Fifth Day, Novel XLVIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
Quotes from book
Heptaméron
Marguerite de Navarre
Original title
L'Heptaméron
(French, 1558)
The Heptaméron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite de Navarre , published posthumously in 1558. It has the form of a frame narrative and was inspired by The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. It was originally intended to contain one hundred stories covering ten days just as The Decameron does, but at Marguerite’s death it was completed only as far as the second story of the eighth day. Many of the stories deal with love, lust, infidelity, and other romantic and sexual matters. One was based on the life of Marguerite de La Rocque, a French noblewoman who was punished by being abandoned with her lover on an island off Quebec.
“God always helps madmen, lovers, and drunkards.”
Fourth Day, Novel XXXVIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate.”
Fourth Day, Novel XL
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“As two unhappy people often will, the one sought out the other.”
Un malheureux cherche l'autre.
Third Day, Novel XXI (trans. P. A. Chilton)
Variant translation: Misery loves company.
L'Heptaméron (1558)
Sixth Day, Novel LI (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love.”
First Day, Novel VIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not.”
Fifth Day, Novel XLII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
Mariage est un état de si longue durée, qu'il ne doit être commencé légèrement, ne sans l'opinion de nos meilleurs amis et parents.
Fourth Day, Novel XL (trans. P. A. Chilton)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it.”
Sixth Day, Novel LX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”
Second Day, Novel XIX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53:
Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world.
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“Man is wise … when he recognises no greater enemy than himself.”
Third Day, Novel XXX
L'Heptaméron (1558)
Second Day, Novel XII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“He who knows his own incapacity, knows something, after all.”
Third Day, Novel XXVIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
“They cry sour grapes when the object of their desires is beyond their grasp.”
Ilz font semblant de n'aymer poinct les raisins quand ilz sont si haults, qu'ilz ne les peuvent cueillir.
Sixth Day, Novel LIII (trans. P. A. Chilton)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
