The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

First published: 1349-1351 (English translation, 1620)

Type of work: Short fiction

Type of plot: Frame story

Time of plot: Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Locale: Italy

Principal characters

• The Three Tedaldo sons, three gentlemen of Florence
• Alessandro, their nephew
• The Daughter of the King of England,
• Tancred, prince of Salerno
• Ghismonda, his daughter
• Guiscardo, her lover
• Isabetta, a young woman of Messina
• Lorenzo, her lover
• Galeso, a stupid young man of Cyprus, known as Cimone
• Efigenia, his love
• Lisimaco, a young man of Rhodes
• Federigo degli Alberighi, a young man of Florence
• Monna Giovanna, his love
• Peronella, a wool comber of Naples
• Peronella’s husband,
• Strignario, her lover
• Nathan, a rich man of Cathay
• Mitridanes, a rich man envious of Nathan
• Saladin, Sultan of Babylon
• Messer Torello, a wealthy countryman of Pavia
• Gualtieri, the son of the Marquess of Saluzzo
• Griselda, his wife

The Story

A terrible plague is ravaging Florence, Italy. To flee from it, a group of seven young women and three young men, who meet by chance in a church, decide to go to a villa out of town. There they set up a working arrangement whereby each will be king or queen for a day. During the ten days they stay in the country, each tells a story, following certain stipulations laid down by the daily ruler. The stories range from romance to farce, from comedy to tragedy.

Pampinea’s Tale About the Three Tedaldo Young Men. When Messer Tedaldo dies, he leaves all of his goods and chattels to his three sons. With no thought for the future, they live so extravagantly that they soon have little left. The oldest son suggests that they sell what they can, leave Florence, and go to London, where they are unknown.

In London, they lend money at a high rate of interest, and in a few years, they have a small fortune. Then they return to Florence. There they marry and begin to live extravagantly again, while depending on the moneys still coming to them from England.

A nephew named Alessandro takes care of their business in England. At that time, there are such differences between the king and a son that Alessandro’s business is ruined. He stays in England, however, in the hope that peace will come and his business will recover. Finally, he returns to Italy with a group of monks who are taking their young abbot to the pope to get a dispensation for him and a confirmation of the youthful cleric’s election.

On the way, Alessandro discovers that the abbot is a woman, and he marries her in the sight of God. In Rome, the woman has an audience with the pope. Her father, the king of England, wishes the pope’s blessing on her marriage to the old king of Scotland, but she asks the pope’s blessing on her marriage to Alessandro instead.

After the wedding, Alessandro and his bride go to Florence, where she pays his uncles’ debts. Two knights precede the couple to England and urge the king to forgive his daughter. After the king knights Alessandro, the new knight reconciles the king and his rebellious son.

Fiammetta’s Tale of Tancred and the Golden Cup. Tancred, prince of Salerno, loves his daughter Ghismonda so much that, when she is widowed soon after her marriage, he does not think to provide her with a second husband, and she is too modest to ask him to do so. Being a lively woman, however, she decides to have as her lover the most valiant man in her father’s court. His name is Guiscardo. His only fault is that he is of humble birth.

Ghismonda notices that Guiscardo returns her interest, and they meet secretly in a cave, one entrance to which is through a door in the young widow’s bedroom. Soon she is taking her lover into her bedroom, where they enjoy each other frequently.

Tancred is in the habit of visiting his daughter’s room at odd times. One day, when he goes to visit, she is not there. He sits down to wait in a place where he is, by accident, hidden by the bed curtains from his daughter and her lover, who soon come in to use the bed.

Tancred remains hidden, but that night he has Guiscardo arrested. When he berates his daughter for picking so humble a lover, she scolds him for letting so brave a man remain poor in his court. She begs nothing from Tancred except that he kill her and her lover with the same stroke.

The prince does not believe Ghismonda will be as resolute as she sounds. When her lover is killed, Tancred has his heart cut from his body and sent to her in a golden cup. Ghismonda thanks her father for his noble gift. After repeatedly kissing the heart, she pours poison into the cup and drinks it. Then she lies down upon her bed with Guiscardo’s heart upon her own. Tancred’s own heart is touched when he sees her cold in death, and he obeys her last request that she and Guiscardo be buried together.

Filomena’s Tale of the Pot of Basil. Isabetta lives in Messina with her three merchant brothers and a young man named Lorenzo, who attends to their business affairs. Isabetta and Lorenzo fall in love. One night, as she goes to Lorenzo’s room, her oldest brother sees her. He says nothing until the next morning, when the three brothers confer to see how they could settle the matter so that no shame should fall upon them or upon Isabetta.

Not long afterward, the three brothers set out with Lorenzo, claiming that they are going part way with him on a journey. Secretly, however, they kill and bury the young man.

After their return home, the brothers answer none of Isabetta’s questions about Lorenzo. She weeps and refuses to be consoled in her grief. One night Lorenzo comes to her in a dream and tells her what happened and where he is buried. Without telling her brothers, she goes to the spot indicated in her dream and finds her lover’s body there. She cuts off his head and wraps it in a cloth to take home. She buries the head in dirt in a large flowerpot and plants basil over it. The basil flourishes, watered by her tears.

She weeps so much over the plant that her brothers take away the pot of basil and hide it. She asks about it often, so the brothers grow curious. At last they investigate and find Lorenzo’s head. Abashed, they leave the city. Isabetta dies of a broken heart.

Pamfilo’s Tale of Cimone, Who Becomes Civilized Through Love. Galeso is the tallest and handsomest of Aristippo’s children, but he is so stupid that the people of Cyprus call him Cimone, which means “Brute.” Cimone’s stupidity so embarrasses his father that the old man sends the boy to the country to live. There Cimone is content, until one day he comes upon Efigenia, whose beauty completely changes him.

He tells his father that he intends to live in town. The news worries his father for a while, but Cimone buys fine clothes and associates only with worthy young men. In four years, he is the most accomplished and virtuous young man on the island.

Although he knows she is promised to Pasimunda of Rhodes, Cimone asks Efigenia’s father for her hand in marriage. He is refused. When Pasimunda sends for his bride, Cimone and his friends pursue the ship and take Efigenia off the vessel, after which they let the ship’s crew go free to return to Rhodes. In the night, a storm arises and blows Cimone’s ship to the very harbor in Rhodes where Efigenia is supposed to go. Cimone and his men are arrested.

Pasimunda has a brother who is promised a wife, but this woman is loved by Lisimaco, a youth of Rhodes, as Efigenia is loved by Cimone. The brothers plan a double wedding.

Lisimaco makes plans with Cimone. At the double wedding feast, Lisimaco, Cimone, and many of their friends snatch the brides away from their prospective husbands. The young men carry their beloved ones to Crete, where they live happily in exile for a time, until their fathers intercede for them. Then Cimone takes Efigenia home to Cyprus, and Lisimaco takes his wife back to Rhodes.

Fiammetta’s Tale of Federigo and His Falcon. Federigo degli Alberighi is famed in Florence for his courtesy and his prowess in arms. He falls in love with Monna Giovanna, a woman who cares nothing for him, though he spends his fortune trying to please her. Finally he is so poor that he goes to the country to live on his farm. There he entertains himself only by flying his falcon, which is considered the best in the world.

Monna’s husband dies, leaving her to enjoy his vast estates with one young son. The son strikes up an acquaintance with Federigo and particularly admires the falcon. When the boy becomes sick, he thinks he might get well if he can own Federigo’s bird.

Monna, as a last resort, swallows her pride and calls upon Federigo. She tells him she will stay for supper, but Federigo, desperately poor as he is, has nothing to serve his love except the falcon, which he promptly kills and roasts for her.

After the meal, with many apologies, Monna tells her host that her son, thinking he will get well if he has the falcon, desires Federigo’s bird. Federigo weeps to think that Monna asks for the one thing he cannot give her.

The boy dies soon after, and Monna is bereft. When her brothers urge her to remarry, she finally agrees to do so, but she will marry no one but the generous Federigo, who killed his pet falcon to do her honor. Federigo marries into great riches.

Filostrato’s Tale of Peronella, Who Hid Her Lover in a Butt. Peronella is a Neapolitan wool comber married to a poor bricklayer. Together they make enough to live comfortably. Peronella has a lover named Strignario, who comes to the house each day after the husband goes to work.

One day, when the husband returns unexpectedly, Peronella hides Strignario in a butt (large keg or barrel). Her husband brings home a man to buy the butt for five florins. Thinking quickly, Peronella tells her husband that she already has a buyer who offered seven florins for the butt and that he is at that moment inside the butt inspecting it.

Strignario comes out, complaining that the butt is dirty. The husband offers to clean it. While the husband is inside scraping, Strignario cuckolds him again, pays for the butt, and goes away.

Filostrato’s Tale of Nathan’s Generosity. In Cathay lives a rich and generous old man named Nathan. He has a splendid palace and many servants, and he entertains lavishly anyone who comes his way.

In a country nearby lives Mitridanes, who is not nearly so old as Nathan but just as rich. Since he is jealous of Nathan’s fame, he builds a palace and entertains handsomely everyone who visits. One day, a woman comes thirteen times asking alms. Furious when Mitridanes calls her to task, she tells him that she once asked alms of Nathan forty-two times in one day without reproof. Mitridanes decides that he will have to kill Nathan before his own fame will grow.

Riding near Nathan’s palace, Mitridanes discovers Nathan walking alone. When he asks to be directed secretly to Nathan’s palace, Nathan cheerfully takes him there and establishes him in a fine apartment. Still not realizing Nathan’s identity, Mitridanes reveals his plan to kill his rival. Nathan arranges matters so that Mitridanes comes upon him alone in the woods.

Mitridanes, curious to see Nathan, catches hold of him before piercing him with a sword. When he discovers that Nathan is the old man who first directed him to the palace, made him comfortable, and then arranged the meeting in the woods, Mitridanes realizes that he can never match Nathan’s generosity, and he is greatly ashamed.

Nathan offers to go to Mitridanes’ home and become known as Mitridanes, while Mitridanes will remain to be known as Nathan. By that time, however, Mitridanes thinks his own actions will tarnish Nathan’s fame, and he goes home humbled.

Pamfilo’s Tale of Saladin and Messer Torello. In the time of Emperor Frederick the First, all Christendom unites in a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. To see how the Christians are preparing themselves and to learn to protect himself against them, Saladin, the Sultan of Babylon, takes two of his best knights and makes a tour through Italy to Paris. The travelers are disguised as merchants.

Outside the little town of Pavia, they come upon Messer Torello, who is on his way to his country estate. When they ask him how far they are from Pavia, he tells them quickly that the town is too far to be reached that night and sends his servants with them to an inn. Messer Torello senses that the three men are foreign gentlemen and wants to honor them; he has the servants take them by a roundabout way to his own estate. Meanwhile, he rides directly home. The travelers are surprised when they see him in his own place, but, realizing that he means only to honor them, they graciously consent to spend the night.

The next day, Messer Torello sends word to his wife in town to prepare a banquet. The preparations are made, and both Torellos honor the merchants that day. Before they leave, the wife gives them handsome suits of clothes like those her husband wears.

When Messer Torello becomes one of the Crusaders, he asks his wife to wait a year and a month before remarrying if she hears nothing from him. She gives him a ring with which to remember her. Soon afterward, a great plague breaks out among the Christians at Acre and kills many men. Most of the survivors are imprisoned by the sultan. Messer Torello is taken to Alexandria, where he trains hawks for Saladin and is called Saladin’s Christian. Neither man recognizes the other for a long time, until at last Saladin recognizes a facial gesture in Torello and makes himself known as one of the traveling merchants. Torello is freed and lives happily as Saladin’s guest. He expects daily to hear from his wife, to whom he sends word of his adventures. His messenger is shipwrecked, however, and the day approaches when his wife will be free to remarry.

At last Torello tells Saladin of the arrangement he and his wife made. The sultan takes pity on him and has Torello put to sleep on a couch heaped with jewels and gold. Then the couch, whisked off to Italy by magic, is set down in the church of which his uncle is abbot. Torello and the abbot go to the marriage feast prepared for Torello’s wife and her new husband. No one recognizes Torello because of his strange beard and “oriental” clothing, until he displays the ring his wife gave him. Then with great rejoicing they are reunited, a reward for their earlier generosity.

Dioneo’s Tale of the Patient Griselda. Gualtieri, eldest son of the Marquess of Saluzzo, is a bachelor whose subjects beg him to marry. Although he is not anxious to take a wife, he decides to wed poor Griselda, who lives in a nearby hamlet. When he goes with his friends to bring Griselda home, he asks her if she will always be obedient and try to please him and never be angry. Upon her word that she will do so, Gualtieri has her stripped of her poor gown and dressed in finery becoming her new station.

With her new clothes, Griselda changes so much in appearance that she seems to be a true noblewoman, and Gualtieri’s subjects are pleased. She bears him a daughter and a son, both of whom Gualtieri take from her. In order to test her devotion, he pretends to have the children put to death, but Griselda sends them off cheerfully since that is her husband’s wish.

When their daughter is in her early teens, Gualtieri sends Griselda home, clad only in a shift, after telling her that he intends to take a new wife. His subjects are sad, but Griselda remains composed. A short time later, he calls Griselda back to his house and orders her to prepare it for his wedding, saying that no one else knows so well how to arrange it. In her ragged dress, she prepares everything for the wedding feast. Welcoming the guests, she is particularly thoughtful of the new bride.

By that time Gualtieri thinks he tested Griselda in every possible way. He introduces the supposed bride as her daughter and the little boy who accompanies the girl as her son. Then he has Griselda dressed in her best clothes, and everyone rejoices.

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