A woman was leading an unhappy life with her husband, and came to dislike him intensely. Therefore she thought up a wicked trick to play on him, putting into his wine the juice of certain herbs. He was not merely drunk, but lay there on his bed, acting like a madman, twisting and turning, foaming at the mouth, and unable to speak. His wife hurried off to the nearby monastery, weeping.
She said to the monks: "For the love of God, come to my house, for my husband seems to be dying. He can't speak, but before he lost the power of speech he told me that above all else he wanted to become a monk, or if, through this illness, God took him, he must be dressed in monk's habit before he was buried. I don't want to stand in the way of his wishes, so I'll swear to give up sex for as long as I live, even if God restores him to health. But for God's sake hurry, and dress my poor husband in a monk's habit, for he's at the point of death."
She pressed them so much that they had to go. They shaved her husband, gave him a large tonsure, and dressed him in the habit of their order. The next morning he got up, sober again, and was astonished to find himself with shaved head and dressed as a monk, so he asked his wife what had ben happening who had done that to him.
She, pretending to weep, said: "Oh, my dearly-beloved husband! Don't you remember that last night you were made a monk, and that when you were in agony from your illness that was the only thing you wanted? And for your soul's sake I promised perpetual chastity, so no I must live alone and like an inconsolable widow."
He husband protested that he certainly didn't want to become a monk, and that he wanted to live a normal married life with her, just as before, but she said that she couldn't go against the oath she had sworn, for he most assuredly was a monk, and God would never permit her to sleep with a monk.
"Oh you wretch," she added, "wouldn't you even be ashamed if you broke your vow? If you became a layman again, everyone would call you an apostate, a renegade monk."
She spoke so persuasively, and shed so many false tears, that the unhappy man, through shame and because of all the things she had said to him, took holy orders. He became a monk, and entered the monastery, leaving her in possession of their house and of all the jewels and other goods.
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She said to the monks: "For the love of God, come to my house, for my husband seems to be dying. He can't speak, but before he lost the power of speech he told me that above all else he wanted to become a monk, or if, through this illness, God took him, he must be dressed in monk's habit before he was buried. I don't want to stand in the way of his wishes, so I'll swear to give up sex for as long as I live, even if God restores him to health. But for God's sake hurry, and dress my poor husband in a monk's habit, for he's at the point of death."
She, pretending to weep, said: "Oh, my dearly-beloved husband! Don't you remember that last night you were made a monk, and that when you were in agony from your illness that was the only thing you wanted? And for your soul's sake I promised perpetual chastity, so no I must live alone and like an inconsolable widow."
He husband protested that he certainly didn't want to become a monk, and that he wanted to live a normal married life with her, just as before, but she said that she couldn't go against the oath she had sworn, for he most assuredly was a monk, and God would never permit her to sleep with a monk.
"Oh you wretch," she added, "wouldn't you even be ashamed if you broke your vow? If you became a layman again, everyone would call you an apostate, a renegade monk."
She spoke so persuasively, and shed so many false tears, that the unhappy man, through shame and because of all the things she had said to him, took holy orders. He became a monk, and entered the monastery, leaving her in possession of their house and of all the jewels and other goods.
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Taken from Medieval Comic Tales, ed. D. Brewer (Cambridge, Boydell & Brewer Press: 1973) and originally from the 15th century Spanish MS, Libro de los exenplos por a.b.c., a collection written by Clemente Sánchez (Archdeacon of Valderas)
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