Nanna: Have I told you anything about hypocrites?

Pippa: No ma’am.

Nanna: Hypocrites, who’ll only touch themselves down there if they’re wearing gloves, and are devoutly devotional every Friday in March and on Ember Days, will come to see you on the sly. And if, after they’ve requested the honor of taking the back road, you say, “What, like that, from behind?” they’ll reply: “We’re only human.” Pippa, little one, keep these people’s business secret, and don’t spill the beans about their dirty ways—it’s for your own good. These scoundrels, these enemies of faith, suck, grope, and penetrate every hole and crack just like any other good-for-nothing, and when they find a woman who knows how to hush up the sleazy habits they delight in, they’ll give it their all without holding back. Then, as they retie their cod-pieces, they’ll babble on, reciting the psalms, and then set off to scratch the itches of lepers.

Pippa: May they be flayed alive!

From Pietro Aretino’s The School of Whoredom, London: Hesperus Press, 2003, pp. 65-66.