XLI explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Deception and Appearance

  The chapter is rife with deception: Myrmex betrays his master, the baker's wife hides her lover, and the fuller's wife conceals her adultery. Appearances of chastity and fidelity are repeatedly shattered.

• Lust and Sensuality

  Lust drives the adulterous affairs of Philesiterus, the baker's wife, and the fuller's wife. The narrative focuses on the pursuit of sexual pleasure and its consequences.

• Violence and Cruelty

  Barbarus threatens death and starvation; the baker is hanged by sorcery; the young adulterer is whipped; and the baker's wife's lover is nearly killed by smoke. Violence is both threatened and enacted.

Characters to notice

• Barbarus

  Jealous husband who commands his wife be kept close and threatens severe punishment for any man who touches her.

• Myrmex

  Faithful servant of Barbarus who is bribed with gold to allow the adulterer Philesiterus into his mistress's chamber.

• Philesiterus

  The young man who desires Barbarus's wife and bribes Myrmex to gain access to her.

• Lucius

  The ass who observes the baker's wife's adultery and deliberately reveals her lover by kicking the bin.

Key passages

• “You shall understand that on a day this Barbarus preparing himself to ride abroad, and willing to keep the chastity of his wife (whom he so well loved) alone to himself, called his man Myrmex (whose faith he had tried and proved in many things) and secretly committed to him the custody of his wife, willing him that he should threaten, that if any man did but touch her with his finger as he passed by, he would not only put him in prison, and bind him hand and foot, but also cause him to be put to death, or else to be famished for lack of sustenance, which words he confirmed by an oath of all the gods in heaven, and so departed away”

  Barbarus, before leaving on a journey, entrusted his wife's chastity to his trusted servant Myrmex, threatening that any man who so much as touched her would be imprisoned, bound, and either executed or starved, swearing this by all the gods.

  Establishes Barbarus's extreme jealousy and the high stakes for Myrmex.

• “The baker’s wife began to entreat her, promising that she would largely recompence her, if she could bring one of these things to pass, either to make that her husband may be reconciled to her again, or else if he would not agree thereto, to send an ill spirit into him, to dispossess the spirit of her husband.”

  The baker's wife begged the enchantress to either reconcile her with her husband or, failing that, to send an evil spirit to kill him.

  Shows the wife's recourse to sorcery after her divorce, seeking either reconciliation or revenge.

• “The Baker seeing this was not a little moved at the dishonesty of his wife, but he took the young man trembling for fear by the hand, and with cold and courteous words spake in this sort: Fear not my son, nor think that I am so barbarous or cruel a person, that I would stifle thee up with the smoke of sulphur as our neighbour accustometh, nor I will not punish thee according to the rigour of the law of Julia, which commandeth the adulterers should be put to death: No no, I will not execute my cruelty against so fair and comely a young man as you be, but we will divide our pleasure between us, by lying all three in one bed”

  The baker, upon discovering his wife's lover, ironically reassures the young man that he will not kill him or use harsh punishments, but instead proposes that they all share the same bed.

  Highlights the baker's ironic and deceptive response to his wife's adultery, contrasting with the violent threats earlier in the chapter.