A young man, being upon business in a certain city, goes on a hunting
excursion, and, fatigued with the chase, stops at a country house to ask
refreshment. The lady of the mansion receives him kindly, and admits him
as her lover. In the midst of their dalliance the husband comes home,
and the young man had no resource to escape discovery but to jump into a
basin which was in the court of the house, and stand with head in a
hollow gourd that luckily happened to be in the water. The husband,
surprised to see the gourd stationary in the water, which was itself
agitated by the wind, throws a stone at it, when the lover slips from
beneath it and holds his breath till almost suffocated. Fortunately the
husband presently retires with his wife into an inner room of the house,
and thus the young man was enabled to make good his escape.
The next day he relates his adventure before a large company at a
coffee-house. The husband happens to be one of the audience, and,
meditating revenge, pretends to admire the gallantry of the young man
and invites him to his house. The lover accompanies him, and on seeing
his residence is overwhelmed with confusion; but, recovering himself,
resolves to abide all hazards, in hopes of escaping by some lucky
stratagem. His host introduces him to his wife, and begs him to relate
his merry adventure before her, having resolved, when he should finish,
to put them both to death. The young man complies, but with an artful
presence of mind exclaims at the conclusion, “Glad was I when I awoke
from so alarming a dream.” The husband upon this, after some questions,
is satisfied that he had only told his dream, and, having entertained
him nobly, dismisses him kindly.
* * * * *
The story is told in an elaborate form by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, in
“Il Pecorone” (The Big Sheep, or, as Dunlop has it, The Dunce), which
was begun in 1378 but not published till 1554 (at Milan). It is the
second novel of the First Day and has been thus translated by Roscoe: