Pratica di Shadowing: Why It Sucks to Be a Nun (in Medieval Times) - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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1
You're born in 14th century England.
2
Your family lives in a house that smells of sweat, beer, and boiled cabbage.
3
Your father drinks more ale than he keeps food in the pantry,
4
and your mother works her hands raw trying to keep the children alive on prayers and scraps.
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By the time you can walk, you already understand one thing.
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Children cost money, and your family has none to spare.
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By the time you turn five, you've already learned to scrub floors.
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At seven, you help stir the cauldron while your mother mutters prayers that the porridge will stretch one more night.
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At eight, your eldest sister marries and leaves with a dowry so small the groom jokes he must have angered God.
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Your father curses their marriage for days.
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And by nine, you stop expecting childhood to feel nice.
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Your father now drinks more openly, muttering that daughters are curses disguised as babies.
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He takes your brothers to the forest for a boy's hangout disguised as archery lessons, boasting about his days on the battlefield.
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When he returns, he pats your cheek, calling you the pretty one.
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It earns you extra chores, like don't go outside alone, don't speak to men.
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You add that to your already long list of do's and don'ts.
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A few years pass, and you turn 12.
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Now you are so eye -catching that your father has given you a new name the death of me.
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Every day, suitors line up, hoping to get your hand in marriage, with some even being your father's age.
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Your father, too, would love to have one less mouth to feed, but in 14th century England, everybody is trying to survive.
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And in your case, the suitors are trying to use marriage as an excuse to extort a significant dowry from your father.
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Your father laughs and curses them out, obviously drunk.
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They leave, but never for long.
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Then one day, your father hears that the local convent is taking in new nuns.
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The church visits, reminding him that the convent accepts girls as gifts to God, especially pious pretty ones.
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Within a week, your father makes his choice.
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The church promises him enough support for the winter, Enough support that he asks if they need more girls.
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He signs your name on a parchment you never see.
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The day you're taken, they shear your hair before a crowd.
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You tear up as your locks fall to the dirt, like pieces of your life separating from you.
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Women murmur blessings.
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Men smirk while your mother cries silently in the crowd.
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You're taken to the convent, and it looks peaceful from the outside white stone, a tidy courtyard, smoke curling from the kitchen chimney.
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They give you sets of clothes called a habit.
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Safe to say, it'll stick to you like a bad habit.
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You expect a welcome of quiet prayers and gentle sisters, maybe even the warmth of shared faith.
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Instead, the doors close behind you like a jail gate.
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Your first morning in the convent begins with the bell at 4 a .m.
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The sound cleaves your dreams in half.
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A novice kicks your palate and whispers, Up.
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If you're late, she'll make you kneel on salt.
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You learn quickly who she is.
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The abbess.
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A woman carved from frost and scripture, who believes obedience grows only where comfort dies.
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That same day, you scrub floors until your fingers bleed, cold stones sucking heat from your bones.
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Meals are bowls of thin gruel.
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Always cold, always too little.
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You watch priests and seminarians across the courtyard eating warm bread, salted meat, winter pears.
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One passes you as he blesses your labor, but never lifts a hand to help.
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He calls it sacrifice.
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You call it hunger.
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In the abbey, the elder nuns enforce silence with zeal.
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One pulls your ear until it tears, because you've breathed too loudly during prayer.
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Another confiscates the extra crust a kitchen girl quietly handed you.
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Gluttony, she scolds, even as her own robes bulge with stolen comforts.
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The hierarchy becomes clear.
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Abbas at the top, elder nuns below her, novices at the bottom.
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And you beneath even them.
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A charity offering from a drunken father.
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A girl marked as trouble simply for arriving unwanted.
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Your days soon blur into ritualized exhaustion.
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Kneeling until your knees bruise purple.
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Fasting until you see stars.
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Scrubbing footprints you didn't leave.
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Confessing sins you didn't commit.
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One night, while lying on straw that smells of mold.
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You whisper a question you don't dare ask aloud.
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Is this God's will?
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Or just human cruelty dressed in holy robes?
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You don't know yet, but your body is already learning the answer.
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Years pass, and you turn 15.
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And just when you thought things couldn't get worse, a decree comes from Rome.
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The abbess gathers everyone in the refectory to read the Pope's ruling.
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Strict enclosure, the new law of Christendom.
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Nuns are to be sealed from the world, to prevent temptation, to preserve purity, to protect the brides of Christ.
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No leaving the convent, no touching the outside world, no family, no windows that open fully,
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and no wandering in the orchard without permission.
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The older nuns bow their heads in acceptance.
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The younger ones look like candles snuffed out. And you?
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You just feel something inside you wither.
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In the nunnery, the air grows still.
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Girls begin to whisper that other convents across Europe are rebelling, some trying to escape.
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Then you hear the stories.
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A nun in York, Joan of Leeds,
85
faked her death and made a dummy of her own body so she could flee to a man she loved.
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Another nun ran off with her lover wearing his cloak.
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Another stripped off her habit at the gate and vanished into the night.
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Their stories spread like illicit scripture among the novices.
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You meet one such rebel in the making.
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Sister Eleanor, barely older than you.
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Teeth always clenched from holding back tears.
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She confesses that her family lied to get rid of her.
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Her calling was forged by her brother to avoid splitting the inheritance.
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She wants out.
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Not for lust.
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Not for sin.
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Just for air.
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You promise to help her.
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The next night, you distract the porter while she slips out wearing a laywoman's gown smuggled from the laundry.
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You pray she makes it farther than the ones who were caught.
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She does.
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The next morning, the abbess calls you forward.
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She knows.
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They always know.
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They accuse you of aiding sin, corrupting holiness, endangering souls.
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Your punishment is public.
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Fasting, whipping, and kneeling on cold stone until your legs tremble.
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As the rod cracks your back, you think back to your actions and wonder if it was worth it.
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Not about helping Eleanor.
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You'd do that again in a heartbeat.
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Your question is to yourself.
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Was it worth it to stay for your father's sake?
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You know that if you had run, the coven won't keep their end of the deal anymore.
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So you look at the barred windows and realize, escape is a miracle.
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Survival is the punishment.
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Soon they decide whipping isn't enough.
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The abbess places a wooden scourge in your shaking hands and orders you to finish the punishment yourself.
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Strike until the sin leaves you, she says.
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You try once.
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Twice.
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But the sisters surrounding you chant harder.
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And soon the blows land without rhythm.
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Without breath.
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Without mercy.
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The leather cuts your shoulders.
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Then your arms.
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Then your thighs.
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Warm blood blooms through your habit, sticking cloth to skin.
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You collapse twice.
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They haul you upright.
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A penitent must stand, the abbess reminds you.
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By the time you fall for the last time, you no longer feel pain, just wringing emptiness.
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And in that hollow space, the truth finally breaks through.
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None of this is God.
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These are men's rules, men's punishments, men's invented sins.
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Your body is merely the altar on which they prove their authority.
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And as you think they'll haul you upright again, a priest arrives, robes rustling like a judge.
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You think he'll increase your penance.
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Instead, he kneels, lifts your chin, and murmurs that he will intercede on your behalf.
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He then pulls the abbess to the side as they whisper.
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You don't know what he says, but before long, the abbess stomps away.
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The priest looks at you and then smiles, telling you that everything has been settled.
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You are soon hauled off for your wounds to be treated.
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Fever, torn skin and bruised ribs keep you in the infirmary for weeks.
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It takes you a month to finally walk again.
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When you get out, you get a message that the priest wants to see you.
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So you go to his quarters in the rectory to thank him for his help.
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But when you see him, you have a feeling that your thanks isn't what he wants.
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He moves closer.
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You mutter an apology and move to leave.
151
But he pins you to the wall, telling you he wants more.
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It is at this moment you realize that his mercy came with a price.
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You learn then, in this holy prison, salvation is just another word for possession.
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You resist at first, hands stiffen, head down.
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But he reminds you of your scars from punishment.
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So you freeze.
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And then you obey.
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One by one, your habit gets stripped away.
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You tell yourself that it's nothing, that it'll end.
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But a sharp jolt of pain makes you scream, and you just can't help counting every second as the act transpires.
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When he's done, you want to curse at him, but his glare makes your voice falter,
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so you just whimper that his action was against the church, and he says with conviction,
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I am the church, and assigns you to himself for counsel.
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The longer the priest keeps you under his guidance, the more you see the convent's true anatomy.
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Not a house of God, but a machine built on fear, money, and secrecy.
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While he summons you under the guise of spiritual correction, forcing obedience through threats and bruised warnings,
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the abbess's eyes toward you sharpens into open hostility.
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Not because she wishes to protect you, but because you have become a liability.
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A girl marked by a priest's interest threatens her control, her hierarchy, her delicate arrangement with the men who fund the convent.
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You learn quickly how power flows here.
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The abbess, who preaches piety in the mornings, negotiates land agreements in the afternoons, manipulating donations, leveraging noble families,
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and hiding debts behind layers of ritual.
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The same cloister that preaches enclosure opens its door wide when wealthy nobles arrive.
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They treat the convent like a private lodge, bringing servants, feasts, and gossip.
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Some stay for weeks, their presence disrupting the silence rule entirely.
176
And still, the abbess bows to them, smiling through the incense smoke.
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It is in these moments, carrying wine, cleaning after noble banquets,
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listening from corners, that you learn how many girls around were also victims to him, even some elder nuns.
179
Your own suffering at the priest's hands becomes a secret everyone pretends not to know.
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The abbess resents you for it.
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The priest insists your silence proves devotion, and other nuns avoid your eyes.
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Not out of cruelty, but fear.
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They know what happens to girls who draw the wrong kind
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of notice in a place where sin is whatever powerful men say it is.
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For the next few months, your life becomes a routine of abuse and loneliness.
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The routine breaks with a faint sickness one morning.
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Nothing alarming at first.
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Hunger and exhaustion has ruled your body for years, so weakness is familiar.
189
But when your belly begins to swell, your breath catches in your throat.
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You know immediately whose shadow hangs over you.
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And you know the convent would never believe the truth.
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Whispers spread before you even understand what they are saying.
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Novices stare at your midsection.
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Older nuns cross themselves as if warding off a curse.
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The abbess summons you with a look that could flay flesh from bone.
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A child, she says, circling you like a judge at sentencing.
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Proof of your corruption.
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You try to speak, to plead your innocence.
199
But she silences you.
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You look around and see that she isn't alone.
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The priest behind it all now stands beneath the crucifix among the judges.
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His expression is smooth, holy, untouched.
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He lifts a hand toward the other judges.
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She invites temptation, he says.
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And that's all it takes.
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The narrative is sealed.
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Your body becomes a courtroom, and your baby is evidence of a crime against you the convent doesn't want to acknowledge.
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The next Sunday, they drag you before the villagers gathered for mass.
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Bells toll as though announcing an execution.
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They force you to kneel on the stone steps, belly heavy, knees burning.
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The priest demands your confession.
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You deny wrongdoing.
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He demands it again. And again.
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At last, with the crowd watching, you break.
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Not because you lied, but because truth has no use here.
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You repeat the sins they feed you.
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Lust.
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Pride.
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Sorcery.
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Disobedience.
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Gasps wrinkle through the congregation like applause.
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Then comes the sentence.
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Banishment.
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Excommunication.
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Erasure.
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You go back home since you have nowhere else to go.
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But your father slams the door when you beg for shelter.
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You shame us, he slurs.
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You earned this.
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With nothing but disgrace clinging to your skin, you step back into the world, not free, just discarded.
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A woman condemned simply for surviving the sins of a bad man.
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You go to the outskirts.
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It is the only place that doesn't care if you stay or not.
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It is scattered of shacks, broken carts, and people's society spits out like rotten gruel.
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Months later, you give birth alone in the outskirts, in a drafty hut made of stolen boards and mud.
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You scream into straw as the contractions hit you like stones so the village won't hear.
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One after another, you persevere alone as there is no midwife, no sister, no mother to guide you.
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Just you, the straw pallet, and the sharp memory of the medical lessons forced into you at the convent.
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Lessons meant for tending the sick, not bringing life into the world.
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When your baby finally slips into your trembling hands, purple and slick with blood,
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you press him to your chest and whisper the only blessing you still believe in, live, even if the world hates you.
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You raise your son here, far from church bells and judgmental stairs.
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Every day after that is survival.
244
You steal scraps, gather herbs, barter labor for stale bread.
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You realize raising your son is hard.
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Harder than the convent.
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Harder than exile.
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He grows fast.
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He's also always hungry.
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Always curious.
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Always watching the world that rejects him.
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You teach him everything you know.
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How to boil water before drinking.
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How to mend torn skin.
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How to run when men grow cruel.
256
Years pass like this.
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Rough and graceless.
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You're 27 when the whispers start.
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Talks of the plague.
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First in the city.
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Then in the villages.
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Then creeping along the roads.
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Farmers bar their doors.
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Monks flee their posts.
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Dogs starve beside dead masters.
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The world collapses in weeks.
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You try to shield your son, rationing food, boiling herbs, praying old prayers you don't believe.
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But the fever finds you anyway.
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Your joints swell, your skin darkens, your breath wheezes.
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You know the signs.
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You've tended to the dying before.
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He cries at your bedside, begging you to stay awake.
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You tell him to leave you, and not come near you.
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You fear he will catch the plague too.
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He never listens.
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Then one morning, you see a small black swelling blooming on his neck, and your heart breaks in two.
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You hold him close, even as illness gnaws your lungs.
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You say your last prayer as a whisper into his hair.
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Survive.
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Then one morning, your lungs simply stop biting.
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You die quietly.
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No miracle.
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No candlelit vigil.
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By nightfall, the plague cart comes.
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The collectors don't ask your name.
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They don't care that you once belonged to the convent, or that your life was chewed apart by vows you never chose.
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They lift you by your wrists and ankles.
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Toss you onto stiff bodies already buzzing with flies.
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Your head strikes a stranger's ribs.
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No one notices.
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You are rolled through the village you were exiled from, past doors that never opened for you.
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The cart rattles to a mass pit.
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There, they dump all of you like rubbish.
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No shroud.
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No prayer.
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No marker.
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Just a mass pit of decomposing victims of the Black Death.
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Centuries turn.
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Your name dissolves.
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Your story thins to nothing.
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In the archives, monks copy hymns praising holy maidens, obedient nuns, and radiant virgins.
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Historians celebrate abbesses who managed estates, anchoresses who chose their walls, mystics whose visions became literature.
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But not you.
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Never you.
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Your agony lives only in the silences, in the gaps between monastery records,
306
in the unspoken truth behind enclosure laws as unrecorded screams.
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In the end, your life becomes what the church preferred women to be, absent.
308
And your son?
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I guess we'll never know.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione si basa sul video “Why It Sucks to Be a Nun”. Questo video contiene 309 frasi e 2879 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 20:57. Chi parla mantiene un ritmo costante di circa 137 parole al minuto, comodo per lo shadowing. Solo il 74% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
15 parole del video che vale la pena imparare, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| nun sostantivo | /nʌn/ | suora, monaca |
| prayer sostantivo | /pɹɛɚ/ | preghiera, orazione |
| priest sostantivo | /ˈpɹiːst/ | prete, sacerdote |
| silence sostantivo | /ˈsaɪ̯ləns/ | silenzio |
| tear verbo | /tɛɹ/ | strappare, dilaniare |
| habit sostantivo | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | abitudine, consuetudine |
| curse sostantivo | /kɝs/ | maledizione, maleficio |
| sin sostantivo | /ˈsɪn/ | peccato |
| punishment sostantivo | /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/ | punizione, pena |
| lesson sostantivo | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | lezione |
| steal verbo | /stiːl/ | rubare, derubare |
| arrive verbo | /əˈɹaɪv/ | arrivare, giungere |
| elder sostantivo | /ˈɛldɚ/ | sambuco |
| straw sostantivo | /stɹɔ/ | festuca, pagliuzza |
| plague sostantivo | /plɛɡ/ | peste |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| go back verbo | tornare | |
| hold back verbo | fare complimenti | |
| line up verbo | /laɪnˈʌp/ | allineare |
Frasi da ripetere
Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:
- If you're late, she'll make you kneel on salt.
- Scrubbing footprints you didn't leave.
- Confessing sins you didn't commit.
- You whisper a question you don't dare ask aloud.
- Was it worth it to stay for your father's sake?
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Frasi condizionali if + frase, will/would + verbo — una condizione e il suo risultato | If you're late, she'll make · if you had run, the coven won't keep |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | be sealed · was forged · were caught |
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | you've already learned · has given · you've breathed |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | ones who were · men who fund |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
Chi parla usa 34 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come don't, you're, isn't. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.
- I suoni “th”: beneath /bɪˈniːθ/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, thin /ˈθɪn/, smooth /smuːð/, leather /ˈlɛðɚ/
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: punishment /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/, enclosure /ɛnˈkloʊʒəɹ/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, temptation /ˌtɛmpˈteɪʃən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/, liability /laɪəˈbɪlɪti/
I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:
- /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: whisper /ˈ(h)wɪspɚ/, habit /ˈhæb.ɪt/, hunger /ˈhʌŋɡɚ/, haul /hɔl/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/
- Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: priest /ˈpɹiːst/, silence /ˈsaɪ̯ləns/, habit /ˈhæb.ɪt/, curse /kɝs/, punishment /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/
- /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: habit /ˈhæb.ɪt/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, scrap /ˈskɹæp/, charity /ˈtʃæɹɪti/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Fai shadowing frase per frase a velocità normale, ripetendo ognuna finché il tuo ritmo coincide con quello di chi parla.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come nun, prayer, priest.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.