XXIV. The Nun
Here is a mixture of gallantry and religion. The young lady has admitted her lover into her apartment. She is kneeling before an altar, and hesitates whether to persist in her devotions or listen to the amorous music of the young man, who, seated on a bed, touches a lute. Death extinguishes the candles on the altar, by which the designer probably intimates the punishment of unlawful love.

Text from the 1947 Sylvan Press edition

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Medieval Macabre © 2000 James L. Matterer