than from any fault on their part,—and go on with your talk about pleasantries.”

70.—Then messer Bernardo said:

“In truth, my Lady, methinks I have told of many situations from which we can derive sharp witticisms, which then have the more grace the more they are accompanied by fine narrative. Still many others might be mentioned. As when, by overstatement or understatement, we say things that outrageously exceed the probable; and of this sort was what Mario da Volterra^[261] said of a prelate, that he held himself so great a man that when he entered St. Peter’s, he stooped in order not to strike his head against the architrave of the portal. Again, our friend here the Magnifico said that his servant Galpino was so lean and light that in blowing the fire to kindle it one morning, the fellow had been carried by the smoke all the way up the chimney to the very top; but happening to be brought crosswise against one of the openings, he had the good luck not to be blown away with the smoke.

“Another time messer Agostino Bevazzano^[262] said that a miser, who had been unwilling to sell his grain while it was dear, afterwards hanged himself in despair from a rafter of his bedroom when he found that the price had greatly fallen; and one of his servants ran in on hearing the noise, saw the miser hanging, and quickly cut the rope and thus rescued him from death. Then, having come to himself, the miser insisted that his servant should pay him for the rope that had been cut.

“Of the same sort also seems to be what Lorenzo de’ Medici said to a dull buffoon: ‘You would not make me laugh if you tickled me.’ And in like fashion he answered another simpleton who had found him abed very late one morning, and who had reproved him for sleeping so late, saying: ‘I have already been at the New Market and the Old, then outside the San Gallo gate and around the walls for exercise, and have done a thousand things besides; and you are still asleep?’ Then Lorenzo said: ‘What I dreamed in one hour is worth more than what you accomplished in four.’

71.—“It is also fine when in a retort we censure something without apparently meaning to censure it. For instance, the Marquess Federico of Mantua,^[263] father to our lady Duchess, being at table with many gentlemen, one of them said after eating an entire bowl of stew: ‘Pardon me, my lord Marquess;’ and so saying he began to gulp down the broth that remained. Then the Marquess said quickly: ‘Ask pardon rather of the swine, for you do me no wrong at all.’

“Again, to censure a tyrant who was falsely reputed to be generous, messer Niccolò Leonico^[264] said: ‘Think what generosity rules him, for he gives away not his own things only, but other men’s as well!’

72.—“Another very pretty form of pleasantry is that which consists in a kind of innuendo, when we say one thing and tacitly imply another. Of course I do not mean another thing of a completely different kind, like calling a dwarf gigantic and a negro white or a very ugly man handsome, for the difference is too obvious,—although even these sometimes cause laughter; but I mean when with stern and serious air we humourously say something in jest which is not our real thought. For instance, when a gentleman told a palpable lie to messer Agostino Foglietta^[265] and affirmed it stoutly on seeing that he had much difficulty in believing it, messer Agostino said at last: ‘Fair sir, if I may ever hope to receive kindness from you, do me the favour to be content even if I do not believe anything you say.’ But as the other repeated, and under oath, that it was the truth, he finally said: ‘Since you will have it so, I will believe it for your sake, for indeed I would do even a greater thing than this for you.’

“Don Giovanni di Cardona^[266] said something nearly of this sort about a man who wished to leave Rome: ‘To my thinking the fellow is ill advised, for he is so great a rascal that by staying on at Rome he might in time become a cardinal.’ Of this sort also is what was said by Alfonso Santacroce,^[267] who had shortly before suffered some outrage from the Cardinal of Pavia.^[268] While strolling with several gentlemen near the place of public execution outside Bologna, he saw a man who had recently been hanged, and turning towards the body with a thoughtful air, he said loud enough for everyone to hear him: ‘Happy thou, who hast naught to do with the Cardinal of Pavia.’

73.—“And this sort of pleasantry which is tinged with irony seems very becoming to great men, because it is dignified and sharp, and can be used in jocose as well as in serious matters. Hence many ancients (and those among the most esteemed) have used it, like Cato and Scipio Africanus the Younger; but above all men, the philosopher Socrates is said to have excelled in it. And in our own times King Alfonso I of Aragon,^[269] who, being about to eat one morning, took off the many precious rings that he had on his fingers, in order not to wet them in washing his hands, and so gave them to the first person he happened on, almost without looking to see who it was. This servant supposed that the king had taken no notice who received them, and by reason of weightier cares would easily forget them altogether; and in this he was the more confirmed, seeing that the king did not ask for them again; and as he saw days, weeks and months pass without hearing a word about them, he thought he was surely safe. Accordingly, nearly a year after this had happened, he presented himself again one morning as the king was about to eat, and held out his hand to receive the rings; whereupon the king bent close to his ear and said to him: ‘Let the first ones suffice thee, because these will do for someone else.’ You see how biting, clever and dignified the sally was, and how truly worthy the exalted spirit of an Alexander.

74.—“Similar to this manner (which savours of the ironical) is another method, that of describing an evil thing in polite terms. As the Great Captain said to one of his cavaliers, who, after the battle of Cerignola,^[270] when the danger was over, came forward in the richest armour possible to describe, accoutered as if for battle. And then the Great Captain turned to Don Ugo di Cardona^[271] and said: ‘Have no more fear of storm, for Saint Elmo has appeared;’ and with this polite speech he stung the man to the quick, because you know that Saint Elmo^[272] always appears to mariners after the tempest and gives token of fair weather; and thus the Great Captain meant that this cavalier’s appearance was a token that the danger was quite passed.

“Another time my lord Ottaviano Ubaldini,^[273] being at Florence in the company of some citizens of great influence, and the talk being about soldiers, one of them asked him if he knew Antonello da Forli,^[274] who had at that time fled from Florentine territory. My lord Ottaviano replied: ‘I do not know him, but have always heard him spoken of as a prompt soldier.’ Whereupon another Florentine said: ‘You see how prompt he is, when he takes his departure without asking leave.’

75.—“Those witticisms also are very clever in which we take from our interlocutor’s lips something that he does not mean. And of this kind, methinks, was my lord Duke’s reply to the castellan who lost San Leo^[275] when this duchy was taken by Pope Alexander and given to Duke Valentino;^[276] and it was this: my lord Duke being in Venice at the time I have mentioned, many of his subjects came continually to give him secret news how things were faring in his state; and among the rest came this castellan, who, after having excused himself as best he could, ascribing the blame to mischance, said: ‘Have no anxiety, my Lord, because I still have heart to take measures for the recovery of San Leo.’ Then my lord Duke replied: ‘Trouble yourself no more about the matter, for the mere loss of it was a measure that rendered its recovery possible.’

“There are certain other sayings when a man known to be clever says something that seems to proceed from foolishness. For instance, messer Camillo Paleotto^[232] said of someone the other day: ‘He was such a fool that he died as soon as he began to grow rich.’

“Of like kind with this is a spicy and keen dissimulation, where a man (discreet, as I have said) pretends not to understand something that he does understand. Like what was said by the Marquess Federico of Mantua, who,—being pestered by a tiresome fellow who complained that some of his neighbours were snaring doves out of his dovecote, and all the while held one of them in his hand, hanging dead just as he had found it with its foot caught in the snare,—replied that the matter should be looked to. The fellow repeated the story of his loss not once only but many times, always displaying the dove that had been hanged, and saying: ‘And what, my Lord, do you think ought to be done in this case?’ At last the Marquess said: ‘I think the dove ought on no account to be buried in church, for having hanged itself, it must be believed to have committed suicide.’^[277]

“Somewhat of the same fashion was the retort made by Scipio Nasica^[278] to Ennius. Once when Scipio went to Ennius’s house to speak with him and called him down from the street, one of his maids replied that he was not at home; and Scipio distinctly heard Ennius himself tell the maid to say he was not at home, and so went away. Not long afterwards Ennius came to Scipio’s house and likewise called to him from below; whereupon Scipio himself replied in a loud voice that he was not at home. Then Ennius replied: ‘How? Do I not know thy voice?’ Scipio said: ‘Thou art too rude. The other day I believed thy maid when she said thou wert not at home, and now thou wilt not believe the like from me in person.’

76.—“It is also a fine thing when a man is struck in the very same place where he first struck his fellow. As in the case of messer Alonso Carillo,^[279] who, being at the Spanish court and having committed some youthful peccadilloes of no great importance, was put in prison by the king’s order and left there overnight. The next day he was taken out, and so going to the palace in the morning, he reached the hall where there were many cavaliers and ladies. And as they were laughing at his imprisonment, my lady Boadilla^[280] said: ‘Signor Alonso, your mishap weighed on me heavily, for all your acquaintance thought the king would have you hanged.’ Then Alonso said quickly: ‘My Lady, I was much afraid of it myself; but then I had hope that you would ask me to be your husband.’ You see how sharp and clever this was, because in Spain (as in many other countries too) the custom is that when a man is led to the gallows, his life is given him if a public courtesan begs him for her husband.

“In this manner also the painter Raphael replied to two cardinals with whom he was on familiar terms, and who (to make him talk) were finding fault in his presence with a picture that he had painted,—in which St. Peter and St. Paul were represented,—saying that these two figures were too red in the face. Then Raphael at once said: ‘My Lords, be not concerned; because I painted them so with full intention, since we have reason to believe that St. Peter and St. Paul are as red in Heaven as you see them here, for shame that their Church should be governed by such men as you.’^[281]

77.—“Very keen also are those witticisms that have a certain latent spice of fun in them. As where a husband was making great lament and weeping for his wife, who had hanged herself on a fig-tree, another man approached him and plucking him by the robe, said: ‘Brother, might I as a great favour have a small branch of that fig-tree to graft upon some tree in my garden?’

“Some other witticisms need an air of patience and are slowly uttered with a certain gravity. As where a rustic, who was carrying a box on his shoulders, jostled it against Cato, and then said: ‘Have a care.’ Cato replied: ‘Hast thou aught else but that chest upon thy shoulders?’^[282]

“Moreover we laugh when a man has made a blunder, and to mend it says something of set purpose that seems silly and yet tends to the object he has in view, and thus keeps himself in countenance. For instance, in the Florentine Council not long ago there were (as often happens in these republics) two enemies, and one of them, who was of the Altoviti family, fell asleep. And although his adversary, who was of the Alamanni family, was not speaking and had not spoken, yet to raise a laugh the man who sat next Altoviti woke him with a touch of the elbow, and said: ‘Do you not hear what So and So says? Make answer, as the Signors are asking for your opinion.’ Thereupon Altoviti rose to his feet all drowsy as he was, and said without stopping to think: ‘My Lords, I say just the opposite of what Alamanni said.’ Alamanni replied: ‘But I said nothing.’ ‘Then,’ said Altoviti at once, ‘the opposite of whatever you may say.’

“Of this kind also was what your Urbino physician, master Serafino, said to a rustic, who had received a hard blow in the eye so that it was forced quite out, yet decided to seek aid from master Serafino. On seeing him, although aware that it was impossible to cure him, still in order to force money from his hands (just as the blow had forced the eye from his head), the doctor readily promised to cure him, and accordingly demanded money from him every day, affirming that he would begin to recover his sight within five or six days. The poor rustic gave what little he had; then, seeing that the affair was progressing slowly, he began to complain of the physician, and to say that he felt no benefit at all and saw no more with that eye than as if he had it not in his head. At last master Serafino, seeing that he would be able to extort little more from the man, said: ‘Brother, you must have patience. You have lost your eye and there is no longer any help for it; and may God grant that you do not lose your other eye as well.’ On hearing this, the rustic began to weep and complain loudly, and said: ‘Master, you have ruined me and stolen my money. I will complain to my lord Duke;’ and he made the greatest outcry in the world. Then, to clear himself, master Serafino said angrily: ‘Ah, wretched traitor! So you would have two eyes, as city-folk and rich men have? To perdition with you!’ and accompanied these words with such fury that the poor rustic was frightened into silence and quietly went his way in peace, believing himself to be in the wrong.

78.—“It is also fine to explain or interpret a thing jocosely. As when at the court of Spain there appeared one morning in the palace a cavalier who was very ugly, and his wife who was very beautiful, both dressed in white damask (damasco),—the queen^[283] said to Alonso Carillo: ‘What think you of these two, Alonso?’ ‘My Lady,’ replied Alonso, ‘I think she is the dama (lady), and he is the asco,’ which means monster.

“Another time Rafaello de’ Pazzi^[284] saw a letter which the Prior of Messina^[285] had written to a lady of his acquaintance, the superscription of which read, ‘This missive is to be delivered to the author of my woes.’ ‘Methinks,’ said Rafaello, ‘this letter is intended for Paolo Tolosa.’^[286] Imagine how the bystanders laughed, when everyone knew that Paolo Tolosa had lent the Prior ten thousand ducats, and that he, being a great spendthrift, found no means to repay them.

“Akin to this is the giving of friendly admonition in the form of advice, yet covertly. As Cosimo de’ Medici did to one of his friends, who was very rich but of moderate education and who had secured through Cosimo a mission away from Florence. When on setting out the man asked Cosimo what course he thought ought to be taken in order to do well in the mission, Cosimo replied: ‘Wear rose-colour,^[287] and say little.’ Of the same kind was what Count Ludovico said to a man who wished to travel incognito through a certain dangerous place and knew not how to disguise himself; and being asked about it, the count replied: ‘Dress like a doctor or some other man of sense.’ Again, Gianotto de’ Pazzi^[288] said to someone who wished to make a jerkin of as varied colours as he could find: ‘Imitate the Cardinal of Pavia in word and deed.’

79.—“We laugh also at some things that have no connection. As when someone said the other day to messer Antonio Rizzo^[289] about a certain man from Forli: ‘You may know he is a fool, for his name is Bartolommeo.’ And another: ‘You are looking for a Master Stall, and have no horses!’ And: ‘All the fellow lacks is money and brains.’

“And we laugh at certain other things that seem to have sequence. As recently, when a friend of ours was suspected of having had the renunciation^[290] of a benefice forged, upon another priest’s falling sick, Antonio Torello^[291] said to our friend: ‘Why do you delay to send for that notary of yours and see about filching this other benefice?’ Likewise at some things that have no sequence. As the other day, when the pope sent for messer Gianluca da Pontremolo and messer Domenico dalla Porta (who are both hunchbacks as you know),^[292] and made them auditors, saying that he wished to set the Wheel right,—messer Latino Giovenale^[293] said: ‘His Holiness is in errour if he thinks to make the Wheel right with two wrongs (due torti).’

80.—“We often laugh also when a man admits everything that is said to him and more too, but pretends to take it in a different sense. As when Captain Peralta was brought out to fight a duel with Aldana, and Captain Molart^[294] (who was Aldana’s second) asked Peralta on his oath if he wore any amulets or charms to keep him from being wounded; Peralta swore that he wore no amulets or charms or relics or objects of devotion in which he had faith. Whereupon, to taunt him with being a heretic, Molart said: ‘Do not trouble yourself about it, for without your oath I believe you have no faith in Christ himself.’^[295]

“Moreover it is a fine thing to use metaphors seasonably in such cases. As when our friend master Marcantonio said to Bottone da Cesena,^[296] who was goading him with words: ‘Bottone, Bottone, you will one day be the button (bottone), and your button-hole will be the halter.’ Another time, master Marcantonio having composed a very long comedy in several acts, this same Bottone said to master Marcantonio: ‘To play your comedy, all the timber there is in Slavonia will be needed for the setting.’ Master Marcantonio replied: ‘While for the setting of your tragedy, three sticks will be quite enough.’^[297]

81.—“We often use a word in which there is a hidden meaning remote from the one we seem to intend. As was done by my lord Prefect here, on hearing mention of a certain captain who in his time had for the most part been defeated but just then had chanced to win. And the speaker telling that when the captain made his entry into the place in question, he had on a very beautiful crimson velvet doublet, which he always wore after his victories, my lord Prefect said: ‘It must be new.’

“Nor is there less laughter when we reply to something that our interlocutor has not said, or pretend to believe he has done something that he has not but ought to have done. As when Andrea Coscia,^[298] having gone to visit a gentleman who rudely kept his seat and left his guest to stand, said: ‘Since your Lordship commands me, I will sit down to obey you;’ and so sat down.^[299]