Accordingly, the unhappy lady returned home, where not long afterwards her son and daughter-in-law arrived.  And they loved each other so much that never were there husband and wife more loving, nor yet more resembling each other; for she was his daughter, his sister and his wife, while he was her father, her brother and her husband.  And this exceeding love between them continued always; and the unhappy and deeply penitent lady could never see them in dalliance together without going apart to weep.

“You see, ladies, what befalls those who think that by their own strength and virtue they may subdue Love and Nature and all the faculties that God has given them.  It were better to recognise their own weakness, and instead of running a-tilt against such an adversary, to betake themselves to Him who is their true Friend, saying to Him in the words of the Psalmist, ’Lord, I am afflicted very much; answer Thou for me.’” (5)

     5 We have failed to find this sentence in the Psalms. 
     Probably the reference is to Isaiah xxxviii. 14, “O Lord,
     I am oppressed; undertake for me.”—­Eu.

“It were impossible,” said Oisille “to hear a stranger story than this.  Methinks every man and woman should bend low in the fear of God, seeing that in spite of a good intention so much mischief came to pass.”

“You may be sure,” said Parlamente, “that the first step a man takes in self-reliance, removes him so far from reliance upon God.”

“A man is wise,” said Geburon, “when he knows himself to be his greatest enemy, and holds his own wishes and counsels in suspicion.”

“Albeit the motive might seem to be a good and holy one,” said Longarine, “there were surely none, howsoever worthy in appearance, that should induce a woman to lie beside a man, whatever the kinship between them, for fire and tow may not safely come together.”

“Without question,” said Ennasuite, “she must have been some self-sufficient fool, who, in her friar-like dreaming, deemed herself so saintly as to be incapable of sin, just as many of the Friars would have us believe that we can become, merely by our own efforts, which is an exceeding great error.”

“Is it possible, Longarine,” asked Oisille, “that there are people foolish enough to hold such an opinion?”

“They go further than that,” replied Longarine.  “They say that we ought to accustom ourselves to the virtue of chastity; and in order to try their strength they speak with the prettiest women they can find and whom they like best, and by kissing and touching them essay whether their fleshly nature be wholly dead.  When they find themselves stirred by such pleasure, they desist, and have recourse to fasts and grievous discipline.  Then, when they have so far mortified their flesh that neither speech nor kiss has power to move them, they make trial of the supreme temptation, that, namely, of lying together and embracing without any lustfulness. (6) But for one who has escaped, so many have come to mischief, that the Archbishop of Milan, where this religious practice used to be carried on, (7) was obliged to separate them and place the women in convents and the men in monasteries.”