Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/173

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OF ECCLESIASTICAL BLINDNESS.
161

"My dear lord," cried she, "permit me to strengthen the uninjured eye, by medicinal applications[1]; or the diseased part may communicate with the sound, and thereby both be irremediably injured." The knight made no objection, and his wife spreading a large plaster so as completely to obstruct his sight, beckoned to her gallant, who escaped. Satisfied with her successful stratagem, the lady observed to the husband, "There, dear! now I am secure: your sound eye will take no injury. Go into your bed, and sleep."[2]


APPLICATION.

My beloved, the knight is a prelate of the church; the adulterous wife is the soul. The prelate's eye is struck out as often as it is blinded with gifts.

  1. The ladies, it is well known, were in former days, the best, indeed, the only chirurgeons.
  2. This tale is in Alphonsus, and many of the Italian Novelists.