The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio
befallen between noblemen, or transacting marriages, alliances and
friendships, in solacing the minds of the weary and diverting courts
with quaint and pleasant sayings, ay, and with sharp reproofs,
father-like, rebuking the misdeeds of the froward,--and this for
slight enough reward; but nowadays they study to spend their time in
hawking evil reports from one to another, in sowing discord, in
speaking naughtiness and obscenity and (what is worse) doing them in
all men's presence, in imputing evil doings, lewdnesses and knaveries,
true or false, one to other, and in prompting men of condition with
treacherous allurements to base and shameful actions; and he is most
cherished and honoured and most munificently entertained and rewarded
of the sorry unmannerly noblemen of our time who saith and doth the
most abominable words and deeds; a sore and shameful reproach to the
present age and a very manifest proof that the virtues have departed
this lower world and left us wretched mortals to wallow in the slough
of the vices.
[Footnote 65: _Uomo di corte._ This word has been another grievous
stumbling block to the French and English translators of Boccaccio,
who render it literally "courtier." The reader need hardly be reminded
that the minstrel of the middle ages was commonly jester, gleeman and
story-teller all in one and in these several capacities was allowed
the utmost license of speech. He was generally attached to the court
of some king or sovereign prince, but, in default of some such
permanent appointment, passed his time in visiting the courts and
mansions of princes and men of wealth and liberty, where his talents
were likely to be appreciated and rewarded; hence the name _uomo di
corte_, "man of court" (not "courtier," which is _cortigiano_).]
[Footnote 66: _i.e._ those minstrels.]
[Footnote 67: _i.e._ the noblemen their patrons.]
But to return to my story, from which a just indignation hath carried
me somewhat farther astray than I purposed,--I say that the aforesaid
Guglielmo was honoured by all the gentlemen of Genoa and gladly seen
of them, and having sojourned some days in the city and hearing many
tales of Messer Ermino's avarice and sordidness, he desired to see
him. Messer Ermino having already heard how worthy a man was this
Guglielmo Borsiere and having yet, all miser as he was, some tincture
of gentle breeding, received him with very amicable words and blithe
aspect and entered with him into many and various discourses. Devising
thus, he carried him, together with other Genoese who were in his
company, into a fine new house of his which he had lately built and
after having shown it all to him, said, 'Pray, Messer Guglielmo, you
who have seen and heard many things, can you tell me of something that
was never yet seen, which I may have depictured in the saloon of this
my house?' Guglielmo, hearing this his preposterous question,
answered, 'Sir, I doubt me I cannot undertake to tell you of aught
that was never yet seen, except it were sneezings or the like; but, an
it like you, I will tell you of somewhat which me thinketh you never
yet beheld.' Quoth Messer Ermino, not looking for such an answer as he
got, 'I pray you tell me what it is.' Whereto Guglielmo promptly
replied, 'Cause Liberality to be here depictured.'
When Messer Ermino heard this speech, there took him incontinent such
a shame that it availed in a manner to change his disposition
altogether to the contrary of that which it had been and he said,
'Messer Guglielmo, I will have it here depictured after such a fashion
that neither you nor any other shall ever again have cause to tell me
that I have never seen nor known it.' And from that time forth (such
was the virtue of Guglielmo's words) he was the most liberal and the
most courteous gentleman of his day in Genoa and he who most
hospitably entreated both strangers and citizens."
THE NINTH STORY
[Day the First]
THE KING OF CYPRUS, TOUCHED TO THE QUICK BY A GASCON LADY,
FROM A MEAN-SPIRITED PRINCE BECOMETH A MAN OF WORTH AND
VALIANCE
The Queen's last commandment rested with Elisa, who, without awaiting
it, began all blithely, "Young ladies, it hath often chanced that what
all manner reproofs and many pains[68] bestowed upon a man have not
availed to bring about in him hath been effected by a word more often
spoken at hazard than of purpose aforethought. This is very well shown
in the story related by Lauretta and I, in my turn, purpose to prove
to you the same thing by means of another and a very short one; for
that, since good things may still serve, they should be received with
a mind attent, whoever be the sayer thereof.
[Footnote 68: Syn. penalties, punishments (_pene_).]
I say, then, that in the days of the first King of Cyprus, after the
conquest of the Holy Land by Godefroi de Bouillon, it chanced that a
gentlewoman of Gascony went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre and
returning thence, came to Cyprus, where she was shamefully abused of
certain lewd fellows; whereof having complained, without getting any
satisfaction, she thought to appeal to the King for redress, but was
told that she would lose her pains, for that he was of so abject a
composition and so little of worth that, far from justifying others of
their wrongs, he endured with shameful pusillanimity innumerable
affronts offered to himself, insomuch that whose had any grudge
[against him] was wont to vent his despite by doing him some shame or
insult.
The lady, hearing this and despairing of redress, bethought herself,
by way of some small solacement of her chagrin, to seek to rebuke the
king's pusillanimity; wherefore, presenting herself in tears before
him, she said to him, 'My lord, I come not into thy presence for any
redress that I expect of the wrong that hath been done me; but in
satisfaction thereof, I prithee teach me how thou dost to suffer those
affronts which I understand are offered unto thyself, so haply I may
learn of thee patiently to endure mine own, the which God knoweth, an
I might, I would gladly bestow on thee, since thou art so excellent a
supporter thereof.'
The King, who till then had been sluggish and supine, awoke as if from
sleep and beginning with the wrong done to the lady, which he cruelly
avenged, thenceforth became a very rigorous prosecutor of all who
committed aught against the honour of his crown."
THE TENTH STORY
[Day the First]
MASTER ALBERTO OF BOLOGNA CIVILLY PUTTETH A LADY TO THE
BLUSH WHO THOUGHT TO HAVE SHAMED HIM OF BEING ENAMOURED OF
HER
Elisa being now silent, the last burden of the story-telling rested
with the queen, who, with womanly grace beginning to speak, said,
"Noble damsels, like as in the lucid nights the stars are the ornament
of the sky and as in Spring-time the flowers of the green meadows,
even so are commendable manners and pleasing discourse adorned by
witty sallies, which latter, for that they are brief, are yet more
beseeming to women than to men, inasmuch as much and long speech,
whenas it may be dispensed with, is straitlier forbidden unto women
than to men, albeit nowadays there are few or no women left who
understand a sprightly saying or, if they understand it, know how to
answer it, to the general shame be it said of ourselves and of all
women alive. For that virtue,[69] which was erst in the minds of the
women of times past, those of our day have diverted to the adornment
of the body, and she on whose back are to be seen the most motley
garments and the most gaudily laced and garded and garnished with the
greatest plenty of fringes and purflings and broidery deemeth herself
worthy to be held of far more account than her fellows and to be
honoured above them, considering not that, were it a question of who
should load her back and shoulders with bravery, an ass would carry
much more thereof than any of them nor would therefore be honoured for
more than an ass.
[Footnote 69: _Virtù_, in the old Roman sense of strength, vigour,
energy.]
I blush to avow it, for that I cannot say aught against other women
but I say it against myself; these women that are so laced and purfled
and painted and parti-coloured abide either mute and senseless, like
marble statues, or, an they be questioned, answer after such a fashion
that it were far better to have kept silence. And they would have you
believe that their unableness to converse among ladies and men of
parts proceedeth from purity of mind, and to their witlessness they
give the name of modesty, as if forsooth no woman were modest but she
who talketh with her chamberwoman or her laundress or her bake-wench;
the which had Nature willed, as they would have it believed, she had
assuredly limited unto them their prattle on other wise. It is true
that in this, as in other things, it behoveth to have regard to time
and place and with whom one talketh; for that it chanceth bytimes that
women or men, thinking with some pleasantry or other to put another to
the blush and not having well measured their own powers with those of
the latter, find that confusion, which they thought to cast upon
another, recoil upon themselves. Wherefore, so you may know how to
keep yourselves and that, to boot, you may not serve as a text for the
proverb which is current everywhere, to wit, that women in everything
still take the worst, I would have you learn a lesson from the last of
to-day's stories, which falleth to me to tell, to the intent that,
even as you are by nobility of mind distinguished from other women, so
likewise you may show yourselves no less removed from them by
excellence of manners.
It is not many years since there lived (and belike yet liveth) at
Bologna a very great and famous physician, known by manifest renown to
well nigh all the world. His name was Master Alberto and such was the
vivacity of his spirit that, albeit he was an old man of hard upon
seventy years of age and well nigh all natural heat had departed his
body, he scrupled not to expose himself to the flames of love; for
that, having seen at an entertainment a very beautiful widow lady,
called, as some say, Madam Malgherida[70] de' Ghisolieri, and being
vastly taken with her, he received into his mature bosom, no otherwise
than if he had been a young gallant, the amorous fire, insomuch that
himseemed he rested not well by night, except the day foregone he had
looked upon the delicate and lovesome countenance of the fair lady.
Wherefore he fell to passing continually before her house, now afoot
and now on horseback, as the occasion served him, insomuch that she
and many other ladies got wind of the cause of his constant passings
to and fro and oftentimes made merry among themselves to see a man
thus ripe of years and wit in love, as if they deemed that that most
pleasant passion of love took root and flourished only in the silly
minds of the young and not otherwhere.
[Footnote 70: Old form of Margherita.]
What while he continued to pass back and forth, it chanced one holiday
that, the lady being seated with many others before her door and
espying Master Alberto making towards them from afar, they one and
all took counsel together to entertain him and do him honour and after
to rally him on that his passion. Accordingly, they all rose to
receive him and inviting him [to enter,] carried him into a shady
courtyard, whither they let bring the choicest of wines and sweetmeats
and presently enquired of him, in very civil and pleasant terms, how
it might be that he was fallen enamoured of that fair lady, knowing
her to be loved of many handsome, young and sprightly gentlemen. The
physician, finding himself thus courteously attacked, put on a blithe
countenance and answered, 'Madam, that I love should be no marvel to