Novel V
Novel V
[Voice: filostrato]
[001] Three young men pull down the breeches of a judge from the Marches, while he is administering justice on the bench.
[002]
So
ended Emilia her story; and when
all had commended the
widow lady:
'Tis now thy turn to speak,
quoth the queen,
fixing her gaze upon Filostrato, who answered that he was ready,
and forthwith thus began:
[003] Sweet my ladies, by what I remember of that young man, to wit, Maso del Saggio, whom Elisa named a while ago, I am prompted to lay aside a story that I had meant to tell you, and to tell you another, touching him and some of his comrades, which, notwithstanding there are in it certain words (albeit 'tis not unseemly) which your modesty forbears to use, is yet so laughable that I shall relate it.
[004]
As you all may well have heard, there come not seldom to our
city magistrates from the Marches, who for the most part are men
of a mean spirit, and in circumstances so reduced and beggarly, that
their whole life seems to be but a petty-foggery; and by reason of
this their inbred sordidness and avarice they bring with them judges
and notaries that have rather the air of men taken from the plough
or the last than trained in the schools of law.
An you love me, come with me to the court, and
I will shew you the queerest scarecrow that ever you saw.
[009]
So the
two men hied them with him to the court; and there he pointed
out to them the judge and his breeches. What they saw from a
distance served to set them laughing: then drawing nearer to the
daïs on which Master Judge was seated, they observed that 'twas
easy enough to get under the daïs, and moreover that the plank, on
which the judge's feet rested, was broken, so that there was plenty
of room for the passage of a hand and arm.
[010]
Whereupon quoth
Maso to his comrades:
'Twere a very easy matter to pull these
breeches right down: wherefore I propose that we do so.
[011]
Each
of the men had marked how it might be done; and so, having
concerted both what they should do and what they should say, they
came to the court again next morning; and, the court being
crowded, Matteuzzo, observed by never a soul, slipped beneath the
daïs, and posted himself right under the spot where the judge's feet
rested,
[012]
while the other two men took their stand on either side of the
judge, each laying hold of the hem of his robe. Then:
Sir, sir, I
pray you for God's sake,
began Maso,
that, before the pilfering
rascal
that is there beside you can make off, you constrain him to give me
back a pair of jack boots that he has stolen from me, which theft
he still denies, though 'tis not a month since I saw him getting
them resoled.
[013]
Meanwhile Ribi, at the top of his voice, shouted:
Believe him not, Sir, the scurvy knave! 'Tis but that he knows
that
I am come to demand restitution of a valise that he has stolen
from me that he now for the first time trumps up this story about
a pair of jack boots that I have had in my house down to the last
day or two; and if you doubt what I say, I can bring as witness
Trecca, my neighbour, and Grassa, the tripe-woman, and one that
goes about gathering the sweepings of Santa Maria a Verzaia, who
saw him when he was on his way back from the farm.
[014]
But shout
as he might, Maso was still even with him, nor for all that did Ribi
bate a jot of his clamour. And while the judge stood, bending now
towards the one, now towards the other, the better to hear them,
Matteuzzo seized his opportunity, and thrusting his hand through
the hole in the plank caught hold of the judge's breeches, and tugged
at them amain. Whereby down they came straightway, for the
judge was a lean man, and shrunk in the buttocks.
[015]
The judge,
being aware of the accident, but knowing not how it had come
about, would have gathered his outer garments together in front, so
as to cover the defect, but Maso on the one side, and Ribi on the
other, held him fast, shouting amain and in chorus:
[016]
You do me a
grievous wrong, Sir, thus to deny me justice, nay, even a hearing,
and to think of quitting the court: there needs no writ in this city
for such a trifling matter as this.
And thus they held him by the
clothes and in parley, until all that were in the court perceived that
he had lost his breeches. However, after a while, Matteuzzo
dropped the breeches, and slipped off, and out of the court, without
being observed,
[017]
and Ribi, deeming that the joke had gone far
enough, exclaimed:
By God, I vow, I will appeal to the Syndics;
[018]
while Maso, on the other side, let go the robe, saying:
Nay,
but for my part, I will come here again and again and again, until I
find you less embarrassed than you seem to be to-day.
And so the
one this way, the other that way, they made off with all speed.
[019]
Whereupon Master Judge, disbreeched before all the world, was as
one that awakens from sleep, albeit he was ware of his forlorn
condition, and asked whither the parties in the case touching the
jack boots and the valise were gone. However, as they were not
to be found, he fell a swearing by the bowels of God, that 'twas
meet and proper that he should know and wit, whether 'twas the
custom at Florence to disbreech judges sitting in the seat of justice.
[020] When the affair reached the ears of the Podestà, he made no little stir about it; but, being informed by some of his friends, that 'twould not have happened, but that the Florentines were minded to shew him, that, in place of the judges he should have brought with him, he had brought but gowks, to save expense, he deemed it best to say no more about it, and so for that while the matter went no further.