Erasmus, "The Young Man and the Harlot" 1

Erasmus, "The Young Man and the Harlot" (1523)

From: Erika Rummel, ed. Erasmus on Women. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996, pp.
51-57.
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and
classical scholar. Ordained as a Catholic priest, he was critical of the abuses within the
Church and called for reform, even though he kept his distance from Martin Luther and the
Protestant Reformation and continued to recognize the authority of the pope. Many scholars
in both camps were angered by his attempt to steer a middle course.
The dialogue between a young man and a harlot was first published in the 1523 edition of
Erasmus's Colloquies, a book intended for the instruction of young boys and dedicated to his
six- or eight-year-old godson. The plot line used here is familiar from a narrative in the
medieval Lives of the Fathers, which tells of the conversion of the Greek courtesan Thas by
the hermit Paphnutius. The story also appears in the medieval Golden Legend and was
adapted in the tenth century by the nun Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim. Erasmus was probably
familiar with all of these sources. An influential nineteenth-century German pedagogue
called Von Raumer fulminated against this dialogue by saying: "Erasmus here paints fleshly
lust in the basest way" and proceeded to ask: "How could such a book be introduced in
countless schools? What had boys to do with these satyrs?" The translation is by Craig
Thompson.
Lucretia
Welcome, Sophronius darling!
Back to us at last? Seems to me you've
been gone an age. I scarcely knew you at
first.
Sophronius Why so, my dear Lucretia?
Lucretia Because you've come back with
a bit of beard you didn't use to have.
What's the matter, sweetheart? You look
gloomier than usual.
Sophronius I want to have a talk with you
- in private.
Lucretia Oh, aren't we alone, my cocky?1
Sophronius
Let's withdraw to a more
secret place.
Lucretia All right, let's go into the inner
bedroom if you like.
Sophronius This place doesn't yet seem
secret enough for me.
Lucretia How come you're so bashful all
of a sudden? Here's my private dressing
room; it's so dark we'll hardly be able to
see each other.
Sophronius Examine every crack.
Lucretia There's not a single crack.
Sophronius Nobody close by who might
overhear us?
Lucretia Not even a fly, dearie. What are
you waiting for?
Sophronius Shall we escape God's notice
here?

Lucretia Of course not: he sees through

everything.
Sophronius And the angels' notice?
Lucretia Impossible to keep out of their
sight.
Sophronius
Then how is it that men
aren't ashamed to do in the sight of God
and in the presence of the holy angels
what they would be ashamed to do
before men?
Lucretia What's got into you? Have you
come here to preach to me? Put on a
Franciscan cowl, get up into a pulpit, and
let's hear you, my bearded lad.
Sophronius I wouldn't object to doing just
that if I could reclaim you from this sort
of life. It's not only the most shameful but
the most miserable kind as well.
Lucretia Why so, love? I must have some
source of income. Everybody lives by his
profession. This is my work, my
livelihood.
Sophronius I'd like to have a talk with
you on this very subject, my Lucretia,
after you've calmed down a little.
Lucretia Save your sermon for another
occasion. Let's enjoy ourselves now,
Sophronius dear.
Sophronius Whatever you do, you do for
money.
Lucretia You're not far wrong!

2 Sexy

Sophronius You won't lose money: I'll pay

you four times the usual sum if you'll only
listen to me.
Lucretia Say what you please.
Sophronius First answer me this: have
you any enemies?
Lucretia Not one.
Sophronius And are there, on the other
hand, any women you hate?
Lucretia In so far as they deserve it.
Sophronius Then if you could do them a
favour, would you do it?
Lucretia I'd rather mix poison for them!
Sophronius But think now whether you
could do anything that would give them
greater pleasure than to see you living
this most disgraceful and wretched life.
And what could you have done more
grievous to those who wish you well?
Lucretia It was my fate.
Sophronius
What is, as a rule, the
hardest thing of all for persons deported
to islands or banished to the wildest
frontiers of the earth, you've chosen of
your own free will.
Lucretia What's that?
Sophronius
Haven't you voluntarily
renounced all tiesfather,
mother,
brothers, sisters, paternal and maternal
aunts, and others to whom nature has
bound you? For they're ashamed of you,
and you can't bear to come within sight
of them.
Lucretia Oh, no, I've exchanged my loved
ones, to my profit, for instead of a few I
now have manyof whom you're one.
I've always looked upon you as a brother.
Sophronius
Quit joking and treat the
subject seriously, as it deserves. A girl
with so many friends has no friend at all,
Lucretia, believe me. Those who resort to
you treat you not as a friend but rather
as an object of contempt. See how low
you've fallen, you wretched creature!
Christ held you so dear that he redeemed
you with his own blood, so dear that he
wanted you to share the heavenly
inheritance; and you make yourself a
public sewer that every Tom, Dick, and
Harrythe dirty, the vile, the diseased
resorts to and empties his filth into. If you
haven't yet caught the new contagion
called the Spanish pox,2 you can't long
escape it. If you do get it, you'll be the
most miserable creature alive, even if

you prosper in every other respect, even

if you have fame and fortune. What will
you be but a living corpse? You used to
think obeying your mother burdensome;
now you're at the beck and call of an
utterly repulsive bawd. You were fed up
with parental reproofs; here you must
often endure beatings by drunken,
maddened whoremongers. To do some of
the housework at home in return for bed
and board disgusted you; here what
commotions, what late hours you put up
with!
Lucretia Where has this new preacher
come from?
Sophronius Now think it over. This bloom
of beauty that draws lovers to you will
soon fade. What a pitiable sight you'll be
then! What dung heap will be more
contemptible than you? You'll change
from whore to bawd, a distinction that
doesn't fall to everyone. And if it does
come, what is there more wicked or more
closely tied to devilish spitefulness?
Lucretia Almost everything you say is
true, my Sophronius. But where did you
pick up this newfangled holiness?
Generally you're the wildest playboy of
them all. Nobody used to come here
oftener or at more inconvenient times
than you did. You've been in Rome, I
hear.
Sophronius I have.
Lucretia But ordinarily people return from
there worse than they went.3 How come
it happened otherwise for you?
Sophronius I'll tell you: because I didn't
go to Rome for the same reason or in the
same fashion. Others commonly go to
Rome intending to return worseand
abundant opportunities for that purpose
are at hand there. I set out with an
honest man by whose urging I took a
book along instead of a flask: the New
Testament, translated by Erasmus.4
Lucretia Erasmus? He's more than heretic
they say.
Sophronius You don't mean that man's
reputation has reached even this place?
Lucretia No name is better known to us.
Sophronius Have you seen him?
Lucretia Never, but I'd like very much to
see the person I've heard so many bad
reports of.
Sophronius From bad men, perhaps.

Erasmus, "The Young Man and the Harlot" 3

Lucretia
Oh, no: from reverend
gentlemen.
Sophronius Which ones?
Lucretia I'm not free to tell.
Sophronius Why?
Lucretia Because if you blabbed about it
and the news reached their ears, a
sizable share of my income would be
gone.
Sophronius Have no fear: You are telling
it to a stone.
Lucretia Let me whisper it.
Sophronius Silly, why do you have to
whisper when we're alone? So God won't
overhear? Good heavens, you're a
pious whore, I see; you give alms to the
mendicants!
Lucretia But I make more profit from
these mendicants than from you rich
men.
Sophronius They rob honest matrons in
order to throw their money on villainous
whores.
Lucretia But go on about the book.
Sophronius I will; and so much the
better. In it Paul, who doesn't know how
to lie, taught me that neither whores nor
whoremongers shall inherit the kingdom
of heaven.5 After reading this I began to
reflect: 'The estate I expect to inherit
from my father is a modest one, yet I'd
rather renounce all whores than be
disinherited by him. How much more care
should I take lest my heavenly Father
disinherit me! Against a father who
disinherits or disowns, human laws offer
some protection; against the God who
disinherits, there is no remedy.' So
straightway I made it a rule to have
nothing to do with whores.
Lucretia If you could contain, that is.
Sophronius A large part of continence is
the will to be continent. As a last resort
one can marry. At Rome I poured out the
whole Augean stable6 of my sins into the
bosom of a confessor. He exhorted me,
wisely and with many words, to purity of
mind and body, the reading of Scripture,
frequent prayers, sobriety of life. The
only penance he imposed was that I
should kneel at the high altar and recite
the psalm Miserere mei, Deus;7 and, if I
had the money, give a florin to some
needy person. When I expressed surprise
that he inflicted so light a penance for so

much
whoring,
he
replied
goodhumouredly, 'Son, if you truly repent and
change your way of life, I don 't care
much about penance. But if you persist,
lust itself will, in the end, exact more
than enough penance from you, even if a
priest does not impose it. Look at me:
blear-eyed, palsied, stooped. Yet I was
once such as you say you've been up to
now, so I've had a taste of it.'
Lucretia Then I've lost my Sophronius, I
see.
Sophronius No, on the contrary, you've
gained him. Before, he was ruined; he
was neither his own friend nor yours.
Now he truly loves you and longs for your
salvation.
Lucretia
Then what do you advise,
Sophronius dear?
Sophronius First of all, that you abandon
this life. You're still a girl: your stain can
be washed away. Or get married. I'll
contribute something towards the dowry.
Or enter some religious house for fallen
women, or move to a different place and
put yourself into the family of some
respectable housewife. I offer you my
help for whichever of these you choose.
Lucretia I'll love you for it, Sophronius.
Look out for me; I'll follow your advice.
Sophronius But meantime get away from
here.
Lucretia What, so quickly?
Sophronius Why not today rather than
tomorrow, if postponement means loss,
and delay danger?
Lucretia Where am I to go?
Sophronius Collect all your belongings
and give them to me this evening. A
servant will take them secretly to some
reliable woman. Sometime later I'll take
you out, as though for a walk. You'll hide
at the woman's place at my expense until
I make arrangements for you, as I soon
will.
Lucretia Well, Sophronius, I trust myself
entirely to you.
Sophronius Some day you'll be glad you
did.

4 Sexy

NOTES
1

The harlot uses the Latin word for penis.

Syphilis
3
Luther described Rome as the
'Babylonian whore.'
4
I.e., his edition of the New Testament
(Basel 1516), which aroused a great deal of
controversy. A number of passages from
2

Erasmus' annotations on the text were

declared heretical by the Faculty of
Theology at Paris. All of his works were
placed in the Index of Prohibited Books in
1559.
5
Eph. 5:5
6
Proverbial, one of the Herculean labours.
7
Ps. 50:1