Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies
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| Pietro Aretino, who was born about fifty years before Brantome, is mentioned 8 times in this book. | Pietro Aretino, who was born about fifty years before Brantome, is mentioned 8 times in this book. | ||
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| ===Lesbianism=== | ===Lesbianism=== | ||
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- "In what I say of women, I do speak of some, not of all; and of these, I do use only false names and garbled descriptions. I do keep their identity so carefully hid, none may discover it, and never a breath of scandal can come on them but by mere conjecture and vague suspicion, never by certain inference."
Les Vies des Dames Galantes is a collection of stories by French soldier and chronicler Brantôme (c. 1540–1614). These are part of posthumously published mémoirs and consist of biographical sketches of the "gallant" women of the European court life. Les Vies des Dames Galantes was quoted by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life with regards to the lapsus. They have been illustrated by Paul-Emile Bécat in France, by the Austrian artist C. O. Czeschka and by the Irish artist Robert Gibbings.
Contents
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Seven discourses
The book is divided into seven discourses:
- Of Ladies Which Do Make Love, and Their Husbands Cuckolds
- On the Question Which Doth Give the More Content in Love, Whether Touching, Seeing, or Speaking
- Concerning the Beauty of a Fine Leg, and the Virtue the Same Doth Possess
- Concerning Old Dames as Fond to Practise Love as Ever the Young Ones Be
- Telling How Fair and Honourable Ladies Do Love Brave and Valiant Men, and Brave Men Courageous Women
- Of How We Should Never Speak Ill of Ladies, and of the Consequences of So Doing
- Concerning Married Women, Widows and Maids: to Wit, Which of These Same Be Better Than the Other to Love.
A. R. Allinson translation
Alexandrian Society, London, 1922, volume 1[1], volume 2[2]
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies (Vies de dames galantes), by the Seigneur de Brantôme [Pierre de Bourdeille] (1901-1902) - first English translation by A. R. Allinson
The preface states that it "includes "modifications based upon good taste and not on any fearful prudery."
It further remarks that a "few of Brantome's examples that illustrate his points belong more in a treatise on abnormal pathology than in a book of literary or historical interest and value, so nothing of any value is lost by omitting them. The rare charm, shrewd wisdom, amusing anecdote, literary merit and historical and social information will be appreciated by intelligent readers.
The cover design used on this book was made by C. O. Czeschka.
There is also a set of annotations, see Notes and Appendices to Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies and a Historical Note by Henri Vigneau.
Les Sept Discours Touchant Les Dames Galantes Du Sieur de Brantome
Les Sept Discours Touchant Les Dames Galantes Du Sieur de Brantome is the title of a 1882 edition of Brantome's memoirs Les vies des dames galantes published by BnF curator Henri Bouchot, with drawings by Edouard de Beaumont, engraved by E. Boilvin. The imprint was Librairie des bibliophiles (Paris).
- Premier Discours : « Sur les dames qui font l’amour et leurs maris cocus »
- Deuxième Discours : « Sur le sujet qui contente le plus en amour : le toucher, la vue ou la parole »
- Troisième Discours : « Sur la beauté de la belle jambe et la vertu qu’elle a »
- Quatrième Discours : « Sur l'amour des dames vieilles, et comme certaines l'aiment autant que les jeunes »
- Cinquième Discours : « Les belles et honnêtes dames aiment les hommes vaillants et les hommes braves aiment les femmes courageuses »
- Sixième Discours : « Il ne faut jamais parler mal des dames, et la conséquence qui en vient »
- Septième Discours : « Sur les femmes mariées, les veuves et les filles, à savoir lesquelles sont le plus chaudes à l’amour ».
Unreliable narrator and gossip
Brantôme can hardly be regarded as a historian proper, and his Memoirs cannot be accepted as a very trustworthy source of information. But he writes in a quaint conversational way, pouring forth his thoughts, observations or facts without order or system, and with the greatest frankness and naiveté. His works certainly gave an admirable picture of the general court-life of the time, with its unblushing and undisguised profligacy. There is not an homme illustre or a dame galante in all his gallery of portraits who hasn't engaged in what Medieval Christian prescriptions as well as the Victorian society would regard as sexual immorality; and yet the whole is narrated with the most complete unconsciousness that there is anything objectionable in their conduct. Besides the general promiscuity of the characters, some parts of the work depict in a more or less detailed fashion the practices of homosexualism (almost exclusively lesbianism, see donna con donna), cunnilingus, and, marginally, sado-masochism (although the persons engaging in these activities usually aren't identified by name). It also contains a rather long and explicit description of the female intimate parts in general, focusing on their diversity.
Themes
Older women
- older woman
- "I have heard speak of another lady, who whenever she did lie by daylight with her lover, was used to cover her face with a fair white kerchief of fine Holland web, for fear lest, if he should look in her face, the upper works might chill and stay his affection, and move him to mere disgust; for indeed below was naught to chide at, but all was as fine as ever. This doth remind me of yet another very honourable lady I have heard tell of, who did make a diverting and witty reply. Her husband one day asking her why her hair in one place was not grown white and hoary like that of her head, "Ah, yes," she did exclaim, "the wretch it is ! It hath done all the folly, yet doth it feel naught, nor experience any ill consequences. Many and many a time hath it made my head to suffer; whereas it doth ever remain unchanged, in the same good estate and vigour, and keepeth the same complexion, and above all the same natural heat, and the same appetite and sound health. But how far otherwise it is with my other parts, which do endure aches and pains for it, and my hair which hath long ago grown white and hoary." "
Female infidelity
It is not in the competence of the upper part to pledge itself for the lower
- "Other ladies there be which are complaisant herein up to a certain point of conscience and charity. Of this sort was one which would never suffer her lover, sleep with her as oft as he might, to kiss her the least in the world on the lips, giving as her reason that 'twas her mouth had made the oath of faith and fealty to her husband, and she would fain not foul the same by way of the very mouth that hade made and taken it. But as for that of the body, the which had said never a word and promised naught, this she did let him do with at his good pleasure, and made no scruple to yield to her lover, seeing it is not in the competence of the upper part to pledge itself for the lower, any more than for the lower for the upper. For that the custom of Law doth say that none can bind himself for another without the consent and word of either party, nor one only for the whole. " --Sur les dames qui font l'amour et leurs maris cocus
Always take the upper station and bring her man under her
- Woman on top (sex position)
- "Another most conscientious and scrupulous dame, when granting her friend enjoyment of her, would always take the upper station and bring her man under her, never abating one jot of this rule. For, by observing the same straitly and regularly, she would say, if her husband or any other did ask whether such an one had done to her, that she could deny even on oath, and assuredly protest, without sinning against God, that never had he done so with her. This oath she did so emphatically make as to quite satisfy her husband and others by dint of her confident swearing in answer to heir questions. So did they credit her in what she alleged, "yet had never the wit," she would say, "to demand if ever she had taken the upper part herself; by the which question they would have brought much scorn on me," she said, "and sore trouble of mind."--Sur les dames qui font l'amour et leurs maris cocus
Enjoy her through the bung-hole
But 'twere best of all to follow the advice given in the refrain of an old song of King Francis' time, which saith,
- Qui voudroit garder qu'une femme
- N'aille du tout a l'abandon,
- II faudroit la fermer dans une pipe,
- Et en jouir par le bondon.
(If a man would make sure of his wife never going to the bad at all, he had best shut her up in a cask, and enjoy her through the bung-hole.)
Chastity belts
In the reign of the late King Henri of France there was a certain jeweller which did import and expose for sale at the great Fair of St. Germains a round dozen of a certain contrivance for confining women's affairs. These were made of iron and were worn like a belt joining underneath and locking with a key, and were so cunningly framed that the woman, once confined therein, could never find opportunity for the pleasures of love, there being only a few little tiny holes in the thing for empissoyent through.
Forced seduction
Brantome mentions a lady who confessed that she liked to be "half-forced" by her husband, and he remarks that a woman who is "a little difficult and resists" gives more pleasure also to her lover than one who yields at once, just as a hard-fought battle is a more notable triumph than an easily won victory. --"Sur les dames qui font l'amour et leurs maris cocus"
- "I have heard speak of a Frenchwoman, town-bred, a lady of birth and of handsome looks, who was violated in our civil wars, in a town taken by assault, by a multitude of men-at-arms. On escaping away from these, she did consult a worthy Father as to whether she had sinned greatly, first telling him her story. He said, no! inasmuch as she had been had by force, and deflowered without her consent, but entirely misliking the thing. Whereon she did make answer: "Now God be praised, for that once in my life I have had my fill, without sinning or doing offence to God !" "--"Sur les dames qui font l'amour et leurs maris cocus"
Aretino's positions
Pietro Aretino, who was born about fifty years before Brantome, is mentioned 8 times in this book.
Excitement by visual stimuli by way of paintings
Lesbianism
Donna con donna is the euphemism used by Brantôme in Les Vies des Dames Galantes.
From Sur les dames qui font l'amour et leurs maris cocus by Brantôme in the first discourse of Les Vies des Dames Galantes.
- "Martial in Epigram CXIX of his First Book. Therein doth he introduce and speak of a woman by name Bassa, a tribad, reproaching the same greatly in that men were never seen to visit her, in such wise that folk deemed her a second Lucretia for chasteness. But presently she came to be discovered, for that she was observed to be constantly welcoming at her house beautiful women and girls; and 'twas found that she herself did serve these and counterfeit a man. And the poet, to describe this, doth use the words, geminos committere cunnos. And further on, protesting against the thing, he doth signify the riddle and give it out to be guessed and imagined, in this Latin line :
- Hic, ubi vir non est, ut sit adulterium,
- "a strange thing," that is, "that where no man is, yet is adultery done." "
Descriptions of the female intimate parts
Cunnilingus
- "There be many husbands and lovers among us Christians which do desire to be in all respects different from the Turks, which last take no pleasure in looking at women closely, because they say, as I have stated above, they have no shape. We Christians on the other hand do find, 'tis said, great contentment in regarding them carefully and do delight in such. Nay ! not only do men enjoy seeing them, but likewise in kissing, and many ladies have shown their lovers the way. Thus a Spanish lady did reply to her lover on his quitting her one day with the words, "
- Bezo las manos y los pies, senora!
- Senor, en el medio esta la mejore stacion
--"On the Question Which Doth Give the More Content in Love, Whether Touching, Seeing, or Speaking"
Fetishism
- "'Tis not only in our own day men have esteemed the beauty of fine legs and pretty feet (for 'tis one and the same thing; but in the time of the old Romans likewise we do read how Lucius Vitellius, father of the Emperor Vitellius, being very sore smit with love for Messalina and desiring to be in favour with her husband by her means, did one day beseech her to do him the honour of granting him a boon. The Empress asked him, "What boon?" " 'Tis this, Madam," he replied, "that you be pleased one day to suffer me to take off your shoes." Messalina, who was ever full of courtesy for her subjects, could not refuse him this favour. Then he, after removing her shoes, did keep one of them, and bore the same always about with him betwixt his shirt and his skin, kissing it as oft as ever he had opportunity, in this wise worshipping his lady's pretty feet in the guise of her slippers, forasmuch as he could not have at his disposal the foot itself nor the fine leg appertaining thereto."
Aggression
- The first time ever I was in Italy, I was told, when passing through Venice, what did purport to be a true story of a certain Albanian knight, the which having surprised his wife in adultery, did kill the lover. And for spite that his wife had not been content with him, for indeed he was a gallant knight, and well fitted for Love's battles, so much so that he could engage ten or twelve times over in one night, he did contrive a strange punishment, and so did seek out carefully in all quarters a dozen stout fellows of the right lecherous sort, who had the repute of being well and vigorously built and very adroit in action. These he took and hired, and engaged the same for money. Then he did lock them in his wife's chamber, who was a very fair woman, and gave her up to them, beseeching them one and all to do their duty thoroughly, with double pay if that they did acquit themselves really well.
Magdalen's skull
In the Cent Nouvelles of the Queen of Navarre will be found the most touching and saddest tale that can be read on this matter, the tale of that fair lady of Germany the which her husband was used to constrain to drink ever from the skull of her dead lover, whom he had slain. This piteous sight did the Seigneur Bernage, at that day ambassador in the said country for the French King Charles VIII., see and make report thereof.
Intertextuality
The Heptameron is frequently mentioned, although Brantome refers to them as the Cent Nouvelles.
