'Tis humane to have compassion on the afflicted and as it shews well in all,
so it is especially demanded of those who have had need of comfort and have
found it in others: among whom, if any had ever need thereof or found it
precious or delectable, I may be numbered; seeing that from my early youth
even to the present I was beyond measure aflame with a most aspiring and
noble love (1) more perhaps than, were I to enlarge upon it, would seem to
accord with my lowly condition. Whereby, among people of discernment to
whose knowledge it had come, I had much praise and high esteem, but
nevertheless extreme discomfort and suffering not indeed by reason of
cruelty on the part of the beloved lady, but through superabundant ardour
engendered in the soul by ill-bridled desire; the which, as it allowed me no
reasonable period of quiescence, frequently occasioned me an inordinate
distress. In which distress so much relief was afforded me by the delectable
discourse of a friend and his commendable consolations, that I entertain a
very solid conviction that to them I owe it that I am not dead. But, as it
pleased Him, who, being infinite, has assigned by immutable law an end to
all things mundane, my love, beyond all other fervent, and neither to be
broken nor bent by any force of determination, or counsel of prudence, or
fear of manifest shame or ensuing danger, did nevertheless in course of time
me abate of its own accord, in such wise that it has now left nought of
itself in my mind but that pleasure which it is wont to afford to him who
does not adventure too far out in navigating its deep seas; so that, whereas
it was used to be grievous, now, all discomfort being done away, I find that
which remains to be delightful. But the cessation of the pain has not
banished the memory of the kind offices done me by those who shared by
sympathy the burden of my griefs; nor will it ever, I believe, pass from me
except by death. And as among the virtues, gratitude is in my judgment most
especially to be commended, and ingratitude in equal measure to be censured,
therefore, that I show myself not ungrateful, I have resolved, now that I
may call myself to endeavour, in return for what I have received, to afford,
so far as in me lies, some solace, if not to those who succoured and who,
perchance, by reason of their good sense or good fortune, need it not, at
least to such as may be apt to receive it.
And though my support or comfort, so to say, may be of little avail to the
needy, nevertheless it seems to me meet to offer it most readily where the
need is most apparent, because it will there be most serviceable and also
most kindly received. Who will deny, that it should be given, for all that
it may be worth, to gentle ladies much rather than to men? Within their soft
bosoms, betwixt fear and shame, they harbour secret fires of love, and how
much of strength concealment adds to those fires, they know who have proved
it. Moreover, restrained by the will, the caprice, the commandment of
fathers, mothers, brothers, and husbands, confined most part of their time
within the narrow compass of their chambers, they live, so to say, a life of
vacant ease, and, yearning and renouncing in the same moment, meditate
divers matters which cannot all be cheerful. If thereby a melancholy bred of
amorous desire make entrance into their minds, it is like to tarry there to
their sore distress, unless it be dispelled by a change of ideas. Besides
which they have much less power to support such a weight than men. For, when
men are enamoured, their case is very different, as we may readily perceive.
They, if they are afflicted by a melancholy and heaviness of mood, have many
ways of relief and diversion; they may go where they will, may hear and see
many things, may hawk, hunt, fish, ride, play or traffic. By which means all
are able to compose their minds, either in whole or in part, and repair the
ravage wrought by the dumpish mood, at least for some space of time; and
shortly after, by one way or another, either solace ensues, or the dumps
become less grievous. Wherefore, in some measure to compensate the injustice
of Fortune, which to those whose strength is least, as we see it to be in
the delicate frames of ladies, has been most niggard of support, I, for the
succour and diversion of such of them as love (for others may find
sufficient solace in the needle and the spindle and the reel), do intend to
recount one hundred Novels or Fables or Parables or Stories, as we may
please to call them, which were recounted in ten days by an honourable
company of seven ladies and three young men in the time of the late mortal
pestilence, as also some canzonets sung by the said ladies for their
delectation. In which pleasant novels will be found some passages of love
rudely crossed, with other courses of events of which the issues are
felicitous, in times as well modern as ancient: from which stories the said
ladies, who shall read them, may derive both pleasure from the entertaining
matters set forth therein, and also good counsel, in that they may learn
what to shun, and likewise what to pursue. Which cannot, I believe, come to
pass unless the dumps be banished by diversion of mind. And if it so happen
(as God grant it may) let them give thanks to Love, who, liberating me from
his fetters, has given me the power to devote myself to their gratification.
(1) For Fiammetta, i. e. Maria, natural daughter of Robert, King of Naples.
--
Beginneth here the first day of the Decameron, in which, when the author has
set forth, how it came to pass that the persons, who appear hereafter met
together for interchange of discourse, they, under the rule of Pampinea,
discourse of such matters as most commend themselves to each in turn.
--
As often, most gracious ladies, as I bethink me, how compassionate you are
by nature one and all, I do not disguise from myself that the present work
must seem to you to have but a heavy and distressful prelude, in that it
bears upon its very front what must needs revive the sorrowful memory of the
late mortal pestilence, the course whereof was grievous not merely to eye-
witnesses but to all who in any other wise had cognisance of it. But I would
have you know, that you need not therefore be fearful to read further, as if
your reading were ever to be accompanied by sighs and tears. This horrid
beginning will be to you even such as to wayfarers is a steep and rugged
mountain, beyond which stretches a plain most fair and delectable, which the
toil of the ascent and descent does but serve to render more agreeable to
them; for, as the last degree of joy brings with it sorrow, so misery has
ever its sequel of happiness. To this brief exordium of woe--brief, I say,
inasmuch as it can be put within the compass of a few letters--succeed
forthwith the sweets and delights which I have promised you, and which,
perhaps, had I not done so, were not to have been expected from it. In
truth, had it been honestly possible to guide you whither I would bring you
by a road less rough than this will be, I would gladly have so done. But,
because without this review of the past, it would not be in my power to shew
how the matters, of which you will hereafter read, came to pass, I am almost
bound of necessity to enter upon it, if I would write of them at all.
I say, then, that the years of the beatific incarnation of the Son of God
had reached the tale of one thousand three hundred and forty-eight when in
the illustrious city of Florence, the fairest of all the cities of Italy,
there made its appearance that deadly pestilence, which, whether
disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies, or sent upon us
mortals by God in His just wrath by way of retribution for our iniquities,
had had its origin some years before in the East, whence, after destroying
an innumerable multitude of living beings, it had propagated itself without
respite from place to place, and so, calamitously, had spread into the West.
In Florence, despite all that human wisdom and forethought could devise to
avert it, as the cleansing of the city from many impurities by officials
appointed for the purpose, the refusal of entrance to all sick folk, and the
adoption of many precautions for the preservation of health; despite also
humble supplications addressed to God, and often repeated both in public
procession and otherwise, by the devout; towards the beginning of the spring
of the said year the doleful effects of the pestilence began to be horribly
apparent by symptoms that shewed as if miraculous.
Not such were they as in the East, where an issue of blood from the nose was
a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men and women alike it first
betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumours in the groin or the
armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg,
some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli. From the two
said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and
spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the
malady began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many
cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, now minute
and numerous. And as the gavocciolo had been and still was an infallible
token of approaching death, such also were these spots on whomsoever they
shewed themselves. Which maladies seemed to set entirely at naught both the
art of the physician and the virtues of physic; indeed, whether it was that
the disorder was of a nature to defy such treatment, or that the physicians
were at fault--besides the qualified there was now a multitude both of men
and of women who practised without having received the slightest tincture of
medical science--and, being in ignorance of its source, failed to apply the
proper remedies; in either case, not merely were those that recovered few,
but almost all within three days from the appearance of the said symptoms,
sooner or later, died, and in most cases without any fever or other
attendant malady.
Moreover, the virulence of the pest was the greater by reason that
intercourse was apt to convey it from the sick to the whole, just as fire
devours things dry or greasy when they are brought close to it. Nay, the
evil went yet further, for not merely by speech or association with the sick
was the malady communicated to the healthy with consequent peril of common
death; but any that touched the cloth of the sick or aught else that had
been touched or used by them, seemed thereby to contract the disease.
So marvellous sounds that which I have now to relate, that, had not many,
and I among them, observed it with their own eyes, I had hardly dared to
credit it, much less to set it down in writing, though I had had it from the
lips of a credible witness.
I say, then, that such was the energy of the contagion of the said
pestilence, that it was not merely propagated from man to man but, what is
much more startling, it was frequently observed, that things which had
belonged to one sick or dead of the disease, if touched by some other living
creature, not of the human species, were the occasion, not merely of
sickening, but of an almost instantaneous death. Whereof my own eyes (as I
said a little before) had cognisance, one day among others, by the following
experience. The rags of a poor man who had died of the disease being strewn
about the open street, two hogs came thither, and after, as is their wont,
no little trifling with their snouts, took the rags between their teeth and
tossed them to and fro about their chaps; whereupon, almost immediately,
they gave a few turns, and fell down dead, as if by poison, upon the rags
which in an evil hour they had disturbed.
In which circumstances, not to speak of many others of a similar or even
graver complexion, divers apprehensions and imaginations were engendered in
the minds of such as were left alive, inclining almost all of them to the
same harsh resolution, to wit, to shun and abhor all contact with the sick
and all that belonged to them, thinking thereby to make each his own health
secure. Among whom there were those who thought that to live temperately and
avoid all excess would count for much as a preservative against seizures of
this kind. Wherefore they banded together, and, dissociating themselves from
all others, formed communities in houses where there were no sick, and lived
a separate and secluded life, which they regulated with the utmost care,
avoiding every kind of luxury, but eating and drinking very moderately of
the most delicate viands and the finest wines, holding converse with none
but one another, lest tidings of sickness or death should reach them, and
diverting their minds with music and such other delights as they could
devise. Others, the bias of whose minds was in the opposite direction,
maintained, that to drink freely, frequent places of public resort, and take
their pleasure with song and revel, sparing to satisfy no appetite, and to
laugh and mock at no event, was the sovereign remedy for so great an evil:
and that which they affirmed they also put in practice, so far as they were
able, resorting day and night, now to this tavern, now to that, drinking
with an entire disregard of rule or measure, and by preference making the
houses of others, as it were, their inns, if they but saw in them aught that
was particularly to their taste or liking; which they were readily able to
do, because the owners, seeing death imminent, had become as reckless of
their property as of their lives; so that most of the houses were open to
all comers, and no distinction was observed between the stranger who
presented himself and the rightful lord. Thus, adhering ever to their
inhuman determination to shun the sick, as far as possible, they ordered
their life. In this extremity of our city's suffering and tribulation the
venerable authority of laws, human and divine, was abased and all but
totally dissolved, for lack of those who should have administered and
enforced them, most of whom, like the rest of the citizens, were either dead
or sick, or so hard bested for servants that they were unable to execute any
office; whereby every man was free to do what was right in his own eyes.
Not a few there were who belonged to neither of the two said parties, but
kept a middle course between them, neither laying the same restraint upon
their diet as the former, nor allowing themselves the same license in
drinking and other dissipations as the latter, but living with a degree of
freedom sufficient to satisfy their appetites, and not as recluses. They
therefore walked abroad, carrying in their hands flowers or fragrant herbs
or divers sorts of spices, which they frequently raised to their noses,
deeming it an excellent thing thus to comfort the brain with such perfumes,
because the air seemed to be everywhere laden and reeking with the stench
emitted by the dead and the dying and the odours of drugs.
Some again, the most sound, perhaps, in judgment, as they we also the most
harsh in temper, of all, affirmed that there was no medicine for the disease
superior or equal in efficacy to flight; following which prescription a
multitude of men and women, negligent of all but themselves, deserted their
city, their houses, their estate, their kinsfolk, their goods, and went into
voluntary exile, or migrated to the country parts, as if God in visiting men
with this pestilence in requital of their iniquities would not pursue them
with His wrath, wherever they might be, but intended the destruction of such
alone as remained within the circuit of the walls of the city; or deeming,
perchance, that it was now time for all to flee from it, and that its last
hour was come.
Of the adherents of these divers opinions not all died, neither did all
escape; but rather there were, of each sort and in every place, many that
sickened, and by those who retained their health were treated after the
example which they themselves, while whole, had set, being everywhere left
to languish in almost total neglect. Tedious were it to recount, how citizen
avoided citizen, how among neighbours was scarce found any that shewed
fellow-feeling for another, how kinsfolk held aloof, and never met, or but
rarely; enough that this sore affliction entered so deep into the minds of
men and women, that in the horror thereof brother was forsaken by brother,
nephew by uncle, brother by sister, and oftentimes husband by wife; nay,
what is more, and scarcely to be believed, fathers and mothers were found to
abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they
had been strangers. Wherefore the sick of both sexes, whose number could not
be estimated, were left without resource but in the charity of friends (and
few such there were), or the interest of servants, who were hardly to be had
at high rates and on unseemly terms, and being, moreover, one and all men
and women of gross understanding, and for the most part unused to such
offices, concerned themselves no farther than to supply the immediate and
expressed wants of the sick, and to watch them die; in which service they
themselves not seldom perished with their gains. In consequence of which
dearth of servants and dereliction of the sick by neighbours, kinsfolk and
friends, it came to pass--a thing, perhaps, never before heard of that no
woman, however dainty, fair or well-born she might be, shrank, when stricken
with the disease, from the ministrations of a man, no matter whether he were
young or no, or scrupled to expose to him every part of her body, with no
more shame than if he had been a woman, submitting of necessity to that
which her malady required; wherefrom, perchance, there resulted in after
time some loss of modesty in such as recovered. Besides which many
succumbed, who with proper attendance, would, perhaps, have escaped death;
so that, what with the virulence of the plague and the lack of due tendance
of the sick, the multitude of the deaths, that daily and nightly took place
in the city, was such that those who heard the tale--not to say witnessed
the fact--were struck dumb with amazement. Whereby, practices contrary to
the former habits of the citizens could hardly fail to grow up among the
survivors.
It had been, as to-day it still is, the custom for the women that were
neighbours and of kin to the deceased to gather in his house with the women
that were most closely connected with him, to wail with them in common,
while on the other hand his male kinsfolk and neighbours, with not a few of
the other citizens, and a due proportion of the clergy according to his
quality, assembled without, in front of the house, to receive the corpse;
and so the dead man was borne on the shoulders of his peers, with funeral
pomp of taper and dirge, to the church selected by him before his death.
Which rites, as the pestilence waxed in fury, were either in whole or in
great part disused, and gave way to others of a novel order. For not only
did no crowd of women surround the bed of the dying, but many passed from
this life unregarded, and few indeed were they to whom were accorded the
lamentations and bitter tears of sorrowing relations; nay, for the most
part, their place was taken by the laugh, the jest, the festal gathering;
observances which the women, domestic piety in large measure set aside, had
adopted with very great advantage to their health. Few also there were whose
bodies were attended to the church by more than ten or twelve of their
neighbours, and those not the honourable and respected citizens; but a sort
of corpse-carriers drawn from the baser ranks who called themselves becchini
(1) and performed such offices for hire, would shoulder the bier, and with
hurried steps carry it, not to the church of the dead man's choice, but to
that which was nearest at hand, with four or six priests in front and a
candle or two, or, perhaps, none; nor did the priests distress themselves
with too long and solemn an office, but with the aid of the becchini hastily
consigned the corpse to the first tomb which they found untenanted. The
condition of lower, and, perhaps, in great measure of the middle ranks, of
the people shewed even worse and more deplorable; for, deluded by hope or
constrained by poverty, they stayed in their quarters, in their houses,
where they sickened by thousands a day, and, being without service or help
of any kind, were, so to speak, irredeemably devoted to the death which
overtook them. Many died daily or nightly in the public streets; of many
others, who died at home, the departure was hardly observed by their
neighbours, until the stench of their putrefying bodies carried the tidings;
and what with their corpses and the corpses of others who died on every hand
the whole place was a sepulchre.
It was the common practice of most of the neighbours, moved no less by fear
of contamination by the putrefying bodies than by charity towards the
deceased, to drag the corpses out of the houses with their own hands, aided,
perhaps, by a porter, if a porter was to be had, and to lay them in front of
the doors, where any one who made the round might have seen, especially in
the morning, more of them than he could count; afterwards they would have
biers brought up, or, in default, planks, whereon they laid them. Nor was it
once or twice only that one and the same bier carried two or three corpses
at once; but quite a considerable number of such cases occurred, one bier
sufficing for husband and wife, two or three brothers, father and son, and
so forth. And times without number it happened, that, as two priests,
bearing the cross, were on their way to perform the last office for some
one, three or four biers were brought up by the porters in rear of them, so
that, whereas the priests supposed that they had but one corpse to bury,
they discovered that there were six or eight, or sometimes more. Nor, for
all their number, were their obsequies honoured by either tears or lights or
crowds of mourners; rather, it was come to this, that a dead man was then of
no more account than a dead goat would be to-day. From all which it is
abundantly manifest, that that lesson of patient resignation, which the
sages were never able to learn from the slight and infrequent mishaps which
occur in the natural course of events, was now brought home even to the
minds of the simple by the magnitude of their disasters, so that they became
indifferent to them.
As consecrated ground there was not in extent sufficient to provide tombs
for the vast multitude of corpses which day and night, and almost every
hour, were brought in eager haste to the churches for interment, least of
all, if ancient custom were to be observed and a separate resting-place
assigned to each, they dug, for each graveyard, as soon as it was full, a
huge trench, in which they laid the corpses as they arrived by hundreds at a
time, piling them up as merchandise is stowed in the hold of a ship, tier
upon tier, each covered with a little earth, until the trench would hold no
more. But I spare to rehearse with minute particularity each of the woes
that came upon our city, and say in brief, that, harsh as was the tenor of
her fortunes, the surrounding country knew no mitigation, for there--not to
speak of the castles, each, as it were, a little city in itself--in
sequestered village, or on the open champaign, by the wayside, on the farm,
in the homestead, the poor hapless husbandmen and their families, forlorn of
physicians' care or servants' tendance, perished day and night alike, not as
men, but rather as beasts. Wherefore, they too, like the citizens, abandoned
all rule of life, all habit of industry, all counsel of prudence; nay, one
and all, as if expecting each day to be their last, not merely ceased to aid
Nature to yield her fruit in due season of their beasts and their lands and
their past labours, but left no means unused, which ingenuity could devise,
to waste their accumulated store; denying shelter to their oxen, asses,
sheep, goats, pigs, fowls, nay, even to their dogs, man's most faithful
companions, and driving them out into the fields to roam at large amid the
unsheaved, nay, unreaped corn. Many of which, as if endowed with reason,
took their fill during the day, and returned home at night without any
guidance of herdsman. But enough of the country! What need we add, but
(reverting to the city) that such and so grievous was the harshness of
heaven, and perhaps in some degree of man, that, what with the fury of the
pestilence, the panic of those whom it spared, and their consequent neglect
or desertion of not a few of the stricken in their need, it is believed
without any manner of doubt, that between March and the ensuing July upwards
of a hundred thousand human beings lost their lives within the walls of the
city of Florence, which before the deadly visitation would not have been
supposed to contain so many people! How many grand palaces, how many stately
homes, how many splendid residences, once full of retainers, of lords, of
ladies, were now left desolate of all, even to the meanest servant! How many
families of historic fame, of vast ancestral domains, and wealth proverbial,
found now no scion to continue the succession! How many brave men, how many
fair ladies, how many gallant youths, whom any physician, were he Galen,
Hippocrates, or Aesculapius himself, would have pronounced in the soundest
of health, broke fast with their kinsfolk, comrades and friends in the
morning, and when evening came, supped with their forefathers in the other
world.
Irksome it is to myself to rehearse in detail so sorrowful a history.
Wherefore, being minded to pass over so much thereof as I fairly can, I say,
that our city, being thus well-nigh depopulated, it so happened, as I
afterwards learned from one worthy of credit, that on a Tuesday morning
after Divine Service the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella was almost
deserted save for the presence of seven young ladies habited sadly in
keeping with the season. All were connected either by blood or at least as
friends or neighbours and fair and of good understanding were they all, as
also of noble birth, gentle manners, and a modest sprightliness. In age none
exceeded twenty-eight, or fell short of eighteen years. Their names I would
set down in due form, had I not good reason to with hold them, being
solicitous lest the matters which here ensue, as told and heard by them,
should in after time be occasion of reproach to any of them, in view of the
ample indulgence which was then, for the reasons heretofore set forth,
accorded to the lighter hours of persons of much riper years than they, but
which the manners of to-day have somewhat restricted; nor would I furnish
material to detractors, ever ready to bestow their bite where praise is due,
to cast by invidious speech the least slur upon the honour of these noble
ladies. Wherefore, that what each says may be apprehended without confusion,
I intend to give them names more or less appropriate to the character of
each. The first, then, being the eldest of the seven, we will call Pampinea,
the second Fiammetta, the third Filomena, the fourth Emilia, the fifth we
will distinguish as Lauretta, the sixth as Neifile, and the last, not
without reason, shall be named Elisa.
'Twas not of set purpose but by mere chance that these ladies met in the
same part of the church; but at length grouping themselves into a sort of
circle, after heaving a few sighs, they gave up saying paternosters, and
began to converse (among other topics) on the times.
So they continued for awhile, and then Pampinea, the rest listening in
silent attention, thus began:--"Dear ladies mine, often have I heard it
said, and you doubtless as well as I, that wrong is done to none by whoso
but honestly uses his reason. And to fortify, preserve, and defend his life
to the utmost of his power is the dictate of natural reason in everyone that
is born. Which right is accorded in such measure that in defence thereof men
have been held blameless in taking life. And if this be allowed by the laws,
albeit on their stringency depends the well-being of every mortal, how much
more exempt from censure should we, and all other honest folk, be in taking
such means as we may for the preservation of our life? As often as I bethink
me how we have been occupied this morning, and not this morning only, and
what has been the tenor of our conversation, I perceive--and you will
readily do the like--that each of us is apprehensive on her own account; nor
thereat do I marvel, but at this I do marvel greatly, that, though none of
us lacks a woman's wit, yet none of us has recourse to any means to avert
that which we all justly fear. Here we tarry, as if, methinks, for no other
purpose than to bear witness to the number of the corpses that are brought
hither for interment, or to hearken if the brothers there within, whose
number is now almost reduced to nought, chant their offices at the canonical
hours, or, by our weeds of woe, to obtrude on the attention of every one
that enters, the nature and degree of our sufferings.
"And if we quit the church, we see dead or sick folk carried about, or we
see those, who for their crimes were of late condemned to exile by the
outraged majesty of the public laws, but who now, in contempt of those laws,
well knowing that their ministers are a prey to death or disease, have
returned, and traverse the city in packs, making it hideous with their
riotous antics; or else we see the refuse of the people, fostered on our
blood, becchini, as they call themselves, who for our torment go prancing
about here and there and everywhere, making mock of our miseries in
scurrilous songs. Nor hear we aught but:--Such and such are dead; or, Such
and such art dying; and should hear dolorous wailing on every hand, were
there but any to wail. Or go we home, what see we there? I know not if you
are in like case with me; but there, where once were servants in plenty, I
find none left but my maid, and shudder with terror, and feel the very hairs
of my head to stand on end; and turn or tarry where I may, I encounter the
ghosts of the departed, not with their wonted mien, but with something
horrible in their aspect that appals me. For which reasons church and street
and home are alike distressful to me, and the more so that none, methinks,
having means and place of retirement as we have, abides here save only we;
or if any such there be, they are of those, as my senses too often have
borne witness, who make no distinction between things honourable and their
opposites, so they but answer the cravings of appetite, and, alone or in
company, do daily and nightly what things soever give promise of most
gratification. Nor are these secular persons alone; but such as live recluse
in monasteries break their rule, and give themselves up to carnal pleasures,
persuading themselves that they are permissible to them, and only forbidden
to others, and, thereby thinking to escape, are become unchaste and
dissolute. If such be our circumstances--and such most manifestly they
are--what do we here? what wait we for? what dream we of? why are we less
prompt to provide for our own safety than the rest of the citizens? Is life
less dear to us than to all other women? or think we that the bond, which
unites soul and body is stronger in us than in others, so that there is no
blow that may light upon it, of which we need be apprehensive? If so, we
err, we are deceived. What insensate folly were it in us so to believe! We
have but to call to mind the number and condition of those, young as we, and
of both sexes, who have succumbed to this cruel pestilence, to find therein
conclusive evidence to the contrary. And lest from lethargy or indolence we
fall into the vain imagination that by some lucky accident we may in some
way or another, when we would, escape--I know not if your opinion accord
with mine--I should deem it most wise in us, our case being what it is, if,
as many others have done before us, and are still doing, we were to quit
this place, and, shunning like death the evil example of others, betake
ourselves to the country, and there live as honourable women on one of the
estates, of which none of us has any lack, with all cheer of festal
gathering and other delights, so long as in no particular we overstep the
bounds of reason. There we shall hear the chant of birds, have sight of
verdant hills and plains, of cornfields undulating like the sea, of trees of
a thousand sorts; there also we shall have a larger view of the heavens,
which, however harsh to usward yet deny not their eternal beauty; things
fairer far for eye to rest on than the desolate walls of our city. Moreover,
we shall there breathe a fresher air, find ampler store of things meet for
such as live in these times, have fewer causes of annoy. For, though the
husbandmen die there, even as here the citizens, they are dispersed in
scattered homesteads, and 'tis thus less painful to witness. Nor, so far as
I can see, is there a soul here whom we shall desert; rather we may truly
say, that we are ourselves deserted; for, our kinsfolk being either dead or
fled in fear of death, no more regardful of us than if we were strangers, we
are left alone in our great affliction. No censure, then, can fall on us if
we do as I propose; and otherwise grievous suffering, perhaps death, may
ensue. Wherefore, if you agree, 'tis my advice, that, attended by our maids
with all things needful, we sojourn, now on this, now on the other estate,
and in such way of life continue, until we see--if death should not first
overtake us--the end which Heaven reserves for these events. And I remind
you that it will be at least as seemly in us to leave with honour, as in
others, of whom there are not a few, to stay with dishonour."
The other ladies praised Pampinea's plan, and indeed were so prompt to
follow it, that they had already begun to discuss the manner in some detail,
as if they were forthwith to rise from their seats and take the road, when
Filomena, whose judgment was excellent, interposed, saying:--"Ladies, though
Pampinea has spoken to most excellent effect, yet it were not well to be so
precipitate as you seem disposed to be. Bethink you that we are all women;
nor is there any here so young, but she is of years to understand how women
are minded towards one another, when they are alone together, and how ill
they are able to rule themselves without the guidance of some man. We are
sensitive, perverse, suspicious, pusillanimous and timid; wherefore I much
misdoubt, that, if we find no other guidance than our own, this company is
like to break up sooner, and with less credit to us, than it should. Against
which it were well to provide at the outset." Said then Elisa:--"Without
doubt man is woman's head, and, without man's governance, it is seldom that
aught that we do is brought to a commendable conclusion. But how are we to
come by the men? Every one of us here knows that her kinsmen are for the
most part dead, and that the survivors are dispersed, one here, one there,
we know not where, bent each on escaping the same fate as ourselves; nor
were it seemly to seek the aid of strangers; for, as we are in quest of
health, we must find some means so to order matters that, wherever we seek
diversion or repose, trouble and scandal do not follow us."
While the ladies were thus conversing, there came into the church three
young men, young, I say, but not so young that the age of the youngest was
less than twenty-five years; in whom neither the sinister course of events,
nor the loss of friends or kinsfolk, nor fear for their own safety, had
availed to quench, or even temper, the ardour of their love. The first was
called Pamfilo, the second Filostrato, and the third Dioneo. Very debonair
and chivalrous were they all; and in this troublous time they were seeking
if haply, to their exceeding great solace, they might have sight of their
fair friends, all three of whom chanced to be among the said seven ladies,
besides some that were of kin to the young men. At one and the same moment
they recognised the ladies and were recognised by them: wherefore, with a
gracious smile, Pampinea thus began:--"Lo, fortune is propitious to our
enterprise, having vouchsafed us the good offices of these young men, who
are as gallant as they are discreet, and will gladly give us their guidance
and escort, so we but take them into our service." Whereupon Neifile,
crimson from brow to neck with the blush of modesty, being one of those that
had a lover among the young men, said:--"For God's sake, Pampinea, have a
care what you say. Well assured am I that nought but good can be said of any
of them, and I deem them fit for office far more onerous than this which you
propose for them, and their good and honourable company worthy of ladies
fairer by far and more tenderly to be cherished than such as we. But 'tis no
secret that they love some of us here; wherefore I misdoubt that, if we take
them with us, we may thereby give occasion for scandal and censure merited
neither by us nor by them." "That," said Filomena, "is of no consequence; so
I but live honestly, my conscience gives me no disquietude; if others
asperse me, God and the truth will take arms in my defence. Now, should they
be disposed to attend us, of a truth we might say with Pampinea, that
fortune favours our enterprise." The silence which followed betokened
consent on the part of the other ladies, who then with one accord resolved
to call the young men, and acquaint them with their purpose, and pray them
to be of their company. So without further parley Pampinea, who had a
kinsman among the young men, rose and approached them where they stood
intently regarding them; and greeting them gaily, she opened to them their
plan, and besought them on the part of herself and her friends to join their
company on terms of honourable and fraternal comradeship. At first the young
men thought she did but trifle with them; but when they saw that she was in
earnest, they answered with alacrity that they were ready, and promptly,
even before they left the church, set matters in train for their departure.
So all things meet being first sent forward in due order to their intended
place of sojourn, the ladies with some of their maids, and the three young
men, each attended by a man-servant, sallied forth of the city on the
morrow, being Wednesday, about daybreak, and took the road; nor had they
journeyed more than two short miles when they arrived at their destination.
The estate (2) lay upon a little hill some distance from the nearest
highway, and, embowered in shrubberies of divers hues, and other greenery,
afforded the eye a pleasant prospect. On the summit of the hill was a palace
with galleries, halls and chambers, disposed around a fair and spacious
court, each very fair in itself, and the goodlier to see for the gladsome
pictures with which it was adorned; the whole set amidst meads and gardens
laid out with marvellous art, wells of the coolest water, and vaults of the
finest wines, things more suited to dainty drinkers than to sober and
honourable women. On their arrival the company, to their no small delight,
found their beds already made, the rooms well swept and garnished with
flowers of every sort that the season could afford, and the floors carpeted
with rushes. When they were seated, Dioneo, a gallant who had not his match
for courtesy and wit, spoke thus:--"My ladies, 'tis not our forethought so
much as your own mother-wit that has guided us hither. How you mean to
dispose of your cares I know not; mine I left behind me within the city-gate
when I issued thence with you a brief while ago. Wherefore, I pray you,
either address yourselves to make merry, to laugh and sing with me (so far,
I mean, as may consist with your dignity), or give me leave to hie me back
to the stricken city, there to abide with my cares." To whom blithely
Pampinea replied, as if she too had cast off all her cares:--"Well sayest
thou, Dioneo, excellent well; gaily we mean to live; 'twas a refuge from
sorrow that here we sought, nor had we other cause to come hither. But, as
no anarchy can long endure, I who initiated the deliberations of which this
fair company is the fruit, do now, to the end that our joy may be lasting,
deem it expedient, that there be one among us in chief authority, honoured
and obeyed by us as our superior, whose exclusive care it shall be to devise
how we may pass our time blithely. And that each in turn may prove the
weight of the care, as well as enjoy the pleasure, of sovereignty, and, no
distinction being made of sex, envy be felt by none by reason of exclusion
from the office; I propose, that the weight and honour be borne by each one
for a day; and let the first to bear sway be chosen by us all, those that
follow to be appointed towards the vesper hour by him or her who shall have
had the signory for that day; and let each holder of the signory be, for the
time, sole arbiter of the place and manner in which we are to pass our
time."
Pampinea's speech was received with the utmost applause, and with one accord
she was chosen queen for the first day. Whereupon Filomena hied her lightly
to a bay-tree, having often heard of the great honour in which its leaves,
and such as were deservedly crowned therewith, were worthy to be holden; and
having gathered a few sprays, she made thereof a goodly wreath of honour,
and set it on Pampinea's head; which wreath was thenceforth, while their
company endured, the visible sign of the wearer's sway and sovereignty.
No sooner was Queen Pampinea crowned than she bade all be silent. She then
caused summon to her presence their four maids, and the servants of the
three young men, and, all keeping silence, said to them:--"That I may shew
you all at once, how, well still giving place to better, our company may
flourish and endure, as long as it shall pleasure us, with order meet and
assured delight and without reproach, I first of all constitute Dioneo's
man, Parmeno, my seneschal, and entrust him with the care and control of all
our household, and all that belongs to the service of the hall. Pamfilo's
man, Sirisco, I appoint treasurer and chancellor of our exchequer; and be he
ever answerable to Parmeno. While Parmeno and Sirisco are too busy about
their duties to serve their masters, let Filostrato's man, Tindaro, have
charge of the chambers of all three. My maid, Misia, and Filomena's maid,
Licisca, will keep in the kitchen, and with all due diligence prepare such
dishes as Parmeno shall bid them. Lauretta's maid, Chimera, and Fiammetta's
maid, Stratilia we make answerable for the ladies' chambers, and wherever we
may take up our quarters, let them see that all is spotless. And now we
enjoin you, one and all alike, as you value our favour, that none of you, go
where you may, return whence you may, hear or see what you may, bring us any
tidings but such as be cheerful." These orders thus succinctly given were
received with universal approval. Whereupon Pampinea rose, and said
gaily:--"Here are gardens, meads, and other places delightsome enough, where
you may wander at will, and take your pleasure; but on the stroke of tierce,
(3) let all be here to breakfast in the shade."
Thus dismissed by their new queen the gay company sauntered gently through a
garden, the young men saying sweet things to the fair ladies, who wove fair
garlands of divers sorts of leaves and sang love-songs.
Having thus spent the time allowed them by the queen, they returned to the
house, where they found that Parmeno had entered on his office with zeal;
for in a hall on the ground-floor they saw tables covered with the whitest
of cloths, and beakers that shone like silver, and sprays of broom scattered
everywhere. So, at the bidding of the queen, they washed their hands, and
all took their places as marshalled by Parmeno. Dishes, daintily prepared,
were served, and the finest wines were at hand; the three serving-men did
their office noiselessly; in a word all was fair and ordered in a seemly
manner; whereby the spirits of the company rose, and they seasoned their
viands with pleasant jests and sprightly sallies. Breakfast done, the tables
were removed, and the queen bade fetch instruments of music; for all, ladies
and young men alike, knew how to tread a measure, and some of them played
and sang with great skill: so, at her command, Dioneo having taken a lute,
and Fiammetta a viol, they struck up a dance in sweet concert; and, the
servants being dismissed to their repast, the queen, attended by the other
ladies and the two young men, led off a stately carol; which ended they fell
to singing ditties dainty and gay. Thus they diverted themselves until the
queen, deeming it time to retire to rest, dismissed them all for the night.
So the three young men and the ladies withdrew to their several quarters,
which were in different parts of the palace. There they found the beds well
made, and abundance of flowers, as in the hall; and so they undressed, and
went to bed.
Shortly after none (4) the queen rose, and roused the rest of the ladies, as
also the young men, averring that it was injurious to health to sleep long
in the daytime. They therefore hied them to a meadow, where the grass grew
green and luxuriant, being nowhere scorched by the sun, and a light breeze
gently fanned them. So at the queen's command they all ranged themselves in
a circle on the grass, and hearkened while she thus spoke:--
"You mark that the sun is high, the heat intense, and the silence unbroken
save by the cicalas among the olive-trees. It were therefore the height of
folly to quit this spot at present. Here the air is cool and the prospect
fair, and here, observe, are dice and chess. Take, then, your pleasure as
you may be severally minded; but, if you take my advice, you will find
pastime for the hot hours before us, not in play, in which the loser must
needs be vexed, and neither the winner nor the onlooker much the better
pleased, but in telling of stories, in which the invention of one may afford
solace to all the company of his hearers. You will not each have told a
story before the sun will be low, and the heat abated, so that we shall be
able to go and severally take our pleasure where it may seem best to each.
Wherefore, if my proposal meet with your approval--for in this I am disposed
to consult your pleasure--let us adopt it; if not, divert yourselves as best
you may, until the vesper hour."
The queen's proposal being approved by all, ladies and men alike, she
added:--"So please you, then, I ordain, that, for this first day, we be free
to discourse of such matters as most commend themselves, to each in turn."
She then addressed Pamfilo, who sat on her right hand, bidding him with a
gracious air to lead off with one of his stories. And prompt at the word of
command, Pamfilo, while all listened intently, thus began:--
(1) Probably from the name of the pronged or hooked implement with which
they dragged the corpses out of the houses.
(2) Identified by tradition with the Villa Palmieri (now Crawford) on the
slope of Fiesole.
(3) The canonical hour following prime, roughly speaking about 9 a.m.
(4) The canonical hour following sext, i.e. 3 p.m.