When he learnt about the circumstances of her arrival in the city, he saw no reason why he should not be able to have her. And indeed, once the wounded man’s relatives discovered that the Prince was putting out inquiries, they promptly sent her off to him without asking any questions. The Prince was highly delighted, but so also was the lady, who considered that she had now escaped from a most dangerous situation. On finding that she was endowed with stately manners as well as beauty, the Prince calculated, since he could obtain no other clue to her identity, that she must be a woman of gentle birth, and his love for her was accordingly redoubled. And not only did he keep her in splendid style, but he treated her as though she were his wife rather than his mistress.
On comparing her present circumstances with the awful experiences through which she had passed, the lady considered herself very fortunately placed. Now that she was contented and completely recovered, her beauty flourished to such a degree that the whole of the eastern empire seemed to talk of nothing else. And so it was that the Duke of Athens,9 a handsome, powerfully proportioned youth who was a friend and relative of the Prince, was smitten with a desire to see her, and under the pretext of paying the Prince one of his customary visits, he came with a splendid and noble retinue to Corinth, where he was received with honour amid great rejoicing.
A few days later, the two men fell to conversing about this woman’s beauty, and the Duke asked whether she was so marvellous an object as people claimed.
‘Far more so,’ replied the Prince. ‘But instead of accepting my word for it, I would rather that you judged with your own eyes.’
Thereupon the Prince invited the Duke to follow him, and they made their way to the lady’s apartments. Having been warned of their approach, she received them with great civility, her face radiant with happiness. She seated herself between the two men, but the pleasure of conversing with her was denied them because she understood little or nothing of their language. And so each man stared in fascination upon her, in particular the Duke, who could scarcely believe that she was a creature of this earth. Little realizing, as he gazed at her, that he was imbibing the poison of love through the medium of his eyes, and fondly believing that he could satisfy his pleasure merely by looking at her, he was completely bowled over by her beauty and fell violently in love with her.
When he and the Prince had taken their leave of her, and he had an opportunity to indulge in a little quiet reflection, he came to the conclusion that the Prince must be the happiest man on earth, in possessing so beautiful a plaything. Many and varied were the thoughts that passed through his mind until eventually, his blazing passion gaining the upper hand over his sense of honour, he decided that whatever the consequences, he would remove this pleasure-giving object from the Prince and do all in his power to make it serve his own happiness.
Being determined to move swiftly, he thrust aside all regard for reason and fair play, and concentrated solely on cunning. And one day, in the furtherance of his evil designs, he made arrangements with one of the Prince’s most trusted servants, Ciuriaci by name, to have all his horses and luggage placed secretly in readiness for a sudden departure. During the night, he and a companion, both fully armed, were silently admitted by the aforesaid Ciuriaci into the Prince’s bedroom. It was a very hot night, and although the woman was asleep, the Prince was standing completely naked at a window overlooking the sea, taking advantage of a breeze that was blowing from that quarter. The Duke, having told his companion beforehand what he had to do, stole quietly across the room as far as the window, drove a dagger into the Prince’s back with so much force that it passed right through his body, and catching him quickly in his arms he hurled him out of the window.
Now the palace stood very high above sea-level, and the window at which the Prince had been standing overlooked a cluster of houses that had been laid in ruins by the violence of the sea. It was but rarely, if ever, that anybody went there, and consequently, as the Duke had already foreseen, no one’s attention was attracted by the body of the Prince as it fell.
On seeing this deed accomplished, the Duke’s companion quickly produced a noose that he had brought along for the purpose, and pretending to embrace Ciuriaci, he threw it round his neck, and drew it tight so that Ciuriaci could not make any noise. He was then joined by the Duke, and they strangled the man before hurling him out to join his master. This done, they satisfied themselves that neither the lady nor anybody else had heard them, and then the Duke picked up a lantern, carried it over to the bed, and silently uncovered the woman, who was sleeping soundly. Having exposed her whole body, he gazed upon her in rapt fascination, and although he had admired her when she was clothed, now that she was naked his admiration was greater beyond all comparison. The flames of his desire burned correspondingly fiercer, and, unperturbed by the crime he had just committed, he lay down at her side, his hands still dripping with blood, and made love to the woman, who was half-asleep and believed him to be the Prince.
Eventually, after spending some time with her, he rose giddily to his feet and summoned a few of his men, whom he commanded to hold the lady in such a way that she could not make any noise. Then he conducted her through the secret door by way of which he had entered, and, having settled her on horseback with a minimum of noise, he set out with all his men in the direction of Athens. Since he was already married, however, it was not in Athens itself that he deposited this unhappiest of women, but at a very beautiful palace of his, not far from the city, overlooking the sea. Here he established her in secluded splendour, and saw that she was provided with everything she needed.
On the following day, the Prince’s courtiers had waited until the late afternoon for their master to rise from his bed. But when they still heard no sound, they pushed open his bedroom doors, which were not locked, and found the room deserted. They thereupon assumed that he had gone away somewhere in secret in order to spend a few days in the delightful company of this fair mistress of his, and they gave no further thought to the matter.
It was thus that matters stood, when on the very next day a local idiot, who had strayed into the ruins where the bothes of the Prince and Ciuriaci were lying, dragged Ciuriaci forth by the rope round his neck and started pulling him through the streets. On recognizing who it was, the people were greatly astonished, and talked the idiot into leading them to the place from which he had dragged the body, where, to the enormous grief of the whole city, they also found the body of the Prince. After burying him with full honours, they took steps to discover who was responsible for this unspeakable crime, and on finding that the Duke of Athens had departed secretly and was nowhere to be found, they rightly concluded that he must be the culprit and that he must have carried off the lady as well. So that, having hastily elected their dead ruler’s brother as their new prince, they urged him with all the eloquence at their command to take his revenge. And when further evidence came to light, proving that their suspicions were correct, the Prince summoned friends, kinsfolk and servants from various places to come to his support and he quickly assembled a huge and powerful army, with which he set out to make war on the Duke of Athens.
When the Duke received word of the operations, he too mobilized all his armed forces for his defence, and many powerful outsiders came to his assistance, including two who were sent by the Emperor of Constantinople, namely his son, Constant, and his nephew, Manuel. These latter, arriving at the head of large and well-drilled contingents, received a warm welcome from the Duke. But the welcome they received from the Duchess was even warmer, because she was Constant’s sister.
With the prospect of war becoming daily more imminent, the Duchess chose a convenient moment to invite the two men to her room, where, talking without stopping amid floods of tears, she told them the whole story, explaining the reasons for the war and exposing the wrong practised upon her by the Duke on account of this woman, of whose existence he imagined her to be ignorant. Bewailing her lot in no uncertain terms, she begged them, for the sake of the
Duke’s honour and her own happiness, to take whatever measures they could devise for setting matters to rights.
The young men were already fully informed about the whole business, and so without asking too many questions they consoled her to the best of their ability and gave her every ground for optimism. Then, having discovered from the Duchess where the lady was staying, they took their leave of her. Since they had often heard glowing accounts of this woman’s marvellous beauty, they were naturally anxious to see her, and they therefore asked the Duke if he would introduce her to them. The Duke agreed to do so, forgetting the fate which had befallen the Prince after granting a similar favour. And the following morning, having ordered a magnificent banquet to be prepared in a beautiful garden on the estate where the lady was living, he took the two men and a handful of other friends to dine with her.
On sitting down in her company, Constant began to stare at her in blank amazement, vowing to himself that he had never seen anything so beautiful, and that no one could possibly reproach the Duke, or anybody else, for resorting to treachery and other dishonest means in order to gain possession of so fair an object. Moreover, his admiration increased with every look he cast in her direction, so that eventually the same thing happened to him as had previously happened to the Duke. And when the time came for him to leave, he was so much in love with her that he dismissed the war completely from his mind and concentrated his thoughts on planning a way of abducting her, at the same time taking good care not to reveal his love to anyone.
But whilst he was struggling with his passion, the time arrived for marching against the Prince, who by now had almost reached the Duke’s territories. Accordingly, at a given signal, the Duke set out from Athens with Constant and all the others, and they took up combat positions along certain stretches of the frontier so as to halt the Prince’s advance. Constant’s thoughts and sentiments continued to focus on the woman, and now that the Duke was no longer near her, he fancied that he had an excellent opportunity for obtaining what he wanted. And so a few days after their arrival at the frontier, he pretended to be seriously ill so that he would have a pretext for returning to Athens. He then handed over all his powers to Manuel, and with the Duke’s permission he returned to Athens to stay with his sister. A few days later, having steered the conversation round to the sense of injury under which she was labouring on account of the Duke’s mistress, he told her that if she so desired he could be of considerable assistance to her in this affair, in that he could have the woman removed from where she was staying and taken elsewhere.
Thinking that Constant was motivated by brotherly love and not by his love for the woman, the Duchess said that she would be only too pleased, provided it could be carried out in such a way that the Duke never discovered that she had given her consent to the scheme. Constant reassured her completely on this point, and accordingly the Duchess gave him permission to proceed in whatever way he considered best.
The first thing he did was to fit out a fast boat in secret, which one evening, having informed his men on board what they were to do, he sent to a spot near the garden of the place where the lady was living. Then he went there with another group of his men, to be amicably received by her retainers as well as by the lady herself, who, at her visitor’s suggestion, accompanied Constant and his companions into the garden, whilst her servants trailed along behind. As though he wished to impart some message from the Duke, he then led her off alone in the direction of a gate, overlooking the sea, which had already been unlocked by one of his accomplices. At a given signal, the boat nosed her way inshore, and having had the lady seized and bundled quickly aboard, he turned to her servants, saying:
‘Unless you want to be killed, don’t move or make any sound. It is not my intention to steal the Duke’s mistress, but to remove the injury he does to my sister.’
Since nobody dared offer any reply, Constant embarked with his men, settled himself next to the lady, who was crying, and ordered them to cast off and start rowing. And they plied their oars to such good effect that just before dawn on the following day they arrived at Aegina.10
Going ashore there in order to rest, Constant amused himself in the company of the lady, who was bitterly bewailing her ill-starred beauty. Then they boarded the ship once again, and a few days later they arrived at Chios,11 where Constant decided to remain, for he thought he would be safe there from his father’s strictures and from the possibility of having to surrender the stolen woman. For several days, the fair lady bemoaned her misfortune. Eventually, however, she responded to Constant’s efforts at consoling her, and began, as on previous occasions, to derive pleasure from the fate to which Fortune had consigned her.
And this was how matters stood when Uzbek,12 who was at that time the King of the Turks and who was constantly at war with the Emperor, happened to pass through Smyrna, where he learned that Constant was leading a dissolute life on Chios with some stolen mistress of his, leaving himself wide open to attack. Arriving by night with a squadron of light warships, Uzbek quietly entered the town with his men, took numerous people captive from their beds before they were aware of their enemies’ arrival, and slaughtered those who had woken up in time to seize their arms. The invaders then set the whole town on fire, and having loaded their booty and prisoners on to the ships, they returned to Smyrna.
On reviewing the spoils of the expedition immediately after their return, Uzbek, who was a young man, was delighted to discover the fair lady, whom he recognized as the one who had been taken, along with Constant, as she was lying asleep in her bed. So he promptly married her, and after celebrating the nuptials he happily devoted himself, for the next few months, to the pleasures of the marriage-bed.
Now, during the period immediately preceding these happenings, the Emperor had been negotiating a pact with the King of Cappadocia, Basano,13 whereby the latter was to descend with his forces on Uzbek from one direction whilst the Emperor attacked him with his own troops from the other. He had not yet been able to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion, however, because of his unwillingness to concede some of the more outrageous of Basano’s demands. But on hearing what had happened to his son, he was so incensed that he immediately agreed to the King of Cappadocia’s terms, and urged him to attack Uzbek as soon as he possibly could, meanwhile making his own preparations for marching against him from the opposite direction.
When he heard about this, rather than allow himself to be sandwiched between two mighty rulers, Uzbek assembled his army and marched against the King of Cappadocia, leaving his fair lady at Smyrna under the close supervision of a faithful retainer and friend. Some time later, he confronted and engaged the King of Cappadocia, and in the ensuing battle he was killed, whilst his army was defeated and put to flight. Flushed with victory, Basano began to advance unopposed on Smyrna, and all the people on his route did homage to him as their conqueror.
Meanwhile, the retainer in whose care Uzbek had left his fair lady, Antioco by name, had been so overwhelmed by her beauty that he had betrayed the trust of his friend and master, and although he was getting on in years, he had fallen in love with her. He was familiar with her language, and this pleased her immensely because for several years she had been more or less forced to lead the life of a deaf-mute as she could neither understand what anybody was saying nor make herself understood. With love spurring him on, Antioco began in the first few days to take so many liberties with her that before long they ceased to care about their lord and master who had gone off soldiering to the wars, and not only did they become good friends, they also became lovers. And as they lay between the sheets, they had a very happy time of it together.
But when they heard that Uzbek had been defeated and killed, and that Basano was on his way there, carrying all before him, they decided with one accord not to await his arrival. Taking with them a substantial quantity of Uzbek’s most valuable possessions, they fled together in secret and came to Rhodes. But they had not been living there for very long when An
tioco became mortally ill. With him at the time there happened to be staying a Cypriot merchant, a bosom friend of his whom he loved dearly, and realizing that his life was drawing to its close, he decided to bequeath his property to him, along with his beloved mistress. And so, shortly before he died, he summoned them both to his bedside, and said:
‘I see quite plainly that my strength is failing, which saddens me greatly because life has never been sweeter to me than of late. There is one thing, however, that reconciles me to my fate, for I shall find myself dying – if die I must – in the arms of the two people I love best in the whole world: yours, my dear dear friend, and those of this woman whom I have loved more deeply than I love myself, from the earliest days of our acquaintance. All the same, it worries me to think that when I am gone, she might be left here alone in a strange place, with nobody to turn to for help or advice. And I should be all the more worried if it were not for the knowledge of your own presence, for I believe that you will cherish her, for my sake, as tenderly as you would cherish me. In the event of my death, therefore, I commit her and all my property to your charge, and with all my power I entreat you to handle them both in whatever way you think most likely to console my immortal spirit. And I beseech you, dear sweet lady, not to forget me when I am dead, so that in the next world I can claim to be loved in this world by the fairest woman ever fashioned by Nature. Promise me faithfully that you will carry out these two requests of mine, and I shall undoubtedly die contented.’
Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 33