The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio
whatever you like to style them, in ten days' time related by an
honourable company of seven ladies and three young men made in the
days of the late deadly pestilence, together with sundry canzonets
sung by the aforesaid ladies for their diversion. In these stories
will be found love-chances,[2] both gladsome and grievous, and other
accidents of fortune befallen as well in times present as in days of
old, whereof the ladies aforesaid, who shall read them, may at once
take solace from the delectable things therein shown forth and useful
counsel, inasmuch as they may learn thereby what is to be eschewed and
what is on like wise to be ensued,--the which methinketh cannot betide
without cease of chagrin. If it happen thus (as God grant it may) let
them render thanks therefor to Love, who, by loosing me from his
bonds, hath vouchsafed me the power of applying myself to the service
of their pleasures.
[Footnote 1: _i.e._ those not in love.]
[Footnote 2: Syn. adventures (_casi_).]
_Day the First_
HERE BEGINNETH THE FIRST DAY OF THE DECAMERON WHEREIN (AFTER
DEMONSTRATION MADE BY THE AUTHOR OF THE MANNER IN WHICH IT
CAME TO PASS THAT THE PERSONS WHO ARE HEREINAFTER PRESENTED
FOREGATHERED FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEVISING TOGETHER) UNDER THE
GOVERNANCE OF PAMPINEA IS DISCOURSED OF THAT WHICH IS MOST
AGREEABLE UNTO EACH
As often, most gracious ladies, as, taking thought in myself, I mind
me how very pitiful you are all by nature, so often do I recognize
that this present work will, to your thinking, have a grievous and a
weariful beginning, inasmuch as the dolorous remembrance of the late
pestiferous mortality, which it beareth on its forefront, is
universally irksome to all who saw or otherwise knew it. But I would
not therefore have this affright you from reading further, as if in
the reading you were still to fare among sighs and tears. Let this
grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged
and steep mountain, beyond which is situate a most fair and delightful
plain, which latter cometh so much the pleasanter to them as the
greater was the hardship of the ascent and the descent; for, like as
dolour occupieth the extreme of gladness, even so are miseries
determined by imminent joyance. This brief annoy (I say brief,
inasmuch as it is contained in few pages) is straightway succeeded by
the pleasance and delight which I have already promised you and which,
belike, were it not aforesaid, might not be looked for from such a
beginning. And in truth, could I fairly have availed to bring you to
my desire otherwise than by so rugged a path as this will be I had
gladly done it; but being in a manner constrained thereto, for that,
without this reminiscence of our past miseries, it might not be shown
what was the occasion of the coming about of the things that will
hereafter be read, I have brought myself to write them.[3]
[Footnote 3: _i.e._ the few pages of which he speaks above.]
I say, then, that the years [of the era] of the fruitful Incarnation
of the Son of God had attained to the number of one thousand three
hundred and forty-eight, when into the notable city of Florence, fair
over every other of Italy, there came the death-dealing pestilence,
which, through the operation of the heavenly bodies or of our own
iniquitous dealings, being sent down upon mankind for our correction
by the just wrath of God, had some years before appeared in the parts
of the East and after having bereft these latter of an innumerable
number of inhabitants, extending without cease from one place to
another, had now unhappily spread towards the West. And thereagainst
no wisdom availing nor human foresight (whereby the city was purged of
many impurities by officers deputed to that end and it was forbidden
unto any sick person to enter therein and many were the counsels
given[4] for the preservation of health) nor yet humble
supplications, not once but many times both in ordered processions and
on other wise made unto God by devout persons,--about the coming in of
the Spring of the aforesaid year, it began on horrible and miraculous
wise to show forth its dolorous effects. Yet not as it had done in the
East, where, if any bled at the nose, it was a manifest sign of
inevitable death; nay, but in men and women alike there appeared, at
the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or
under the armpits, whereof some waxed of the bigness of a common
apple, others like unto an egg, some more and some less, and these the
vulgar named plague-boils. From these two parts the aforesaid
death-bearing plague-boils proceeded, in brief space, to appear and
come indifferently in every part of the body; wherefrom, after awhile,
the fashion of the contagion began to change into black or livid
blotches, which showed themselves in many [first] on the arms and
about the thighs and [after spread to] every other part of the person,
in some large and sparse and in others small and thick-sown; and like
as the plague-boils had been first (and yet were) a very certain token
of coming death, even so were these for every one to whom they came.
[Footnote 4: Syn. provisions made or means taken (_consigli dati_).
Boccaccio constantly uses _consiglio_ in this latter sense.]
To the cure of these maladies nor counsel[5] of physician nor virtue
of any medicine appeared to avail or profit aught; on the
contrary,--whether it was that the nature of the infection suffered it
not or that the ignorance of the physicians (of whom, over and above
the men of art, the number, both men and women, who had never had any
teaching of medicine, was become exceeding great,) availed not to know
whence it arose and consequently took not due measures thereagainst,--not
only did few recover thereof, but well nigh all died within the third
day from the appearance of the aforesaid signs, this sooner and that
later, and for the most part without fever or other accident.[6] And
this pestilence was the more virulent for that, by communication with
those who were sick thereof, it gat hold upon the sound, no otherwise
than fire upon things dry or greasy, whenas they are brought very near
thereunto. Nay, the mischief was yet greater; for that not only did
converse and consortion with the sick give to the sound infection of
cause of common death, but the mere touching of the clothes or of
whatsoever other thing had been touched or used of the sick appeared
of itself to communicate the malady to the toucher. A marvellous thing
to hear is that which I have to tell and one which, had it not been
seen of many men's eyes and of mine own, I had scarce dared credit,
much less set down in writing, though I had heard it from one worthy
of belief. I say, then, that of such efficience was the nature of the
pestilence in question in communicating itself from one to another,
that, not only did it pass from man to man, but this, which is much
more, it many times visibly did;--to wit, a thing which had pertained
to a man sick or dead of the aforesaid sickness, being touched by an
animal foreign to the human species, not only infected this latter
with the plague, but in a very brief space of time killed it. Of this
mine own eyes (as hath a little before been said) had one day, among
others, experience on this wise; to wit, that the rags of a poor man,
who had died of the plague, being cast out into the public way, two
hogs came up to them and having first, after their wont, rooted amain
among them with their snouts, took them in their mouths and tossed
them about their jaws; then, in a little while, after turning round
and round, they both, as if they had taken poison, fell down dead upon
the rags with which they had in an ill hour intermeddled.
[Footnote 5: Syn. help, remedy.]
[Footnote 6: _Accidente_, what a modern physician would call
"complication." "Symptom" does not express the whole meaning of the
Italian word.]
From these things and many others like unto them or yet stranger
divers fears and conceits were begotten in those who abode alive,
which well nigh all tended to a very barbarous conclusion, namely, to
shun and flee from the sick and all that pertained to them, and thus
doing, each thought to secure immunity for himself. Some there were
who conceived that to live moderately and keep oneself from all excess
was the best defence against such a danger; wherefore, making up their
company, they lived removed from every other and shut themselves up in
those houses where none had been sick and where living was best; and
there, using very temperately of the most delicate viands and the
finest wines and eschewing all incontinence, they abode with music and
such other diversions as they might have, never suffering themselves
to speak with any nor choosing to hear any news from without of death
or sick folk. Others, inclining to the contrary opinion, maintained
that to carouse and make merry and go about singing and frolicking and
satisfy the appetite in everything possible and laugh and scoff at
whatsoever befell was a very certain remedy for such an ill. That
which they said they put in practice as best they might, going about
day and night, now to this tavern, now to that, drinking without stint
or measure; and on this wise they did yet more freely in other folk's
houses, so but they scented there aught that liked or tempted them, as
they might lightly do, for that every one--as he were to live no
longer--had abandoned all care of his possessions, as of himself,
wherefore the most part of the houses were become common good and
strangers used them, whenas they happened upon them, like as the very
owner might have done; and with all this bestial preoccupation, they
still shunned the sick to the best of their power.
In this sore affliction and misery of our city, the reverend authority
of the laws, both human and divine, was all in a manner dissolved and
fallen into decay, for [lack of] the ministers and executors thereof,
who, like other men, were all either dead or sick or else left so
destitute of followers that they were unable to exercise any office,
wherefore every one had license to do whatsoever pleased him. Many
others held a middle course between the two aforesaid, not straitening
themselves so exactly in the matter of diet as the first neither
allowing themselves such license in drinking and other debauchery as
the second, but using things in sufficiency, according to their
appetites; nor did they seclude themselves, but went about, carrying
in their hands, some flowers, some odoriferous herbs and other some
divers kinds of spiceries,[7] which they set often to their noses,
accounting it an excellent thing to fortify the brain with such
odours, more by token that the air seemed all heavy and attainted with
the stench of the dead bodies and that of the sick and of the remedies
used.
[Footnote 7: _i.e._ aromatic drugs.]
Some were of a more barbarous, though, peradventure, a surer way of
thinking, avouching that there was no remedy against pestilences
better than--no, nor any so good as--to flee before them; wherefore,
moved by this reasoning and recking of nought but themselves, very
many, both men and women, abandoned their own city, their own houses
and homes, their kinsfolk and possessions, and sought the country
seats of others, or, at the least, their own, as if the wrath of God,
being moved to punish the iniquity of mankind, would not proceed to do
so wheresoever they might be, but would content itself with afflicting
those only who were found within the walls of their city, or as if
they were persuaded that no person was to remain therein and that its
last hour was come. And albeit these, who opined thus variously, died
not all, yet neither did they all escape; nay, many of each way of