1353-1356
BOCCACCIO'S ATTITUDE TO WOMAN--THE _CORBACCIO_
Those embassies, for the most part so unsuccessful one may think,
which from time to time between 1350 and 1354 Boccaccio had
undertaken at the request of the Florentine Republic, heavy though
his responsibility must have been in the conduct of them, had by no
means filled all his time or seriously prevented the work, far more
important as it proved to be, which he had chosen as the business of
his life. Between 1348 and 1353, as we shall see, he had written the
_Decameron_; in 1354-5 he seems to have produced the _Corbaccio_, and
not much later the _Vita di Dante_; while in the complete retirement
from political life, from the office of ambassador at any rate,
which followed the embassy of 1354 and lasted for eleven years, till
indeed in 1365 he went again to Avignon on business of the Republic,
he devoted himself almost entirely to study and to the writing of
those Latin works of learning which his contemporaries appreciated so
highly and which we have perhaps been ready too easily to forget.
It is generally allowed[428] that Boccaccio began the _Decameron_
in 1348, but that it did not see the light in its completeness till
1353, and this would seem reasonable, for it is surely impossible
that such a work can have been written in much less than four years.
That a considerable time did in fact divide the beginning from the
completion of the book Boccaccio himself tells us in the conclusion,
at the end of the work of the Tenth Day, where he says: "Though now
I approach the end of my labours, it is long since I began to write,
yet I am not oblivious that it was to none but to ladies of leisure
that I offered my work...."
That the _Decameron_ was not begun before 1348 would seem to be
certain, for even if we take away the Prologue, the form itself is
built on the dreadful catastrophe of the Black Death.[429] If the
book was begun between that year and 1351, it cannot, however, have
been suggested, as some have thought, by Queen Giovanna of Naples,
for she was then in Avignon. In 1348 Boccaccio was thirty-five
years old, and whether at that time he was in Naples or in Forlì
with Ordelaffo is, as we have seen, doubtful, though that he was in
Naples would appear more likely; but wherever he was he had ample
opportunity of witnessing the appalling ravages of the pestilence
which he so admirably describes, and which is the contrast of
and the excuse for his book, for save in Lombardy and Rome the
pestilence was universal throughout Italy. In 1353, however, we
know him to have been resident in Florence, and if we accept the
tradition, which there is no reason at all to doubt, it was in that
year that the complete _Decameron_ first saw the light.[430] It was
known, however, in part, long before that, and would seem indeed
to have been published--if one may so express it--in parts; not
perhaps ten stories at a time--a day at a time--as Foscolo[431] has
conjectured, but certainly in parts, most likely of various quantity
and at different intervals. This would seem to be obvious from the
introduction to the Fourth Day, where Boccaccio speaks of the envy
and criticism that "these little stories" had excited, and proceeds
to answer his detractors. It is obvious that he could not at the
beginning of the Fourth Day have answered criticisms of his work if
some of it had not already seen the light and been widely read.
It must have been then when he was about forty years old that he
finished the _Decameron_, that extraordinary impersonal work in
which in the strongest contrast with his other books he has almost
completely hidden himself from us. He might seem at last in those
gay, licentious, and profoundly secular pages, often so delightfully
satirical and always so full of common sense, so sane as we might
say, to have lost himself in a joyous contemplation and understanding
of the world in which he lived, to have forgotten himself in a love
of it.
I speak fully of the _Decameron_ elsewhere, and have indeed only
mentioned it here for two reasons--to fix its date in the story
of his life, and to contrast it and its mood with the work which
immediately followed it, the _Corbaccio_ and the _Vita di Dante_.
We cannot, I think, remind ourselves too often in our attempts--and
after all they can never be more than attempts--to understand the
development of Boccaccio's mind, of his soul even, that he had but
one really profound passion in his life, his love for Fiammetta.
And as that had been one of those strong and persistent sensual
passions which are among the strangest and bitterest things in the
world,[432] his passing love affairs--and doubtless they were not
few--with other women had seemed scarcely worth recounting.[433]
That he never forgot Fiammetta, that he never freed himself from her
remembrance, are among the few things concerning his spiritual life
which we may assert with a real confidence. It is true that in the
Proem to the _Decameron_ he would have it otherwise, but who will
believe him? There he says--let us note as we read that even here he
cannot but return to it--that: "It is human to have compassion on
the afflicted; and as it shows very 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_,[434] I was beyond measure aflame with a most
aspiring and noble love, 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 I owe it to him 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 abate of its own accord, in such wise
that it has now left naught 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 ... now I may call myself free."
His love is not dead, but is no longer the sensual agony, the
spiritual anguish it had once been, but it "remains to be
delightful." That it remained, though perhaps not always "to be
delightful," that it remained, is certain. For though he "may now
call myself free," that Proem tells us that after all we owe the
_Decameron_ itself indirectly to Fiammetta. And who reading those
tales can believe in his vaunted emancipation, if by that is meant
his forgetfulness of her? She lives everywhere in those wonderful
pages. Is she not one of the seven ladies of the _Decameron_? That is
true, it will be said, but she has no personality there, she is but
one of ten protagonists who are without life and individuality. Let
it be granted. But whereas the others are in fact but lay figures,
she, Fiammetta, though she remains just an idol if you will, is to be
worshipped, is to be decked out with the finest words, to be honoured
and glorified. Her name scarcely occurs but he praises her; he is
always describing her; while for the others he seldom spares a word.
Who can tell us what Pampinea, Filomena, Emilia, Neifile, or Elisa
were like? But for Fiammetta--he tells us everything; and when, as in
the Proem we have just discussed or in the Conclusion to the Fourth
Day, he speaks for himself, it is her he praises, it is of her he
writes. She is there crowned as queen. It is Filostrato who crowns
her: "taking the laurel wreath from his own head, and while the
ladies watched to see to whom he would give it, set it graciously
upon the blonde head of Fiammetta, saying: 'Herewith I crown thee,
as deeming that thou, better than any other, will know how to make
to-morrow console our fair companions for the rude trials of to-day.'
Fiammetta, whose wavy tresses fell in a flood of gold over her white
and delicate shoulders, whose softly rounded face was all radiant
with the very tints of the white lily blended with the red of the
rose, who carried two eyes in her head that matched those of the
peregrine falcon, while her tiny sweet mouth showed a pair of lips
that shone as rubies...."
[Illustration: MASETTO AND THE NUNS. (DEC. III, 1)
_In 1538 this woodcut appears in Tansillo's "Stanze" (By the courtesy
of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
[Illustration: MASETTO AND THE NUNS. (DEC. III, 1)
_A woodcut from "Le Cento Novelle" in ottava rima. (Venice, 1554.)
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
And it is the same with the Conclusion of the book, which in fact
closes with her name, and with the question Boccaccio must have asked
her living and dead his whole life long: "Madonna, who is he that you
love?"
That he never forgot her, then, is certain; but Fiammetta was dead,
and for Boccaccio more than for any other man of letters perhaps,
love with its extraordinary bracing of the intellect as well as
of the body was in some sort a necessity. Never, as we may think,
handsome, in 1353, at forty years of age, he was already past his
best, fat and heavy and grey-haired. The death of Fiammetta, his
love affair with her, had left him with a curious fear of marriage,
ill-disguised and very characteristic. If he had ever believed in
the perfection of woman in the way of Dante and Petrarch and the
prophets of romantic love--and without thereby damning him it is
permissible to doubt this--he had long ceased to hold any such creed
or to deceive himself about them. Woman in the abstract was for him
the prize of life; he desired her not as a friend, but as the most
exquisite instrument of pleasure, beyond the music of flutes or the
advent of spring. In the _Decameron_, though we are not justified
in interpreting all the sentiments and opinions there expressed as
necessarily his own, the evidence is too strong to be put altogether
aside. He loves women and would pleasure them, but he is a sceptic
in regard to them; he treats them always with an easy, tolerant, and
familiar condescension, sometimes petulant, often ironical, always
exquisite in its pathos and humanity; but beneath all this--let us
confess it at once--there is a certain brutality that is perhaps
the complement to Petrarch's sentiment. "The Muses are ladies," he
says,[435] speaking in his own person--he had, as we have seen, been
accused of being too fond of them--"and albeit ladies are not the
peers of the Muses, yet they have their outward semblance, for which
cause, if for no other, it is reasonable that I should be fond of
them. Besides which ladies have been to me the occasion of composing
some thousand verses, but of never a verse that I made were the Muses
the occasion."
He loves women then, but he is not deluded by them--or rather, as
we should say, because he loves them he does not therefore respect
them also. He considers them as fair or unfair, or as he himself has
it,[436] "fair and fit for amorous dalliance" or "spotted lizards."
He does not believe in them or their virtue--their sexual virtue that
is--nor does he value it very highly.[437] It is a thing for priests
and nuns, and even there rare enough. But in the world----!
In one place in the _Decameron_[438] he speaks of the "insensate
folly of those who delude themselves ... with the vain imagination
that, while they go about the world, taking their pleasure now of
this, now of the other woman, their wives, left at home, suffer not
their hearts to stray from their girdles, as if we who are born of
them and live among them could be ignorant of the bent of their
desires." Moreover, he considers that "a woman who indulges herself
in the intimate use with a man commits but a sin of nature; but if
she rob him or slay him or drive him into exile, her sin proceeds
from depravity of spirit." Thus, as the story shows, to deny him the
satisfaction of his desire would be a greater sin than to accord it
to him.
Again, in another tale,[439] we see his insistence upon what
he considers--and not certainly without reason--as the reality
of things, to deny which would be not merely useless, but even
ridiculous. Certain "very great merchants of Italy, met in Paris,"
are "discussing their wives at home...."[440] "I cannot answer for
my wife," says one, "but I own that whenever a girl that is to my
mind comes in my way, I give the go-by to the love I bear my wife and
take my pleasure of the new-comer to the best of my power." "And so
do I," said another, "because I know that whether I suspect her or
no my wife tries her fortune, and so it is 'do as you are done by.'"
All agree save a Genoese, who stakes everything on his wife's virtue.
He proves right, his wife is virtuous; but the whole company is
incredulous, and when one of them tells him he is talking nonsense,
and that the general opinion of women's virtue "is only what common
sense dictates," he carries the whole company with him. He admits
that "doubtless few [women] would be found to indulge in casual
amours if every time they did so a horn grew out on the brow to
attest the fact; but not only does no horn make its appearance, but
not so much as a trace or vestige of a horn, so only they be prudent;
and the shame and dishonour consist only in the discovery; wherefore
if they can do it secretly they do it, or are fools to refrain. Hold
it for certain that she alone is chaste who either had never a suit
made to her, or suing herself was repulsed. And albeit I know that
for reasons true and founded in nature this must needs be, yet I
should not speak so positively thereof as I do had I not many a time
with many a woman verified it by experience."
It is not that in the _Decameron_ virtue is not often rewarded in
the orthodox way, but that such cases are not to the point; they are
as unreal, as merely poetical or fictional as they are to-day. But
where real life is dealt with--and in no other book of the fourteenth
century is there so much reality--the evidence is what we have seen.
It was not that woman as we see her there is basely vicious; but that
she is altogether without ideality, light-hearted and complacent,
easily yielding to caprice, to the allure of pleasure, to the first
solicitation that comes to her in a propitious hour, and this rather
because of a certain _gaminerie_, a lightness, an incorrigible
naughtiness, than because of a real depravity. Like all Italians--the
great exceptions only prove the rule--she is without a fundamental
moral sense. She sins lightly, easily, without regret, dazzled by
life, by the pleasure of life.
Such, then, was the attitude of Boccaccio towards woman at the
time when he was writing the _Decameron_, that is to say, from his
thirty-fifth to his fortieth year. And we may well ask whether he had
always thought as he did then, and if not, what had been the cause of
his disillusion and what was to be the result of it?
It is difficult to answer the first of these questions with any
certainty. And yet it might seem incredible that in his youth he
had already emancipated himself from an illusion--if illusion it
be--that seems proper to it in all ages, and that was so universal
in the Middle Age as to inform the greater part of its secular
literature--the illusion that woman was something to be worshipped,
something almost sacred, to be approached in great humility, with
gentleness and reverence.
In reading the early romances of Boccaccio, it must be confessed that
while his attitude towards woman is not so assured, nor so masterful
in its realism and humour as in the _Decameron_, it is nevertheless
much the same in character. In the _Filocolo_, as in the _Ameto_,
he thinks of her always as a prize, as something to be hunted or
cajoled, yes, like a barbarian; nor are his early works less sensual
than the _Decameron_. The physical reality is for him--and not only
in regard to woman--so much more than the spiritual.
Yet in spite of the general character of his work, we observe from
time to time, and more especially in the _Rime_, a certain idealism,
still eagerly physical, if you will, but none the less ideal on that
account, which centres in Fiammetta and his thoughts concerning her.
We have already traced that story from its beginning to its end,
we shall but return to it here to repeat that whatever we may come
to think of it, this at least is assured and certain: that it was
a genuine and sincere passion in which Boccaccio's whole being was
involved--inextricably involved--soul as well as body. To a nature
such as Boccaccio's, so lively and full of energy, that awakening,
so far as his physical nature was concerned, came not without
preparation--he had had other loves before he saw Fiammetta--but
spiritually it seems to have been in the nature of an unexpected
revelation. It made him a poet, as we have seen, and one cannot read
the _Rime_ without being convinced that something more was involved
in his love for his lady than the body.
It would seem, then, that we have here under our hands a history,
logical and inevitable, developed by the character of the man in
the circumstances which befell him. Like all the men of his day,
he was in love with love. Without the profound spiritual energy of
Dante, but with a physical vitality greater far than Petrarch's,
Boccaccio was inevitably in youth at the mercy of the lust of the
eye, following woman because she was beautiful and because he desired
her with all the fresh energy of his nature. He met Fiammetta and
loved her. And then, though his desire abated no jot, there was
added to it a certain idealism in which to some extent, sometimes
greater, sometimes less, the spirit was involved to his joy and his
sorrow. So, when Fiammetta forsook him, she wounded him not only in
his pride, but in his soul, a wound that might never altogether be
healed. That at least might seem certain, for had he loved her only
as he had loved the others, to forget her would have been easy; but
he could not forget.
Well, this wound, as we might say, grew angry and festered, poisoning
his whole being with its bitterness. Thus in the years which follow
his betrayal by Fiammetta we see him regarding woman now with a
furious bitterness and anger, as in the subtle cruelty of the
_Fiammetta_, now merely sensually as the instrument and means of the
pleasure of man--a flower to be plucked in the garden of life, worn a
little and thrown away e'er one grow weary of it.
But this phase, mixed of too bitter and too sweet, unhealthy too
and without the capacity of laughter, presently passed away before
the essential virility and energy of his nature. In the fullness
of his youth from thirty-three to forty, busy with important work,
engaged in responsible missions, the friend of great men of action as
well as of poets and scholars, almost all that bitterness and anger
passes away from him, and instead he assumes the pose we see in the
_Decameron_, to which all his knowledge of the world, his tolerance
of life, his sense of humour, and in some sort his sanity, must have
urged him. He has lost every illusion with regard to woman save that
she is able to give him pleasure. He may "call himself free" from
her, he says, and he shows her to us, well, as the realist sees her,
as she appears, that is, to the bodily eye, and as we find her in the
_Decameron_.
Let it be granted if you will that such an attitude as that of the
poets of romantic love was ridiculous, and that like all illusion and
untruth it entailed in some sort a denial of life and brought its
own penalty. But was Boccaccio's attitude really, fundamentally any
nearer the truth? And if not, must not it too be paid for? Assuredly.
Life will not be denied. If woman be nothing but the flesh, however
we may glorify her, she is but dust, and our mouth, eloquent with
her praises, full of ashes. So it was with Boccaccio. All his early
works, including the _Decameron_, had been written to please women.
In the _Corbaccio_ we see the reaction.
It seems that during the time he was writing the _Decameron_, towards
his forty-first year, he found himself taken by a very beautiful
woman, a widow, who pretended to encourage him, perhaps because of
his fame, provoked his advances, allured him to write to her, and
then laughing at this middle-aged and obese lover, gave his letters
to her young lover, who scattered them about Florence.
Boccaccio had already been hurt, as we have seen, by the criticisms
some had offered on his work.[441] This deception by the widow
exasperated him, his love for women turned to loathing, and he
now composed a sort of invective against them, which was called
the _Corbaccio_, though whether he so named it himself remains
unknown.[442] The story is as follows: A lover finds himself lost
in the forest of love, and is delivered by a spirit. The lover is
Boccaccio, the spirit is the husband of the widow who has returned
from hell, where his avarice and complaisance have brought him. In
setting Boccaccio in the right way, the spirit of the husband reveals
to him all the imperfections, artifices and defects, the hidden vices
and weaknesses of his wife with the same brutality and grossness
that Ovid had employed in his _Amoris Remedia_. "Had you seen her
first thing in the morning with her night-cap on, squatting before
the fire, coughing and spitting.... Ah, if I could tell you how many
different ways she had of dealing with that golden hair of hers, you
would be amazed. Why, she spent all her time treating it with herbs
and washing it with the blood of all sorts of animals. The house
was full of distillations, little furnaces, oil cups, retorts, and
such litter. There wasn't an apothecary in Florence or a gardener
in the environs who wasn't ordered to send her fluid silver or wild
weeds...."
Such was Boccaccio's revenge. But he was not content with this fierce
attack on the foolish woman who had deceived him; he involved the
whole sex in his contempt and ridicule. "Women," he says, "have
no other occupation but in making themselves appear beautiful and
in winning admiration; ... all are inconstant and light, willing and
unwilling in the same heart's beat, unless what they wish happens
to minister to their incorrigible vices. They only come into their
husband's house to upset everything, to spend his money, to quarrel
day and night with the servants or with his brothers and relations
and children. They make out that they are timid and fearful, so that
if they are in a lofty place they complain of vertigo, if in a boat
their delicate stomachs are upset, if we must journey by night they
fear to meet ghosts, if the wind rattles the window or they hear a
pebble fall they tremble with fright; while, as you know, if one
tries to do anything, to go anywhere without warning them, they are
utterly contrary. But God only knows how bold and how ready they are
in things to their taste. There is no place so difficult, precipices
among the mountains, the highest palace walls, or the darkest night,
that will stop them. Their sole thought, their only object, there one
ambition is to rob, to rule, and to deceive their husbands, and for
this end they will stoop to anything."[443]
The _Corbaccio_, however, was not the only work in which his
pessimism and hatred of woman showed itself. It is visible also in
the _Vita di Dante_, which was written about this time or a little
later than the _Corbaccio_,[444] perhaps in 1356-7. All goes well
till we come to Dante's marriage, when there follows a magnificent
piece of invective which, while it expresses admirably Boccaccio's
mood and helps us to date the book, has little or nothing to do with
Dante. Indeed, we seem to learn there, reading a little between
the lines, more of Boccaccio himself than of the husband of Gemma
Donati.
[Illustration: MONNA TESSA EXORCISING THE DEVIL. (DEC. VII, 1)
_A woodcut from the "Decameron." (Venice, 1525.)_]
[Illustration: MONNA TESSA EXORCISING THE DEVIL. (DEC. VII, 1)
_Appeared in Sansovino's "Le Cento Novelle." (Venice, 1571.) (By the
courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
"Oh, ye blind souls," he writes there,[445] "oh ye clouded
intellects, oh, ye vain purposes of so many mortals, how counter
to your intentions in full many a thing are the results that
follow;--and for the most part not without reason! What man would
take another who felt excessive heat in the sweet air of Italy to the
burning sands of Lybia to cool himself, or from the Isle of Cyprus to
the eternal shades of the Rhodopæan mountains to find warmth? What
physician would set about expelling acute fever by means of fire, or
a chill in the marrow of the bones with ice or with snow? Of a surety
not one; unless it be he who shall think to mitigate the tribulations
of love by giving one a bride. They who look to accomplish this thing
know not the nature of love, nor how it maketh every other passion
feed its own. In vain are succours or counsels brought up against
its might, if it have taken firm root in the heart of him who long
hath loved. Even as in the beginning every feeblest resistance is of
avail, so when it hath gathered head, even the stoutest are wont many
times to turn to hurt. But returning to our matter, and conceding for
the moment that there may (so far as that goes) be things which have
the power to make men forget the pains of love, what hath he done who
to draw out of one grievous thought hath plunged me into a thousand
greater and more grievous? Verily naught else save by addition of
that ill which he hath wrought me, to bring me into a longing for
return into that from which he hath drawn me. And this we see come
to pass to the most of those who in their blindness marry that they
may escape from sorrows, or are induced to marry by others who would
draw them hence; nor do they perceive that they have issued out of
one tangle into a thousand, until the event brings experience, but
without power to turn back howsoever they repent. His relatives and
friends gave Dante a wife that his tears for Beatrice might have an
end; but I know not whether for this (though the tears passed away,
or rather perhaps had already passed) the amorous flame departed;
yet I do not think it. But even granted that it were quenched, many
fresh burdens, yet more grievous, might take its place. He had been
wont, keeping vigil at his sacred studies, to discourse whensoever
he would with emperors, with kings, with all other most exalted
princes, to dispute with philosophers, to delight himself with most
pleasing poets and giving heed to the anguish of others to mitigate
his own.[446] Now he may be with these only so much as his new lady
chooses; and what seasons it is her will shall be withdrawn from so
illustrious companionship, he must bestow on female chatter, which,
if he will not increase his woes, he must not only endure but must
extol. He who was wont, when weary of the vulgar herd, to withdraw
into some solitary place, and there consider in his speculations what
spirit moveth the heaven, whence cometh life to the animals that are
on earth, what are the causes of things; or to rehearse some rare
invention, compose some poem which shall make him though dead yet
live by fame amongst the folk that are to come; must now not only
leave these sweet contemplations as often as the whim seizes his
new lady, but must submit to company that ill sorts with such like
things. He, who was wont to laugh, to weep, to sing, to sigh, at his
will, as sweet or bitter emotions pierced him, now dares it not; for
he must needs render an account to his lady, not only of greater
affairs, but of every little sigh, explaining what started it, whence
it came, and whither it tended; for she takes gladness as evidence of
love for another, and sadness as hatred of herself.
"Oh weariness beyond conception of having to live and hold
intercourse, and finally grow old and die with so suspicious an
animal! I choose not to say aught of the new and most grievous cares
which they who are not used to them must bear, and especially in our
city; I mean how to provide for clothes, ornaments, and rooms crammed
with superfluities that women make themselves believe are a support
to an elegant existence; how to provide for man and maid servants,
nurses and chambermaids ... I speak not of these ... but rather come
to certain things from which there is no escape.
"Who doubts that judgment will be passed by the general whether his
wife be fair or no? And if she be reputed fair, who doubts but she
will straightway have a crowd of lovers who will most pertinaciously
besiege her unstable mind, one with his good works and one with his
noble birth and one with marvellous flattery and one with gifts and
one with pleasant ways? And that which many desire shall scarce be
defended against every one; and women's chastity need only once be
overtaken to make them infamous and their husbands miserable in
perpetuity. But if, by misfortune of him who brings her home, she be
foul to look upon--well, it is plain to see that even of the fairest
women men often and quickly grow weary, and what are we then to think
of the others, save that not only they themselves, but every place
which they are like to be found of them who must have them for ever
with them, will be detested? And hence springs up their wrath; nor is
there any wild beast more cruel than an angry woman--no, nor so much.
Nor may any man live in safety of his life who hath committed him to
any woman who thinketh she hath good cause to be in wrath against
him. And they all think it.
"What shall I say of their ways? Would I show how greatly they
all run counter to the peace and repose of men, I must draw out
my discourse to an all too long harangue; and therefore let me be
content to speak of one common to almost all. They imagine that any
sorriest menial can keep his place in the house by behaving well,
but will be cast out for the contrary. Wherefore they hold that if
they themselves behave well theirs is no better than a servile lot;
for they only feel that they are ladies when they do ill, but come
not to the evil end that servants would.
"Why should I go on pointing out that which all the world knows? I
judge it better to hold my tongue, than by my speech to give offence
to lovely woman. Who doth not know that trial is first made by him
who should buy ere he take to himself any other thing save only his
wife--lest she should displease him or ever he have her home? Whoso
taketh her must needs have her not such as he would choose, but such
as fortune yieldeth her to him. And if these things above be true
(as he knoweth who hath tried) we may think what woes those chambers
hide, which from outside to whoso hath not eyes whose keenness can
pierce through walls, are reputed places of delight.
"Assuredly I do not affirm that these things chanced to Dante; for
I do not know it: though true it is that (whether such like things
or others were the cause) when once he had parted from her (who had
been given him as a consolation in his sufferings!) never would he go
where she was, nor suffered he her to come where he was, albeit he
was the father of several children by her. But let not any suppose
that from the things said above I would conclude that men ought
not to take to themselves wives. Contrariwise, I much commend it;
but not for every one. Let philosophers leave marrying to wealthy
fools, to noblemen and peasants; and let them take their delight with
philosophy, who is a far better bride than any other."
Such then was Boccaccio's mood, "his state of soul" in the years
between 1354 and 1357. Well might Petrarch discern in him "a troubled
spirit": "from many letters of yours," he writes from Milan on
December 20, 1355, "I have extracted one thing, that you have a
troubled spirit."
FOOTNOTES:
[428] See MANNI, _Istoria del Decamerone_ (Firenze, 1742), p. 144;
ANTONA TRAVERSI in LANDAU, _Gio. Boccaccio sua vita ed opere_
(Napoli, 1882), p. 523; KOERTING, _Boccaccio's Leben und Werke_
(Leipzig, 1880), pp. 244 and 673-4; and cf. SALVIATI, _Avvertimenti
della Lingua sopra il Decamerone_ (Venezia, 1584), Lib. II, cap. 12.
[429] I deal with the form of the _Decameron_ later. See _infra_, p.
292.
[430] The original MS. has disappeared. The oldest we now possess
seems to have been written in 1368 by Francesco Mannelli. The later
Hamilton MS., now in Berlin, is, however, the better of the two. Cf.
H. HAUVETTE, _Della parentela esistenta fra il MS. Berlinese del Dec.
e il codice Mannelli_ in _Giorn. St. d. Lett. It._ (1895), XXXI, p.
162 _et seq._
[431] FOSCOLO, _Discorso Storico sul testo del Decamerone ...
premesso all' edizione delle Cento Novelle fatta in Londra_ (Lugano,
1828), p. 9.
[432] Cf. _Decameron_, Proem, where he speaks of his love for
Fiammetta and the "discomfort," and "suffering" it brought him, "not
indeed by reason of the cruelty of the beloved lady, but through the
superabundant ardour engendered in the soul by ill-bridled desire;
the which, as it allowed me no reasonable period of quiescence,
frequently occasioned me inordinate distress."
[433] We know that Boccaccio had three children, two sons and a
daughter. We do not know by whom.
[434] So that when he wrote the Proem (? 1353) he still loved her.
[435] Conclusion to Day IV.
[436] Day II, Nov. 10.
[437] Closing words of Day II, Nov. 7.
[438] Day II, Nov. 10.
[439] Day II, Nov. 9.
[440] That mere fact should enlighten us, for we may well believe
such a subject of "jovial discourse" impossible to-day.
[441] Cf. Prologue to the Fourth Day: "Know then, my discreet ladies,
that some there are who reading these little stories have alleged
that I am too fond of you, and that 'tis not a seemly thing that I
should take so much pleasure in ministering to your gratification and
solace; and some have found fault with me for praising you as I do."
[442] See the interesting study of the _Corbaccio_ by HAUVETTE in
_Bulletin Italien_ (Bordeaux, 1901), Vol. I, No. I. Boccaccio says
in the _Corbaccio_: "E primieramente la tua età, per la quale,
se le tempie già bianche e la canuta barba non m' ingannano, tu
dovresti avere li costumi del mondo, fuor delle fasce già sono degli
anni quaranta e già venticinque, cominciatili a conoscere" (Ed.
Moutier, 183). Hauvette interprets this: "Grown out of swaddling
clothes as you are these forty years, you have known the world for
twenty-five...." The majority of critics agree that the _Corbaccio_
was written _ca._ 1355, in which year Boccaccio was forty-two years
old. Twenty-five years before brings us to 1330, or almost to the
dates on which he (1) deserted trade, and (2) first saw Fiammetta.
But in another place in the same book he suggests that the book
was written when the new year was about to begin: "l' anno ... è
tosto per entrar nuovo," so that we may refer this unfortunate
_contretemps_, and the writing of the _Corbaccio_ in consequence,
to December, 1355, i.e. February, 1356, new style, which brings us
almost exactly to March, 1331, the day of the meeting with Fiammetta.
As to the title of this book we know nothing. If it signifies the
Evil Raven and is derived from _corbo_, corvo, we cannot decide
whether it refers to the widow, or her husband, or to Boccaccio
himself. On the other hand, it may be derived from _corba_ (Latin,
corbis), a basket or trap, and this would be explicable. All we
know is that in by far the greater number of MSS., and these the
oldest, the work bears the title _Corbaccio_ or _Corbaccino_; but
whether this is owing to Boccaccio or not we cannot decide. The word
does not occur in the text. The copyists were certainly unaware
of its significance, and have always given it a sub-title, e.g.
_Corbaccio: libro del rimedio dello amore, ... detto il Corbaccio_,
or _Corbaccius sive contra sceleratam viduam et alias feminas
invectivæ_, or _Corbaccio nimico delle femmine_. The false title
_Laberinto d' amore_ does not occur till the sixteenth century. Cf.
HAUVETTE, _op. cit._, p. 3. n. 1.
[443] The sources of this amazing and amusing book are not far to
seek. In the _Divine Comedy_ it had been love which had let Dante
out of the _selva oscura_; here the _selva oscura_ is love and it
is reason or experience who delivers Boccaccio. Another source,
as PINELLI, _Corbaccio_ in _Propugnatore_, XVI (Bologna, 1883),
pp. 169-92, has shown, is found in Giovenale. "L' imitazione,"
says Pinelli, "del Boccaccio non è pedestre, ma artifiziosa come
quella che cogliendo sempre il solo punto capitale del pensiero, e
trascurando la particolarità meno interessanti, aggiunge di suo tante
inestimabili bellezze da rendere l' opera originale."
[444] We shall consider the _Vita di Dante_ later when we discuss
Boccaccio's whole relation to Dante. It is necessary perhaps to
decide here so far as we can the date at which it was written.
BALDELLI (_op. cit._, pp. 378-9) tells us that Buonmattei was of
opinion that Boccaccio wrote the _Vita di Dante_ while he was still
young. But Baldelli assures us that it must have been written after
the _Ameto_ and before the _Decameron_, as its style is more pure
and formed than the one and less so than the other. The _Decameron_
first saw the light in 1353; and so Baldelli tells us the _Vita_
was written in 1351. On such a question no foreigner has a right
to an opinion. But if I may break my own rule, I shall say that I
find myself in agreement with (among others) ANTONA TRAVERSI, in
his translation of Landau's life of Boccaccio (_Giovanni Boccaccio
sua vita_, etc. (Naples, 1882), p. 786, n. 3), when he says that no
really satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at on the evidence of a
prose style alone; for nothing is more fluid or more subject to mood,
and nothing, we might add, is more difficult to judge. Foscolo, with
whom Carducci finds himself in agreement, tells us that "Fra quante
opere abbiamo del Boccaccio la più luminosa di stile e di pensieri a
me pare la _Vita di Dante_." Cf. FOSCOLO, _Discorso storico sul testo
del Decameron_ (Lugano, 1828), p. 94. But we need not admit so much
to refute Baldelli. If the _Decameron_ was published in 1353, it
was certainly begun some years, four or five at least, before that.
It is generally supposed, and with much reason, to have been begun
in 1348-9. But Baldelli gives the _Vita_ to 1351. It follows then
that the work less pure in style than the _Decameron_ was written
two years after the _Decameron_ was begun. If we accept Baldelli's
evidence we must conclude that the _Vita_ was written before 1348.
It seems extremely unlikely, however, that the _Vita_ was written
before 1353, for its whole tone, serious, even religious, and its
extraordinary antipathy to marriage and contempt for women are
entirely out of keeping with the eager love and sensuality of the
_Ameto_ and the gaiety of the _Decameron_. It has, on the other hand,
much in common with the _Corbaccio_, which belongs to the years
1355 or 1356. With this conclusion Carducci--and no finer critic
ever lived--is in agreement. He agrees with FOSCOLO, _op. cit._,
p. 14, that the _Corbaccio_ and the _Vita di Dante_ were composed
about the same time. To establish the very year in which Boccaccio
wrote the _Vita_ seems to me impossible. But I think it may be
possible to prove that it was begun after the _Corbaccio_, though
not long after, let us say in 1356-7, and finished some years later;
according to MACRI LEONE (_La Vita di Dante_, Firenze, 1888), in
1363-4. We see in the _Vita_ almost the same attitude towards women
that we have already found in the _Corbaccio_, but less fiercely
bitter, more reasoned, and less personal. But the immediate cause of
Boccaccio's change from an eager and self-flattering love of women
to a hatred for and contempt of them was his deception by the widow
of the _Corbaccio_. We may psychologically have been certain of
this hatred from the first, for it is in fact a logical development
from his attitude to woman from his youth on; but the immediate and
provocative cause of the change was the perfidy of the widow. It
therefore seems to me that we must necessarily see in the _Vita_ a
later work than the _Corbaccio_, though not so much later. Doubtless
he had been gathering facts all his life, and only in 1356-7 began to
put them in order. That it was so seems probable from the fact that
the invective against marriage is altogether an interpolation and has
almost nothing to do with Dante; it is in fact largely a quotation
from a quotation of Jerome's.
[445] I use the translation of Mr. P. H. WICKSTEED, _The Early Lives
of Dante_ (Chatto and Windus, 1907).
[446] Cf. MACHIAVELLI, _Lettere_, Lettera di Dec. 10.