stationed as guards over the bodies, adjacent to the monument in which the woman had secluded herself. Once one of the tguards in the middle of the night, being thirsty, asked for some water from the maidservant, who happened at that time to be waiting on her mistress as she was going to bed; for she had been sitting up by lamplight and had prolonged her vigil to a late hour. The door being opened a bit, the soldier peers inside and sees a woman of remarkable beauty. His mind is ravished and at once on fire; gradually there rises within him a lust for the woman, which he cannot resist. His inventive shrewdness finds a thousand pretexts for seeing the widow more frequently. Daily
The Widow and the Soldier
The great inconstancy and lustfulness of women A certain woman on losing her husband, whom she had loved and cherished for a number of years, preserved his body in a sepulchre; and when it appeared that she could not by any means be torn away from him but was spending her life mourning in the sepulchre, she acquired the shining reputation of a very chaste wife. Meanwhile some persons who had plundered the sanctuary of Jupiter paid for their crime against the divinity by crucifixion; and lest anyone should take away their remains, soldiers were
