Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  When the entire populace was assembled in front of the church, Friar Cipolla began to preach his sermon, never suspecting for a moment that any of his things had been tampered with. He harangued his audience at great length, carefully stressing what was required of them, and on reaching the point where he was to display the Angel Gabriel’s feather, he first recited the Confiteor11 and caused two torches to be lit; then, throwing back the cowl from his head, he carefully unwound the taffeta and drew forth the casket, which, after a few words in praise and commendation of the Angel Gabriel and his relic, he proceeded to open. When he saw that it was full of coal, Guccio Balena was the last person he suspected of playing him such a trick, for he knew him to be incapable of rising to such heights of ingenuity. Nor did he even blame the man for being so careless as to allow others to do it, but inwardly cursed his own stupidity in entrusting his things to Guccio’s care, knowing full well, as he did, that he was negligent, disobedient, careless and witless. Without changing colour in the slightest, however, he raised his eyes and hands to Heaven, and in a voice that could be heard by all the people present, he exclaimed:

  ‘Almighty God, may Thy power be forever praised!’

  Then, closing the casket and turning to the people, he said:

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I must explain to you that when I was still very young, I was sent by my superior into those parts where the sun appears,12 with express instructions to seek out the privileges of the Porcellana,13 which, though they cost nothing to seal and deliver, bring far more profit to others than to ourselves.

  ‘So away I went, and after setting out from Venison, I visited the Greek Calends, then rode at a brisk pace through the Kingdom of Algebra and through Bordello, eventually reaching Bedlam, and not long afterwards, almost dying of thirst, I arrived in Sardintinia. But why bother to mention every single country to which I was directed by my questing spirit? After crossing the Straits of Penury, I found myself passing through Funland and Laughland, both of which countries are thickly populated, besides containing a lot of people. Then I went on to Liarland, where I found a large number of friars belonging to various religious orders including my own, all of whom were forsaking a life of discomfort for the love of God, and paying little heed to the exertions of others so long as they led to their own profit. In all these countries, I coined a great many phrases, which turned out to be the only currency I needed.

  ‘Next I came to the land of Abruzzi,14 where all the men and women go climbing the hills in clogs, and clothe pigs in their own entrails;15 and a little further on I found people carrying bread on staves, and wine in pouches, after which I arrived at the mountains of the Basques, where all the waters flow downwards.

  ‘In short, my travels took me so far afield that I even went to Parsnipindia,16 where I swear by this habit I am wearing that I saw the feathers flying – an incredible spectacle for anyone who has never witnessed it. And if any of you should doubt my words, Maso del Saggio17 will bear me out on this point, for he has set up a thriving business in that part of the world, cracking nuts and selling the shells retail.

  ‘But being unable to find what I was seeking, or to proceed any further except by water, I retraced my steps and came at length to the Holy Land, where in summertime the cold bread costs fourpence a loaf, and the hot is to be had for nothing. There I met the Reverend Father Besokindas Tocursemenot,18 the most worshipful Patriarch of Jerusalem, who, out of deference to the habit of the Lord Saint Anthony, which I have always worn, desired that I should see all the holy relics19 he had about him. These were so numerous, that if I were to give you a complete list, I would go on for miles without reaching the end of it. But so as not to disappoint the ladies, I shall mention just a few of them.

  ‘First of all he showed me the finger of the Holy Ghost, as straight and firm as it ever was; then the forelock of the Seraph that appeared to Saint Francis; and a cherub’s fingernail; and one of the side-bits of the Word-made-flash-in-the-pan; and an article or two of the Holy Catholic faith; and a few of the rays from the star that appeared to the three Magi in the East; and a phial of Saint Michael’s sweat when he fought with the Devil; and the jawbone of Death visiting Saint Lazarus; and countless other things.

  ‘And because I was able to place freely at his disposal certain portions of the Rumpiadin the vernacular, together with several extracts from Capretius,20 which he had long been anxious to acquire, he gave me a part-share in his holy relics, presenting me with one of the holes from the Holy Cross, and a small phial containing some of the sound from the bells of Solomon’s temple, and the feather of the Angel Gabriel that I was telling you about, and one of Saint Gherardo da Villamagna’s sandals,21 which not long ago in Florence I handed on to Gherardo di Bonsi, who holds him in the deepest veneration; and finally, he gave me some of the coals over which the blessed martyr Saint Lawrence was roasted. All these things I devoutly brought away with me, and I have them to this day.

  ‘True, my superior has never previously allowed me to exhibit them, until such time as their authenticity was established. However, by virtue of certain miracles they have wrought, and on account of some letters he has received from the Patriarch, he has now become convinced that they are genuine, and has granted me permission to display them in public. But I am afraid to entrust them to others, and I always take them with me wherever I go.

  ‘Now, the fact is that I keep the feather of the Angel Gabriel in a casket to prevent it being damaged, and in another casket I keep the coals over which Saint Lawrence was roasted. But the two caskets are so alike that I often pick up the wrong one, which is what has happened today; for whereas I intended to bring along the one containing the feather, I have brought the one with the coals. Nor do I consider this a pure accident; on the contrary I am convinced that it was the will of God, and that it was He who put the casket of coals into my hands, for I have just remembered that the day after tomorrow is the Feast of Saint Lawrence.22 And since it was God’s intention that I should show you the coals over which he was roasted, and thus rekindle the devotion which you should all feel towards Saint Lawrence in your hearts, He arranged that I should take up, not the feather which I had meant to show you, but the blessed coals that were extinguished by the humours of that most sacred body. You will therefore bare your heads, my blessed children, and step up here in order to gaze devoutly upon them.

  ‘But before you do so, I must tell you that all those who are marked with the sign of the cross by these coals may rest assured that for a whole year they will never be touched by fire without getting burnt.’23

  And so saying, he chanted a hymn in praise of Saint Lawrence, opened up the casket, and displayed the coals. For some little time, the foolish multitude gazed open-mouthed upon them in awe and wonderment, then they all pressed forward in a great throng round Friar Cipolla, and, giving him larger offerings than usual, they begged him one and all to touch them with the coals.

  So Friar Cipolla took the coals between his fingers and began to scrawl the biggest crosses he could manage to inscribe on their white smocks and on their doublets and on the shawls of the women, declaring that however much the coals were worn down in making these crosses, they recovered their former shape when restored to the casket, as he had often had occasion to observe.

  At considerable profit to himself, therefore, having daubed crosses on all the citizens of Certaldo, Friar Cipolla neatly turned the tables on the people who had sought to make a fool of him by taking away his feather. Having attended his sermon and observed the ingenious manner in which he had turned the situation to his advantage with his preposterous rigmarole, the two young men laughed until they thought their sides would split. And when the crowd had dispersed, they went up to him, shaking with mirth, and told him what they had done, at the same time handing back the feather, which proved the following year to be no less lucrative to him than the coals had been on this occasion.

  * * *

  The whole company was vastly pleased and entertained by
Dioneo’s tale, and they all laughed heartily over Friar Cipolla, especially at his pilgrimage and at the relics, both the ones he had seen and those he had brought back with him. On perceiving that it was finished, and that her reign, too, had come to an end, the queen stood up, and removing her crown, she placed it on Dioneo’s head, saying with a laugh:

  ‘The time has come, Dioneo, for you to discover what a burden it is to have ladies under your control and guidance. Be our king, therefore, and rule us wisely, so that when your reign is ended, we shall have cause to sing your praises.’

  Dioneo accepted the crown, and replied, laughing:

  ‘I daresay you have often seen kings whose worth is far greater than mine – on a chessboard, I mean. But without a doubt, if you were to obey me as a true king ought to be obeyed, I should see that you received a measure of that joy without which no entertainment is ever truly pleasurable and complete. But enough of this idle chatter. I shall rule as best I can.’

  And having, in accordance with their usual practice, sent for the steward, he gave him clear instructions about the duties he was to perform during the remainder of his sovereignty, after which he said:

  ‘Worthy ladies, our discussions have ranged so widely over the field of human endeavour, and touched upon such a variety of incidents, that if Mistress Licisca had not come here a short while ago and said something which offered me a subject for our deliberations on the morrow, I suspect I should have had a hard job to find a suitable theme. As you will have heard, she told us that none of the girls in her neighbourhood had gone to her husband a virgin; and she added that she knew all about the many clever tricks played by married women on their husbands. But leaving aside the first part, which even a child could have told you, I reckon that the second would make an agreeable subject for discussion; and hence, taking our cue from Mistress Licisca, I should like us to talk tomorrow about the tricks which, either in the cause of love or for motives of self-preservation, women have played upon their husbands, irrespective of whether or not they were found out.’

  Some of the ladies felt that it would be unseemly for them to discuss a subject of this sort, and asked him to propose another, but the king replied:

  ‘Ladies, I know as well as you do that the theme I have prescribed is a delicate one to handle; but I am not to be deterred by your objections, for I believe that the times we live in permit all subjects to be freely discussed, provided that men and women take care to do no wrong. Are you not aware that because of the chaos of the present age, the judges have deserted the courts, the laws of God and man are in abeyance, and everyone is given ample licence to preserve his life as best he may? This being so, if you go slightly beyond the bounds of decorum in your conversation, with the object, not of behaving improperly but of giving pleasure to yourselves and to others, I do not see how anyone in the future can have cause to condemn you for it.

  ‘Besides, it seems to me that this company of ours has comported itself impeccably from the first day to this, despite all that we have heard, and with God’s help it will continue to do so. Furthermore, everybody knows that you are all highly virtuous, and I doubt whether even the fear of dying could make you any less so, to say nothing of a little pleasurable discourse.

  ‘But the real point is this, that if anyone were to discover that you had refrained at any time from discussing these little peccadilloes, he might well suspect that you had a guilty conscience1 about them, and that this was why you were so reluctant to talk about them. Apart from which, you would be paying me a nice compliment if, having elected me as your king and law-giver, you were to refuse to speak on the subject I prescribe, especially when you consider how obedient I was to all of you. Set aside these scruples, then, which ill become such healthy minds as your own, and let each of you put her best foot forward and think of some entertaining story to relate.’

  Having listened to Dioneo’s arguments, the ladies agreed to fall in with his scheme, whereupon he gave permission to them all to occupy their time until supper in whatever way they pleased.

  The sun was still very high, for the day’s discussions had been relatively brief, and so Elissa, seeing that Dioneo had started a game of dice with the other young men, drew all the ladies aside, and said:

  ‘Ever since we came here, I have been wanting to take you to a place where none of you, so far as I know, has ever been, called the Valley of the Ladies.2 It is not far away from here, but this is the first opportunity I have had (the sun being still very high) of taking you to see it. So if you would all like to come, I am quite sure that once you are there you will not be in the least disappointed.’

  The ladies agreed to go with her, and without saying anything to the young men, they sent for one of their maidservants, and set out; nor had they gone much more than a mile, when they came to the Valley of the Ladies. This they entered by way of a very narrow path, along one side of which there flowed a beautifully clear stream, and they found it to be as delectable and lovely a place, especially since the weather was so hot, as could possibly be imagined. And according to the description I was given later by one of their number, the floor of the valley was perfectly circular in shape, for all the world as if it had been made with compasses, though it seemed the work of Nature rather than of man. It was little more than half a mile in circumference, and surrounded by half-a-dozen hills, all comparatively low-lying, on each of whose summits one could discern a palace, built more or less in the form of a pretty little castle. The sides of the hills ranged downwards in a regular series of terraces, concentrically arranged like the tiers of an amphitheatre, their circles gradually diminishing in size from the topmost terrace to the lowest.

  Of these slopes, the ones facing south were covered all over in vines, olives, almonds, cherries, figs, and many other species of fruit trees, whilst those which faced north were thickly wooded with young oaks, ashes, and various other trees, all as green and straight as you could imagine. The plain itself, to which there was no other means of access than the path by which the ladies had entered, was filled with firs, cypresses, bay-trees, and a number of pines, all of which were so neatly arranged and symmetrically disposed that they looked as if they had been planted by the finest practitioner of the forester’s craft. And when the sun was overhead, few or none of its rays penetrated their foliage to the ground beneath, which was one continuous lawn of tiny blades of grass interspersed with flowers, many of them purple in colour.

  But the thing that afforded them no less pleasure was a stream cascading down over the living rock of a gorge separating two of the surrounding hills, which produced a most delectable sound as it descended and looked from a distance as though it was issuing forth under pressure in a powdery spray of fine quicksilver. On reaching the floor of the valley, it flowed swiftly along a neat little channel to the centre of the plain, where it formed a tiny lake like one of those fishponds that prosperous townspeople occasionally construct in their gardens. The lake was not very deep, so that if a man were to stand in it, the water would have come up no further than his chest; and since it was free of all impurities, its bed showed up vividly as a stretch of very fine gravel, every fragment of which could have been counted by anyone with sufficient patience and nothing better to do. But apart from the bed of the lake, on looking into the water one could see a number of fishes darting in all directions, which were not only delightful but wondrous to behold. The lake had no other banks than the floor of the valley itself, and all around its edges the grass grew much more thickly through being so close to the water. And it was drained by a second little channel, through which the stream flowed out of the valley and so downwards to its lower reaches.

  This, then, was the place to which the young ladies came; and after they had gazed all around and extolled its marvellous beauty, seeing the limpid pool shimmering there before them they made up their minds, since it was very hot and they were in no danger of being observed, to go for a swim. And having ordered their maid to go back and keep watch along the
path by which they had entered the valley, and bring them warning if anyone should come, all seven of them undressed and took to the water, which concealed their chaste white bodies no better than a thin sheet of glass would conceal a pink rose. And when they were in the water, which remained as crystal-clear as before, they began as best they could to swim hither and thither in pursuit of the fishes, which had nowhere to hide, and tried to seize hold of them with their hands.

  In this sport they persisted for a while, and after they had caught some of the fish, they emerged from the pool and put on their clothes again. And being unable to bestow higher praise upon the place than that which they had already accorded to it, feeling that it was time to make their way back again, they set forth at a gentle pace, talking all the while of its beauty. It was as yet quite early when they arrived at the palace, where they found the young men still playing dice in the place where they had left them, and Pampinea greeted them with a laugh, saying:

  ‘We have stolen a march upon you today.’

  ‘What?’ said Dioneo. ‘Do you mean to say you have begun to do these things even before you talk about them?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said Pampinea. And she gave him a lengthy description of the place from which they had come, telling him how far away it was, and what they had been doing there.

  On hearing her account of the place’s beauty, the king was anxious to see it for himself, and he straightway ordered supper to be served. This they all proceeded to eat with a great deal of relish, and when it was over, the three young men and their servants deserted the ladies and made their way to the Valley. None of them had been there before, and all things considered, they concluded admiringly that it was one of the loveliest sights in the world. And when they had bathed and dressed, since the hour was very late they went straight back home, where they found the ladies dancing a carole3 to an air being sung by Fiammetta. They joined them in the dance, and when it was finished, having taken up the subject of the Valley of the Ladies, they talked at length in praise of its beauty.