Being thus goaded, tormented, and pierced to the very quick by the incalculable heat, the rays of the sun, the flies and gadflies, her hunger and above all her thirst, as well as by a thousand agonizing thoughts, she stood up straight and looked about her in the hope of seeing or hearing someone who could be summoned to her assistance, being by now prepared to do anything, come what may, to effect her release.
But here too she was dogged by ill luck. The peasants had all deserted the fields on account of the heat, and in any case nobody had been working near the tower that morning because they were staying at home to thresh the corn. So all she heard was the sound of cicadas, and the only moving thing in sight was the Arno, whose inviting waters did nothing to lessen her thirst, but only made it worse. And scattered about the countryside she could see houses and woods and shaded places, all of which played no less cruelly upon her desires.
What more are we to say of this hapless widow? What with the sun beating down from above, the torrid heat of the floor beneath her feet, and the flies and gadflies piercing her flesh all over, she was in such a sorry state that her body, whose whiteness had dispelled the shades of night just a few hours before, had now turned red as madder, and being liberally flecked with blood, it would have seemed, to anyone who saw it, the ugliest thing in the world.
There, then, she remained, bereft of all counsel and all hope, expecting rather to die than survive, until late in the afternoon, when the scholar, having risen from his siesta, returned to the tower to see how his lady was faring, and told his servant, who had not yet eaten, to go and procure himself a meal. On hearing him talking to the servant, the lady painfully dragged her weak, tormented body to the aperture, where she sat down, burst into tears, and said:
‘Surely your revenge has exceeded all the bounds of reason, Rinieri. For whereas I made you freeze by night in my courtyard, you have roasted me on this tower by day, or rather burnt me to a cinder, and caused me to die of hunger and thirst in the process. I therefore beg you in God’s name to come up here, and, since I do not have the courage to take my own life, to kill me yourself, for death is the one thing I desire above all else, such is the torture I am suffering. But if you are unwilling to concede me this favour, let me at least have a beaker of water so that I may moisten my mouth, which is so parched and dry that my tears will not suffice to bathe it.’
From the sound of her voice, the scholar realized all too plainly that her strength was failing. Furthermore, from that part of her body which was visible to him, he could see that she must be burnt by the sun from head to toe. All of which, together with the humble tone of her entreaties, caused him to feel a modicum of pity for her; but nevertheless he replied:
‘Vile strumpet that you are, you shall not perish by these hands of mine, but by your own, if you really want to the. You will have as much water from me to relieve you from the heat, as you gave me fire to restore me from the cold. My one great regret is that the illness I suffered on account of the cold had to be treated with the warmth of stinking dung, whereas your own injuries, occasioned by the heat, can be treated with fragrant rose-water. And whereas I practically lost my life as well as the use of my limbs, you will merely be flayed by this heat, and emerge with your beauty unimpaired, like a snake that has sloughed off its skin.’
‘Ah! woe is me,’ cried the lady. ‘I pray to God that only my worst enemies should acquire beauty by such means as this! But how could you be so cruel as to torture me in this fashion? What greater punishment could you or anyone else have inflicted upon me, if I had caused your entire kith and kin to the a lingering death? Of this at least I am certain, that no traitor who had put a whole city to the slaughter could have been more barbarously treated than I have, for not only do you cause me to be roasted in the sun and devoured by flies, but you refuse me a beaker of water, when even a condemned murderer on his way to the gallows will frequently be given wine to drink if only he asks for it. However, since I see you are determined to be quite ruthless, and my suffering cannot move you in the slightest, I shall now prepare to the with resignation, so that God may have mercy on my soul, and I pray that He will observe what you have done and judge you accordingly.’
Having uttered these words, she crawled in terrible agony, being convinced that she would never survive the intense heat, towards the centre of the platform, where, quite apart from her other torments, she felt that she would swoon from thirst at any moment. And all the time, she was wailing loudly and bemoaning her misfortunes.
Finally, however, with the approach of evening, the scholar, feeling he had done enough, sent for her clothes and wrapped them in his servant’s cloak, after which he made his way to the hapless lady’s house, where he found her maid sitting sadly and forlornly on the doorstep, not knowing what she should do.
‘My good woman,’ he said, ‘tell me, what has become of your mistress?’
‘Sir,’ replied the maidservant, ‘I cannot rightly say. I was convinced that I saw her going to bed last night, and thought I should find her there this morning. But she was nowhere to be seen, and I have no idea what has become of her. I am dreadfully worried about her, but perhaps you, sir, have brought me some news of her whereabouts?’
‘Would to God,’ replied the scholar, ‘that I had been able to put you in the place where I have put your mistress, so that I could punish you for your sins as I have punished your mistress for hers! But I assure you that you shan’t escape from my clutches until I have paid you back with so much interest that you’ll never make a fool of any man again without remembering me first.’
Then, turning to his servant, he said:
‘Give her these clothes and tell her to go and fetch her, if she wants to.’
The servant did as he was bidden, and the maid, having seized the clothes from his hands, and recognized them, turned pale with terror, strongly suspecting, in view of what she had been told, that they had murdered her. Scarcely able to prevent herself from screaming, she burst into tears, and, the scholar having now departed, she immediately set off at a run towards the tower, with the clothes under her arm.
That same afternoon, a swineherd from the lady’s estate had had the misfortune to lose two of his pigs, and, searching all over for them, he arrived at the tower shortly after the scholar had left. Peering into every nook and cranny to see whether his pigs were anywhere to be found, he heard the unfortunate lady’s despairing moans, and climbing as far up the tower as he could, he called out:
‘Who is it that is crying up there?’
Recognizing the swineherd’s voice, the lady called to him by name, and said:
‘Alas! go fetch my maid and tell her to come up here.’
‘Oh my God!’ he exclaimed, seeing who it was. ‘How ever did you get up there, ma’am? Your maid has been searching high and low for you the whole day. But who would have thought of looking for you here?’
Seizing the ladder by the two uprights, he set it in the proper position and began to tie on the rungs by means of withies. As he was doing this, the maidservant arrived on the scene, and on entering the tower, no longer able to hold herself in check, she clapped her palms to the sides of her head and cried out:
‘My poor, sweet mistress, where are you?’
On hearing the maidservant’s voice, the lady called to her with all her strength, saying:
‘Here I am, my sister. Up here. Don’t cry, but just bring me my clothes, and quickly.’
No sooner did she hear the voice of her mistress, than her fears were almost entirely dispelled, and climbing the ladder, which by this time was all but repaired, she succeeded with the swineherd’s assistance in reaching the platform, where, finding her mistress lying naked on the floor, utterly broken and exhausted, looking more like a burnt log than a human form, she dug her nails into her face and burst into tears, as though she were gazing down upon a corpse. However, the lady implored her for God’s sake to be silent and help her to dress. And having learnt from the maid that no one knew where sh
e had been, except for the swineherd and those who had brought her clothes, she felt somewhat relieved, and begged them for God’s sake never to breathe a word about it to anyone.
The lady could not descend by herself, and so, after some little discussion, the swineherd hoisted her on to his shoulders and carried her safely down the ladder and out of the tower, leaving the maidservant to make her own way down. But being in too much of a hurry, the poor maidservant missed her footing as she was descending the ladder, and fell to the ground, breaking her thigh in the process, whereupon she began to roar with agony like a wounded lion.
Having set the lady down on the grass, the swineherd returned to see what was wrong with the maidservant, and on finding she had broken her thigh, he brought her forth in the same fashion, setting her on the grass by the side of her mistress. When the lady saw that, on top of her other afflictions, the person on whose assistance she most depended had broken her thigh, she burst yet again into tears, weeping so bitterly that not only was the swineherd unable to console her, but he too started to cry.
But as the sun was by now beginning to set, and the hapless lady was anxious that they should be away from there before nightfall, she prevailed upon him to go back to his house, whence, having enlisted the aid of his wife and two of his brothers, he returned with a plank on which they placed the maidservant and conveyed her to the house. Meanwhile, the lady’s spirits having been restored by a draught of cool water and a torrent of sympathy, the swineherd hoisted her once more on to his shoulders, and carried her home, setting her down in her own bedroom.
His wife prepared a bowl of gruel for the lady, after which she undressed her and put her to bed. Between them they arranged that both the lady and her maid should be taken to Florence later that same night, and this was duly done.
On returning to Florence, the lady, who was by no means deficient in guile, wove a completely fictitious account of how she and her maid had sustained their injuries, and persuaded her brothers, sisters, and everyone else that it had all come about through the machinations of evil spirits.
The physicians promptly set to work upon the lady, but since she shed the whole of her skin several times over because it kept sticking to the bedclothes, she suffered untold agony and torment before they succeeded in curing her of her raging fever and other infirmities. They also attended to the maidservant’s thigh, which in due course mended itself.
In view of what she had been through, the lady gave no further thought to her lover, and from then on she wisely refrained from playing any more tricks or falling deeply in love with anyone. As for the scholar, when he heard that the maid had broken her thigh, he deemed his revenge sufficient, and went happily about his business and said no more about it.
This, then, was the foolish young lady’s reward for supposing it was no more difficult to trifle with a scholar than with any other man, being unaware that scholars – not all of them, mind you, but the majority at any rate – know where the devil keeps his tail.
I advise you therefore to think twice, ladies, before you play such tricks, especially when you have a scholar to deal with.
EIGHTH STORY
A story concerning two close friends, of whom the first goes to bed with the wife of the second. The second man finds out, and compels his wife to lock the first man in a chest, on which he makes love to his friend’s wife whilst he is trapped inside.
Grievous and painful as the recital of Elena’s woes had been to the ladies, their compassion was restrained by the knowledge that she had partially brought them upon herself, though at the same time they considered the scholar to have been excessively severe and relentless, not to say downright cruel. However, now that Pampinea had come to the end of her story, the queen called next upon Fiammetta, who, all eager to obey, began as follows:
Charming ladies, since you appear to have been somewhat stricken by the harshness of the offended scholar, I consider this a suitable moment at which to soothe your outraged feelings with something a little more entertaining; and I therefore propose to tell you a brief story about a young man who took a more charitable view of an injury he received, and devised a more harmless way of avenging himself. You will thereby be enabled to apprehend, that when a man seeks to avenge an injury, it should be quite sufficient for him to render an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, without wanting to inflict a punishment out of all proportion to the original offence.
You are to know, then, that there once lived in Siena (or so I have heard) two highly prosperous young men of good plebeian families, of whom the first was called Spinelloccio Tavena and the second was called Zeppa di Mino,1 and they lived next door to one another in the district of Camollia. They always went about together, and to all outward appearances were as deeply attached to one another as if they were brothers. And both were married to very beautiful women.
Now, it happened that Spinelloccio spent a great deal of his time in Zeppa’s house, and since Zeppa was not always at home, he made such good friends with Zeppa’s wife that they became lovers, and it was a long time before anyone discovered their secret. One day, however, when Zeppa was at home and his wife was unaware of the fact, Spinelloccio called at his house, and, on being informed by the wife that Zeppa was out, he swiftly went up to the parlour, where, perceiving that she was all alone, he enfolded her in his arms and began to kiss her, and she greeted him in the same way. Although Zeppa saw all this happening, he held his tongue and remained hidden, so that he could see where their little game was going to end; and before long, to his utter dismay, he saw his wife and Spinelloccio, still clinging to one another, make their way into the bedroom and lock themselves in. Realizing, however, that neither by creating an uproar nor by interfering in any way was he going to reduce the extent of his injury, but that on the contrary his dishonour would thereby be increased,2 he applied his mind to devising some form of revenge that would satisfy his wounded pride without causing any scandal, and after pondering at some length, he thought he had discovered a way of doing it.
He remained in hiding for as long as Spinelloccio and his wife were together, but as soon as Spinelloccio had left, he walked into the bedroom, where he found his wife still putting the finishing touches to her headdress, which had fallen off whilst she was cavorting with her lover.
‘Well, woman,’ he said, ‘and what may you be doing?’
‘Can’t you see?’ she replied.
‘Yes,’ said Zeppa, ‘I can see all right. And I’ve seen one or two other things that I would have preferred not to see at all.’ He then took her to task over what she had been doing, and after making numerous excuses, she confessed in fear and trembling to those aspects of her relationship with Spinelloccio that she could not very well deny, then burst into tears and asked his forgiveness.
Whereupon Zeppa said to her:
‘Now listen to me, woman. You’ve done wrong, and if you want me to forgive you, see that you do exactly as I am about to tell you. I want you to tell Spinelloccio that tomorrow morning, about the hour of tierce, he is to invent some excuse for quitting my company so that he can come back here to you. Once he is here, I shall return home, and as soon as you hear me coming, you are to make him hide in this chest and lock him in, after which I shall give you the rest of your instructions. There’s no need whatever for you to worry about doing all this. I give you my word that I shan’t do him any harm.’
In order to please him, his wife agreed to do it, and gave Spinelloccio the message.
The following morning, Zeppa and Spinelloccio were roaming the streets together, and when it was nearly tierce, Spinelloccio, who had promised Zeppa’s wife that he would call on her at that hour, said to his companion:
‘I have to breakfast with a friend this morning, and I don’t want to keep him waiting, so I think I’ll be getting along.’
‘You can’t go to breakfast at this hour,’ said Zeppa. ‘It’s too early.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Spinelloccio. ‘I also have one or
two things to discuss with him, so I still have to arrive there in good time.’
Having, therefore, taken leave of Zeppa, Spinelloccio doubled back on his tracks and was soon under Zeppa’s roof in the company of his wife. But they had scarcely set foot inside the bedroom before Zeppa returned home, and as soon as the woman heard him coming, she pretended to be frightened out of her senses and, having persuaded Spinelloccio to take cover in the chest to which her husband had referred, she locked him inside it and left the room.
Zeppa came upstairs and asked her whether it was time for breakfast, and on being told that it was, he said:
‘Spinelloccio is taking breakfast with a friend of his this morning, and he’s left his wife all alone in the house. Go and call out to her from the window, and tell her to come and have breakfast with us.’
Still feeling apprehensive on her own account, the woman was only too ready to obey him, and promptly did as she was told. And so, after a good deal of coaxing, Spinelloccio’s wife, hearing that her husband would not be returning home for breakfast, was persuaded by Zeppa’s wife to come and join them. As soon as she set foot inside the house, Zeppa made a great fuss of her and took her tenderly by the hand. Then, having ordered his wife, in a low whisper, to go along to the kitchen, he led the other woman off into the bedroom, and no sooner had they crossed the threshold than he turned round and locked the door on the inside.
When she saw him locking the door, the woman said:
‘Come now, Zeppa, what is the meaning of this? Was this, then, your reason for inviting me here? I thought you loved Spinelloccio as a brother, I thought you were his loyal friend.’
Holding her firmly round the waist, Zeppa guided her closer to the chest in which her husband was confined, and said to her:
Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 87