The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio
And as my God, thy name do magnify.
Thou settest, Love, before these eyes of mine
Whenas thy fire I entered the first day,
A youngling so beseen
With valour, worth and loveliness divine,
That never might one find a goodlier, nay,
Nor yet his match, I ween.
So sore I burnt for him I still must e'en
Sing, blithe, of him with thee, my lord most high.
And that in him which crowneth my liesse
Is that I please him, as he pleaseth me,
Thanks to Love debonair;
Thus in this world my wish I do possess
And in the next I trust at peace to be,
Through that fast faith I bear
To him; sure God, who seeth this, will ne'er
The kingdom of His bliss to us deny.
[Footnote 146: _i.e._ Friday being a fast day and Saturday a _jour
maigre_.]
[Footnote 147: _i.e._ generally upon the vicissitudes of Fortune and
not upon any particular feature.]
[Footnote 148: _Industria_, syn. address, skilful contrivance.]
After this they sang sundry other songs and danced sundry dances and
played upon divers instruments of music. Then, the queen deeming it
time to go to rest, each betook himself, with torches before him, to
his chamber, and all on the two following days, whilst applying
themselves to those things whereof the queen had spoken, looked
longingly for Sunday.
HERE ENDETH THE SECOND DAY
OF THE DECAMERON
_Day the Third_
HERE BEGINNETH THE THIRD DAY OF THE DECAMERON WHEREIN UNDER
THE GOVERNANCE OF NEIFILE IS DISCOURSED OF SUCH AS HAVE BY
DINT OF DILIGENCE ACQUIRED SOME MUCH DESIRED THING OR
RECOVERED SOME LOST GOOD
The dawn from vermeil began to grow orange-tawny, at the approach of
the sun, when on the Sunday the queen arose and caused all her company
rise also. The seneschal had a great while before despatched to the
place whither they were to go store of things needful and folk who
should there make ready that which behoved, and seeing the queen now
on the way, straightway let load everything else, as if the camp were
raised thence, and with the household stuff and such of the servants
as remained set out in rear of the ladies and gentlemen. The queen,
then, with slow step, accompanied and followed by her ladies and the
three young men and guided by the song of some score nightingales and
other birds, took her way westward, by a little-used footpath, full of
green herbs and flowers, which latter now all began to open for the
coming sun, and chatting, jesting and laughing with her company,
brought them a while before half tierce,[149] without having gone over
two thousand paces, to a very fair and rich palace, somewhat upraised
above the plain upon a little knoll. Here they entered and having gone
all about and viewed the great saloons and the quaint and elegant
chambers all throughly furnished with that which pertaineth thereunto,
they mightily commended the place and accounted its lord magnificent.
Then, going below and seeing the very spacious and cheerful court
thereof, the cellars full of choicest wines and the very cool water
that welled there in great abundance, they praised it yet more.
Thence, as if desirous of repose, they betook themselves to sit in a
gallery which commanded all the courtyard and was all full of flowers,
such as the season afforded, and leafage, whereupon there came the
careful seneschal and entertained and refreshed them with costliest
confections and wines of choice. Thereafter, letting open to them a
garden, all walled about, which coasted the palace, they entered
therein and it seeming to them, at their entering, altogether[150]
wonder-goodly, they addressed themselves more intently to view the
particulars thereof. It had about it and athwart the middle very
spacious alleys, all straight as arrows and embowered with trellises
of vines, which made great show of bearing abundance of grapes that
year and being then all in blossom, yielded so rare a savour about the
garden, that, as it blent with the fragrance of many another
sweet-smelling plant that there gave scent, themseemed they were among
all the spiceries that ever grew in the Orient. The sides of these
alleys were all in a manner walled about with roses, red and white,
and jessamine, wherefore not only of a morning, but what while the sun
was highest, one might go all about, untouched thereby, neath
odoriferous and delightsome shade. What and how many and how orderly
disposed were the plants that grew in that place, it were tedious to
recount; suffice it that there is none goodly of those which may brook
our air but was there in abundance. Amiddleward the garden (what was
not less, but yet more commendable than aught else there) was a plat
of very fine grass, so green that it seemed well nigh black, enamelled
all with belike a thousand kinds of flowers and closed about with the
greenest and lustiest of orange and citron trees, the which, bearing
at once old fruits and new and flowers, not only afforded the eyes a
pleasant shade, but were no less grateful to the smell. Midmost the
grass-plat was a fountain of the whitest marble, enchased with
wonder-goodly sculptures, and thence,--whether I know not from a
natural or an artificial source,--there sprang, by a figure that stood
on a column in its midst, so great a jet of water and so high towards
the sky, whence not without a delectable sound it fell back into the
wonder-limpid fount, that a mill might have wrought with less; the
which after (I mean the water which overflowed the full basin) issued
forth of the lawn by a hidden way, and coming to light therewithout,
encompassed it all about by very goodly and curiously wroughten
channels. Thence by like channels it ran through well nigh every part
of the pleasance and was gathered again at the last in a place whereby
it had issue from the fair garden and whence it descended, in the
clearest of streams, towards the plain; but, ere it won thither, it
turned two mills with exceeding power and to the no small vantage of
the lord. The sight of this garden and its fair ordinance and the
plants and the fountain, with the rivulets proceeding therefrom, so
pleased the ladies and the three young men that they all of one accord
avouched that, an Paradise might be created upon earth, they could not
avail to conceive what form, other than that of this garden, might be
given it nor what farther beauty might possibly be added thereunto.
However, as they went most gladsomely thereabout, weaving them the
goodliest garlands of the various leafage of the trees and hearkening
the while to the carols of belike a score of different kinds of birds,
that sang as if in rivalry one of other, they became aware of a
delectable beauty, which, wonderstricken as they were with the other
charms of the place, they had not yet noted; to wit, they found the
garden full of maybe an hundred kinds of goodly creatures, and one
showing them to other, they saw on one side rabbits issue, on another
hares run; here lay kids and there fawns went grazing, and there was
many another kind of harmless animal, each going about his pastime at
his pleasure, as if tame; the which added unto them a yet greater
pleasure than the others. After they had gone about their fill,
viewing now this thing and now that, the queen let set the tables
around the fair fountain and at her commandment, having first sung
half a dozen canzonets and danced sundry dances, they sat down to
meat. There, being right well and orderly served, after a very fair
and sumptuous and tranquil fashion, with goodly and delicate viands,
they waxed yet blither and arising thence, gave themselves anew to
music-making and singing and dancing till it seemed good to the queen
that those whom it pleased should betake themselves to sleep.
Accordingly some went thither, whilst others, overcome with the beauty
of the place, willed not to leave it, but, abiding there, addressed
themselves, some to reading romances and some to playing chess or
tables, whilst the others slept. But presently, the hour of none being
past and the sleepers having arisen and refreshed their faces with
cold water, they came all, at the queen's commandment, to the lawn
hard by the fountain and there seating themselves, after the wonted
fashion, waited to fall to story-telling upon the subject proposed by
her. The first upon whom she laid this charge was Filostrato, who
began on this wise:
[Footnote 149: _i.e._ half _before_ (not half _after_) tierce or 7.30
a.m. _Cf._ the equivalent German idiom, _halb acht_, 7.30 (not 8.30)
a.m.]
[Footnote 150: _i.e._ as a whole (_tutto insieme_).]
THE FIRST STORY
[Day the Third]
MASETTO OF LAMPORECCHIO FEIGNETH HIMSELF DUMB AND BECOMETH
GARDENER TO A CONVENT OF WOMEN, WHO ALL FLOCK TO LIE WITH
HIM
"Fairest ladies, there be many men and women foolish enough to believe
that, whenas the white fillet is bound about a girl's head and the
black cowl clapped upon her back, she is no longer a woman and is no
longer sensible of feminine appetites, as if the making her a nun had
changed her to stone; and if perchance they hear aught contrary to
this their belief, they are as much incensed as if a very great and
heinous misdeed had been committed against nature, considering not
neither having regard to themselves, whom full license to do that
which they will availeth not to sate, nor yet to the much potency of
idlesse and thought-taking.[151] On like wise there are but too many
who believe that spade and mattock and coarse victuals and hard living
do altogether purge away carnal appetites from the tillers of the
earth and render them exceeding dull of wit and judgment. But how much
all who believe thus are deluded, I purpose, since the queen hath
commanded it to me, to make plain to you in a little story, without
departing from the theme by her appointed.
[Footnote 151: _Sollecitudine._ The commentators will have it that
this is an error for _solitudine_, solitude, but I see no necessity
for the substitution, the text being perfectly acceptable as it
stands.]
There was (and is yet) in these our parts a convent of women, very
famous for sanctity (the which, that I may not anywise abate its
repute, I will not name), wherein no great while agone, there being
then no more than eight nuns and an abbess, all young, in the nunnery,
a poor silly dolt of a fellow was gardener of a very goodly garden of
theirs, who, being miscontent with his wage, settled his accounts with
the ladies' bailiff and returned to Lamporecchio, whence he came.
There, amongst others who welcomed him home, was a young labouring
man, stout and robust and (for a countryman) a well-favoured fellow,
by name of Masetto, who asked him where he had been so long. The good
man, whose name was Nuto, told him, whereupon Masetto asked him in
what he had served the convent, and he, 'I tended a great and goodly
garden of theirs, and moreover I went while to the coppice for faggots
and drew water and did other such small matters of service; but the
nuns gave me so little wage that I could scare find me in shoon
withal. Besides, they are all young and methinketh they are possessed
of the devil, for there was no doing anything to their liking; nay,
when I was at work whiles in the hortyard,[152] quoth one, "Set this
here," and another, "Set that here," and a third snatched the spade
from my hand, saying, "That is naught"; brief, they gave me so much
vexation that I would leave work be and begone out of the hortyard;
insomuch that, what with one thing and what with another, I would
abide there no longer and took myself off. When I came away, their
bailiff besought me, an I could lay my hand on any one apt unto that