The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio
LAUGHTER AND ESCAPETH THE PUNISHMENT THREATENED HIM BY THE
LATTER
Lauretta being silent and Nonna having been mightily commended of all,
the queen charged Neifile to follow on, and she said, "Although,
lovesome ladies, a ready wit doth often furnish folk with words both
prompt and useful and goodly, according to the circumstances, yet
fortune whiles cometh to the help of the fearful and putteth of a
sudden into their mouths such answers as might never of malice
aforethought be found of the speaker, as I purpose to show you by my
story.
Currado Gianfigliazzi, as each of you ladies may have both heard and
seen, hath still been a noble citizen of our city, liberal and
magnificent, and leading a knightly life, hath ever, letting be for
the present his weightier doings, taken delight in hawks and hounds.
Having one day with a falcon of his brought down a crane and finding
it young and fat, he sent it to a good cook he had, a Venetian hight
Chichibio, bidding him roast it for supper and dress it well.
Chichibio, who looked the new-caught gull he was, trussed the crane
and setting it to the fire, proceeded to cook it diligently. When it
was all but done and gave out a very savoury smell, it chanced that a
wench of the neighbourhood, Brunetta by name, of whom Chichibio was
sore enamoured, entered the kitchen and smelling the crane and seeing
it, instantly besought him to give her a thigh thereof. He answered
her, singing, and said, 'Thou shalt not have it from me, Mistress
Brunetta, thou shalt not have it from me.' Whereat she, being vexed,
said to him, 'By God His faith, an thou give it me not, thou shalt
never have of me aught that shall pleasure thee.' In brief, many were
the words between them and at last, Chichibio, not to anger his
mistress, cut off one of the thighs of the crane and gave it her.
The bird being after set before Messer Currado and certain stranger
guests of his, lacking a thigh, and the former marvelling thereat, he
let call Chichibio and asked him what was come of the other thigh;
whereto the liar of a Venetian answered without hesitation, 'Sir,
cranes have but one thigh and one leg.' 'What a devil?' cried Currado
in a rage. 'They have but one thigh and one leg? Have I never seen a
crane before?' 'Sir,' replied Chichibio, 'it is as I tell you, and
whenas it pleaseth you, I will cause you see it in the quick.'
Currado, out of regard for the strangers he had with him, chose not to
make more words of the matter, but said, 'Since thou sayst thou wilt
cause me see it in the quick, a thing I never yet saw or heard tell
of, I desire to see it to-morrow morning, in which case I shall be
content; but I swear to thee, by Christ His body, that, an it be
otherwise, I will have thee served on such wise that thou shalt still
have cause to remember my name to thy sorrow so long as thou livest.'
There was an end of the talk for that night; but, next morning, as
soon as it was day, Currado, whose anger was nothing abated for sleep,
arose, still full of wrath, and bade bring the horses; then, mounting
Chichibio upon a rouncey, he carried him off towards a watercourse, on
whose banks cranes were still to be seen at break of day, saying, 'We
shall soon see who lied yestereve, thou or I.'
Chichibio, seeing that his master's wrath yet endured and that needs
must be made good his lie and knowing not how he should avail
thereunto, rode after Currado in the greatest fright that might be,
and fain would he have fled, so but he might. But, seeing no way of
escape, he looked now before him and now behind and now on either side
and took all he saw for cranes standing on two feet. Presently, coming
near to the river, he chanced to catch sight, before any other, of a
round dozen of cranes on the bank, all perched on one leg, as they use
to do, when they sleep; whereupon he straightway showed them to
Currado, saying, 'Now, sir, if you look at those that stand yonder,
you may very well see that I told you the truth yesternight, to wit,
that cranes have but one thigh and one leg.' Currado, seeing them,
answered, 'Wait and I will show thee that they have two,' and going
somewhat nearer to them, he cried out, 'Ho! Ho!' At this the cranes,
putting down the other leg, all, after some steps, took to flight;
whereupon Currado said to him, 'How sayst thou now, malapert knave
that thou art? Deemest thou they have two legs?' Chichibio, all
confounded and knowing not whether he stood on his head or his
heels,[303] answered, 'Ay, sir; but you did not cry, "Ho! Ho!" to
yesternight's crane; had you cried thus, it would have put out the
other thigh and the other leg, even as did those yonder.' This reply
so tickled Currado that all his wrath was changed into mirth and
laughter and he said, 'Chichibio, thou art in the right; indeed, I
should have done it.' Thus, then, with his prompt and comical answer
did Chichibio avert ill luck and made his peace with his master."
[Footnote 303: Lit. knowing not whence himself came.]
THE FIFTH STORY
[Day the Sixth]
MESSER FORESE DA RABATTA AND MASTER GIOTTO THE PAINTER
COMING FROM MUGELLO, EACH JESTINGLY RALLIETH THE OTHER ON
HIS SCURVY FAVOUR
Neifile being silent and the ladies having taken much pleasure in
Chichibio's reply, Pamfilo, by the queen's desire, spoke thus:
"Dearest ladies, it chanceth often that, like as fortune whiles hideth
very great treasures of worth and virtue under mean conditions, as
hath been a little before shown by Pampinea, even so, under the
sorriest of human forms are marvellous wits found to have been lodged
by nature; and this very plainly appeared in two townsmen of ours, of
whom I purpose briefly to entertain you. For that the one, who was
called Messer Forese da Rabatta, though little of person and
misshapen, with a flat camoys face, that had been an eyesore on the
shoulders of the foulest cadger in Florence, was yet of such
excellence in the interpretation of the laws, that he was of many men
of worth reputed a very treasury of civil right; whilst the other,
whose name was Giotto, had so excellent a genius that there was
nothing of all which Nature, mother and mover of all things,
presenteth unto us by the ceaseless revolution of the heavens, but he
with pencil and pen and brush depicted it and that so closely that not
like, nay, but rather the thing itself it seemed, insomuch that men's
visual sense is found to have been oftentimes deceived in things of
his fashion, taking that for real which was but depictured. Wherefore,
he having brought back to the light this art, which had for many an
age lain buried under the errors of certain folk who painted more to
divert the eyes of the ignorant than to please the understanding of
the judicious, he may deservedly be styled one of the chief glories of
Florence, the more so that he bore the honours he had gained with the
utmost humility and although, while he lived, chief over all else in
his art, he still refused to be called master, which title, though
rejected by him, shone so much the more gloriously in him as it was
with greater eagerness greedily usurped by those who knew less than
he, or by his disciples. Yet, great as was his skill, he was not
therefore anywise goodlier of person or better favoured than Messer
Forese. But, to come to my story:
I must tell you that Messer Forese and Giotto had each his country
house at Mugello and the former, having gone to visit his estates, at
that season of the summer when the Courts hold holiday, and returning
thence on a sorry cart-horse, chanced to fall in with the aforesaid
Giotto, who had been on the same errand and was then on his way back
to Florence nowise better equipped than himself in horse and
accoutrements. Accordingly, they joined company and fared on softly,
like old men as they were. Presently, it chanced, as we often see it
happen in summer time, that a sudden shower overtook them, from which,
as quickliest they might, they took shelter in the house of a
husbandman, a friend and acquaintance of both of them. After awhile,
the rain showing no sign of giving over and they wishing to reach
Florence by daylight, they borrowed of their host two old homespun
cloaks and two hats, rusty with age, for that there were no better to
be had, and set out again upon their way.
When they had gone awhile and were all drenched and bemired with the
splashing that their hackneys kept up with their hoofs--things which
use not to add worship to any one's looks,--the weather began to clear
a little and the two wayfarers, who had long fared on in silence, fell
to conversing together. Messer Forese, as he rode, hearkening to
Giotto, who was a very fine talker, fell to considering his companion
from head to foot and seeing him everywise so ill accoutred and in
such scurvy case, burst out laughing and without taking any thought to
his own plight, said to him, 'How sayst thou, Giotto? An there
encountered us here a stranger who had never seen thee, thinkest thou
he would believe thee to be, as thou art, the finest painter in the
world?' 'Ay, sir,' answered Giotto forthright, 'methinketh he might
e'en believe it whenas, looking upon you, he should believe that you
knew your A B C.' Messer Forese, hearing this, was sensible of his
error and saw himself paid with money such as the wares he had
sold."[304]
[Footnote 304: Or, as we should say, "in his own coin."]
THE SIXTH STORY
[Day the Sixth]
MICHELE SCALZA PROVETH TO CERTAIN YOUNG MEN THAT THE CADGERS
OF FLORENCE ARE THE BEST GENTLEMEN OF THE WORLD OR THE
MAREMMA AND WINNETH A SUPPER
The ladies yet laughed at Giotto's prompt retort, when the queen
charged Fiammetta follow on and she proceeded to speak thus: "Young
ladies, the mention by Pamfilo of the cadgers of Florence, whom
peradventure you know not as doth he, hath brought to my mind a story,
wherein, without deviating from our appointed theme, it is
demonstrated how great is their nobility; and it pleaseth me,
therefore, to relate it.
It is no great while since there was in our city a young man called
Michele Scalza, who was the merriest and most agreeable man in the
world and he had still the rarest stories in hand, wherefore the young
Florentines were exceeding glad to have his company whenas they made a
party of pleasure amongst themselves. It chanced one day, he being
with certain folk at Monte Ughi, that the question was started among
them of who were the best and oldest gentlemen of Florence. Some said
the Uberti, others the Lamberti, and one this family and another that,
according as it occurred to his mind; which Scalza hearing, he fell
a-laughing and said, 'Go to, addlepates that you are! You know not
what you say. The best gentlemen and the oldest, not only of Florence,
but of all the world or the Maremma,[305] are the Cadgers,[306] a
matter upon which all the phisopholers and every one who knoweth them,
as I do, are of accord; and lest you should understand it of others, I
speak of the Cadgers your neighbors of Santa Maria Maggiore.'
[Footnote 305: A commentator notes that the adjunction to the world of
the Maremma (cf. Elijer Goff, "The Irish Question has for some
centuries been enjoyed by _the universe and other parts_") produces a
risible effect and gives the reader to understand that Scalza broaches
the question only by way of a joke. The same may be said of the
jesting inversion of the word philosophers (phisopholers, Fisofoli) in
the next line.]
[Footnote 306: _Baronci_, the Florentine name for what we should call
professional beggars, "mumpers, chanters and Abrahammen," called
_Bari_ and _Barocci_ in other parts of Italy. This story has been a
prodigious stumbling-block to former translators, not one of whom