De Conjugio (On Marriage) · 7 of 25

Those Who Have Lasciviousness for an End

9.THOSE WHO HAVE FOR AN END IN MARRIAGES LASCIVIOUSNESS SUCH AS IS OF ADULTERY. There appeared to me as if in a kitchen, wherein was a dark fire-place, without fire on the hearth, [women] with knives in their hands with which they, as it were, wished to slay infants; they were crafty, cunning, and malicious, all harlots, secretly alluring men to themselves from every quarter. These being inspected by the angels, appeared like intestines in pairs of balls, one of which was filthily bloody, the other foully yellow; thus were represented their lusts when they were inspected by angels. All were such women as seek matrimony solely for the sake of adultery with others, because then they do not fear scandal on account of illegitimate offspring, which they attribute to the husband; their lot is most cruel; all things there are filthy; they dwell in caves, and on account of their ugliness and deformity they fear to be seen, nor can they longer allure any adulterer because they are deformed and have a foul smell; men, also, with whom adulteries are the end of matrimony, and afterward have lived with adulteresses, acquire such a nausea for a wife that they fly from them. They become at length impotences, and with them the life of thought and speech perishes in the society of wives, and especially in the society of their own wives.

10.MICE. Lascivious wives, and also unmarried women who make light of whoredoms, dwell in two kinds of places, some in the western region in front, and some behind. All that are there knew how to insinuate themselves with men by simulated affections, by which they acquired the lascivious love of some male, caring nothing whether they were good affections or whether evil affections. Those who dwell in front were crafty and cunning, and of such a genius that they could perceive of what nature, disposition, inclination, and cupidity were the men whom they wished to allure, especially in depriving a man of his wealth, and in the meantime that they may live luxuriously. They dwell there in caves wherein all things are fetid, and the places where they dwell smell like the smell where mice are; they even appear when seen by angels like great mice. I have heard certain ones, who had been in their caves, saying that the smell was that of mice, and that their places were fetid and filthy; but that they knew how, by phantasies, to render themselves beautiful, and also to decorate these places with various articles, but this only for some moments; for when the phantasies cease the appearances cease, and then all things are foul. It is said even that they delight in those foul and filthy things, the more so the more interiorly they are in them. That they are thus delighted is from correspondences with such a life. They were often seen by me, sometimes when by phantasies they had assumed beauty, appearing then magnificent in dress and charming in countenance, but as soon a fantastic thought was removed from them, which is done by a good spirit and by an angel, they appear deformed altogether like devils, some black, some horribly flamy, some like corpses, and also they were often seen by me like great mice with long tails. Their concupiscences appeared thus. What is wonderful, there are some spirits of both sexes who in the appearance of their passions appear like cats, and those mice fear them just as mice fear cats on earth; they appear like cats because they cared nothing for religious things, except that they heard them but retained nothing of them. I saw that in those caves are noble wives, yea, of such men as were of the first nobility; but all there are compelled to labor, but no one of them can go out, nor is it permitted to let them out, because they are cunning beyond the rest of spirits, and enter the affections of men secretly and draw away their minds; in this they are more skillful than the rest, and so they are shut up, that at last they do not open a finger to let them out.

11.They, however, who dwell below in the western region are similar and in greater number. They are unmarried females who have given themselves to whoredom and passed their whole life in whoredom; there is a similar smell of mice there, not so strong, and they also appear like mice, but smaller. The caverns where they are appear winding and subterranean, one cavern below another, and a great multitude is there.

12.I have seen the larger mice, when a preacher came to them, hold by phantasy a book of psalms in their hand, and look towards certain from whom they draw what to answer, and answer as from themselves; this by cunning, and then they feign devotion, when yet they have no devotion at all; so they deceive the preachers, but they do this in the gates; but within in the caverns they answer nothing, because they cannot look to those from whom they draw the answers.