From Giovanni Boccaccio's
"The Decameron"
.
Tenth Tale of the Third Day
.
Alibech becomes a hermit, and the monk Rustico teaches her how to
put the devil in hell. she is afterwards taken away and becomes the
wife of Neerbale.
.
Dioneo had listened closely to the queen's story, and, when it was
over and only he remained to tell a story, he did not wait to be commanded,
but smilingly began as follows:
Most gracious ladies, perhaps you have never heard
how the devil is put into hell; and so, without departing far from the
theme upon which you have all spoken today, I shall tell you about it.
Perhaps when you have learned it, you also will be able to save your souls,
and you may also discover that although love prefers to dwell in gay places
and lovely rooms rather than in poor huts, yet he sometimes makes his power
felt among thick woods and rugged mountains and desert caves. Whereby
we may well perceive that all of us are subject to his power.
Now, to come to my story--in the city of Capsa in
Barbary there lived a pretty and charming daughter, named Alivech.
She was not a Christian, but she heard many Christians in her native town
crying up the Christian Faith and service to God, and one day she asked
one of them how a person could most effectively serve God. THe reply
was that those best serve God who fly furthest from the things of this
world, like the hermits who had departed to the solitudes of the Thebaid
Desert.
The girl was about fourteen and very simple minded.
Urged by a mere childish entusiasm and not by a well ordered desire, she
secretly set out next morning quite alone, without saying a word to anyone,
to find the Thebaid Desert. Her enthusiasm lasted several days and
enabled her with great fatigue to reach those solitudes. In the distance
she saw a little hut with a holy man standing at its entrance. He
was amazed to see her there, and asked her what she was seeking.
She replied that by God's inspiration she was seeking to serve Him, and
begged the hermit to show her the right way to do so. But the holy
man saw she was young and pretty, and feared that if he kept her with him
he might be tempted of the devil. So he praised her good intentions,
gave her some roots and wild apples to eat and some water to drink, and
said:
"Daughter, not far from here dwells a holy man who
is a far greater master of what you are seeking than i am; go to him."
And so he put her on the way. when she reached
him, she was received with much the same words, and passing further on
came to the cell of a young hermit named Rustico, to whom she made the
same request as to the others. to test his spiritual strength, Rustico
did not send her away, but took her into his cell. and when night
came, he made her a bed of palm leaves and told her to sleep there.
almost immediately after this, temptation began
the struggle with his spiritual strength, and the germit found that he
had greatly over-estimated his powers of resistance. after a few
assaults of the demon he shrugged his shoulders and surrendered.
putting aside holy thoughts and prayers and macerations, he began to think
of her beauty and youth, and then pondered how he should proceed with her
so that she should not perceive that he obtained what he wanted from her
like a dissolute man. firsty of all he sounded her by certain questions,
and discovered that she had never lain with a man and appeared to be bery
simple minded. he then saw how he could bring her to his desire under
pretext of serving God. he began by eloquently showing how the devil
is the enemy of the Lord God, and then gave her to understand that the
service most pleasing to God is to put the devil back into hell, to which
the Lord God has condemned him. the girl asked how this was done,
and Rustico replied:
"you shall soon know. do what you see me do."
he then threw off the clothes he had and remained
stark naked, and the girl imitated him. he kneeled down as if to
pray and made her kneel exactly opposite him. as he gazed at her
beauty, Rustico's desire became so great that the resurrection of the flesh
occured. alibech looked at it with amazement, and said:
"rustico, what is that thing i see sticking out
in front of you which i haven't got?"
"my daughter," said Rustico, "that is the devil
i spoke of. do you see? he gives me so much trouble at this moment
that i can scarcely endure him."
Said the girl:
"Praised be God!" i see i am better off than you
are, since i haven't such a devil."
"you speak truly." said Rustico, "but instead of
this devil you have something else which i haven't."
"What's that?" said Alibech.
"You've got hell," replied Rustico, "and i believe
God sent you here for the salvation of my sould, bacause this decil gives
me great trouble, and if you will take pity upon me and let me put him
into hell, you will give me the greates comfort and at the same time will
serve God adn please him, since, as you say, you came here for that purpose."
in all good faith the girl replied: "father, since
i have hell in me, let it be whenever you please."
said rustico: "blessings upon you my daughter.
let us put him in now so that he will afterwards depart from me."
so saying, he took the girl to one of their beds,
and showed her how to lie so as to imprison the thing accursed of God.
the girl had never put any devil into her hell and at first felt a little
pain, and exclaimed to rustico:
'o father! this devil must certainly be wicked and
the enemy of god, for even when he is put back into hell he hurts it."
"daughter," said rustico, "it will not always be
so."
to preven this from happening, rustico put it into
hell six times, before he got off the bed, adn so purged the devil's pride
that he was glad to rest a little. thereafter he returned often and
the obedient gril was always glad to take him in; and then the game began
to give her pleasure, and she said to rustico:
"i see that the good men of Capsa spoke the truth
when they told me how sweet a thing is the service of God. i certainly
do not remember that i ever did anything which gave me so much delight
and pleasure as i get from putting the devil into hell. i think that
everyone is a fool who does anything but serve God."
thus it happened that she would often go to Rustico,
and say:
"father, i came here to serve God and not to remain
in idleness. let us put the devil in hell."
and once as they were doing it, she said:
"rustico, i don't know why the devil ever goes out
of hell. if he liked to remain there as much as hell likes to recieve
and hold him, he would never leave it."
the girl's frequent invitations to Rustico and their
mutual pleasures in the servic efo god so took the stuffing out of his
doublet that he he now felt chilly where another man would have been in
a sweat. so he told the girl that the devil must not be chastened
or put into hell except whe pride made him lift his head. "and we,"
he said, "have so quelled his rage that he prays God to be left in peace."
and in this way he silenced the girl for a time. but when she found
that rustico no longer asked her to put the devil in hell, she said one
day:
"rustico, your devil may be chastened and give you
no more trouble, but my hell is not. you should therefor quench the
raging of my hell with your devil, as i helped you quell the pride of your
devil with my hell."
rustico, who lived on nothing but roots and water,
made a poor response to this invitation. he told her that many devils
would be needed to soothe her hell, but that he would do what he could.
in this way he satisfied her hell a few times, but so seldom that it was
like throwing a bean in a lion's mouth. and the girl, who thought
they were not serving God as much as she wanted, kept murmuring.
now, while there was this debate betweent the excess
of desire in Alibech's hell and the lack of potency in Rustico's devil,
a fire broke out in Capsa, and burned Alivech's father with all his children
and servants. so Alivech became heir to all his property. a
young man named Neerbale, who had spent all his money in riotous living,
heard that she was still alive and set out to find her, which he succeeded
in doing before the Court took over her father's property as that of a
man who died without heirs. to rustico's great relief, but against
her will, Neerbale brought her back to Capsa and married her, and together
they inherited her large patriomny. but before neerbale had lain
with her, certain ladies one day asked her how she had served God in the
desert. she replied that her service was to put the devil in hell,
and that Neerbale had committed a great sin by taking her away from such
service. the ladies asked:
"And how do you put the devil in hell?"
Partly in words and partly by gestures, the girl
told them. at this they laughed so much that they are still laughing, and
said:
"be not cast down, my child, they know how to do
that here, and neerbale will serve the Lord God with you in that way."
as they told it up and down the city, it passed
into a proverb that the service most pleasing to god is to put the devil
into hell. and this proverb crossed the seas and remains until this
day.
therefore, young ladies, when you seek god's favour,
learn to put the devil in hell, because this is most pleasing to god and
to all parties concerned, and much good may come of it.
.
