The Decameron

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  Though elderly in years, this provost had the mentality of a small child, being haughty and presumptuous, and possessing a mighty high opinion of himself. He was forever picking holes in people and making himself generally unpleasant, and was so pompous and tedious that he was disliked by everybody, but especially by this lady, who not only disliked but positively loathed him. But being an intelligent woman, as we have said, she replied:

  ‘Sir, I am extremely flattered that you should love me. I am bound to love you in return, and I shall do so with all my heart, but there must never be anything unseemly about our love for one another. You are my spiritual father, you are a priest, and you are fast approaching your old age, all of which things require that you should lead a chaste and honourable life. Besides, I am no longer a young girl, able to take affairs of this sort in her stride, but a widow; and you know how essential it is that widows should follow the path of virtue. You must therefore excuse me, for I can never love you in the way you request, nor do I wish to be loved in this manner by you.’

  Although he could obtain no other answer from her at this first encounter, the Provost was not the sort of man to be discouraged or defeated by a single rebuff, and with his habitual arrogance and effrontery he importuned her repeatedly by means of letters and messages, as well as by word of mouth whenever he saw her coming into church. And so the lady, finding that his attentions were becoming quite intolerable, resolved that she would teach him a salutary lesson, albeit she would do nothing without first consulting her brothers. She therefore told them all about the Provost’s importunate behaviour, and explained what she was proposing to do about it. Having obtained their full consent, a few days later she went to the church as usual, and no sooner did the Provost catch sight of her than he came over to her and spoke to her in his customary, over-familiar manner.

  When she saw him coming, the lady fixed her gaze upon him and gave him a cheerful smile. So the Provost led her to a secluded corner of the church, and plied her with his usual stream of endearments, whereupon the lady fetched a deep sigh and said:

  ‘Sir, I have frequently heard it said that no fortress is sufficiently strong to withstand a perpetual siege, and I have now discovered, from my own experience, that this is perfectly true. For you have beleaguered me so completely with your tender words and countless acts of courtesy that you have forced me to break my former resolve. And seeing that you find me so much to your liking, I am willing to surrender.’

  ‘Heaven be praised!’ said the Provost, who could scarcely contain his joy. ‘To tell you the truth, madam, I am amazed that you should have held out for so long, seeing that this has never happened to me with any woman before. And in fact, I have sometimes had occasion to reflect, that if women were made of silver, you couldn’t turn them into coins, as they bend too easily. But no more of this: when and where can we be together?’

  ‘Sweet my lord,’ replied the lady, ‘we can meet whenever you please, for I have no husband to whom I must give an account of my nights. But as to where we are going to meet, I have no idea.’

  ‘Why not?’ said the Provost. ‘Why don’t we meet in your house?’

  ‘Sir,’ replied the lady, ‘as you know, I have two younger brothers, who bring their friends to the house at all hours of the day and night, and since my house is not very big, it would be quite impossible for us to meet there unless we were to remain completely silent, like deaf-mutes, without saying a word, and move about in the dark, as though we were blind. In this case, it would be feasible, for my brothers never invade my bedroom; but their own is immediately next to mine, and one can’t even whisper without being heard.’

  ‘That’s no great problem,’ said the Provost. ‘Let’s do as you suggest for a night or two, until I can think of a place where we can meet more freely.’

  ‘I leave that to you, sir,’ said the lady, ‘but on one thing I must insist: that the affair remains a secret, and you never breathe a word of it to anyone.’

  ‘Of that you may rest assured, madam,’ replied the Provost. ‘But when are we to meet? Can you arrange it for tonight?’

  ‘Why, of course,’ said the lady. And having explained to him how and when he was to come, she took her leave of him and returned home.

  Now, this lady had a maidservant, who was none too young and had the ugliest and most misshapen face you ever saw. She had a huge, flat nose, a wry mouth, thick lips, big teeth, which were unevenly set, and a pronounced squint; moreover she was always having trouble with her eyes, and her complexion was a sort of yellowy green, so that she looked as though she had spent the summer, not in Fiesole, but in Senigallia.3 Apart from this, she was hipshot on the right side, and walked with a slight limp. Her name was Ciuta, but because she was so ugly to look at, everyone called her Ciutazza.4 And although her body was so misshapen, she was always prepared for a spot of mischief.

  So the lady sent for her and said:

  ‘Ciutazza, if you will do something for me tonight, I shall give you a fine new smock.’

  At the mention of a smock, Ciutazza pricked up her ears and said:

  ‘If you give me a smock, ma’am, I’ll go through fire for you.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said the lady. ‘Now, what I want you to do is to sleep with a man tonight in my bed, and ply him with caresses. But you must take care not to utter a single word in case my brothers should hear you, for as you know, they sleep in the room next to mine. And tomorrow you shall have the new smock.’

  ‘If need be,’ said Ciutazza, ‘I would sleep with half-a-dozen men, let alone one.’

  After dark that evening, the Provost came to the house as arranged, and in accordance with the lady’s plans, the two young men were in their own room, making a good deal of noise. The Provost entered the lady’s bedroom without a sound, and groped his way through the dark, as instructed, to the bed, on which Ciutazza was already lying, having been carefully briefed by her mistress about what she was to do.

  Master Provost, thinking it was the lady who was lying beside him, took Ciutazza in his arms and began to kiss her without saying a word, and Ciutazza returned the compliment. And so the Provost began to disport himself with her, taking possession of the prize he had so long been coveting.

  Having thus brought the pair together, the lady directed her brothers to put the rest of her plan into effect. They therefore stole quietly out of their room and made their way towards the piazza; and Fortune was even kinder to their scheme than they had hoped, for since it was a very hot evening, the Bishop had been looking for the two young men and was already on his way to their house for a convivial chat and some liquid refreshment. As soon as he saw them coming, he told them what he had in mind, and they all returned to the house, where, to his no small pleasure, he sat with them in a cool little courtyard in which numerous lanterns had been lit, and drank some excellent wine of theirs.

  When they had taken their fill, the young men said:

  ‘Since you have been so kind as to honour us with your company in our humble little abode, to which we were just about to invite you, we should like you to take a look at something we are anxious to show you.’

  The Bishop readily agreed, and so one of the young men seized a lighted torch and led the way, being followed by the Bishop and all the rest of the company, to the room where Master Provost was lying in bed with Ciutazza. In order to make up for lost time, the Provost had been riding at a furious pace, and already, by the time all these people arrived, he had covered at least three miles, so that, in spite of the heat, feeling a little weary, he had dropped off to sleep with Ciutazza in his arms.

  So when the young man bearing the torch entered the room with the Bishop and all the others in their wake, the first thing they saw was the Provost lying there with Ciutazza in his arms. At that precise moment, the Provost woke up, and seeing all these people standing round him in the torchlight, he thrust his head under the bedclothes, feeling thoroughly ashamed and confused. But the Bishop, taking him severely to task, f
orced him to show his face and have a good look at the person with whom he had been sleeping.

  What with his discovery of the lady’s deception, and the disgrace that he felt he had suffered, the Provost was instantly transformed into the saddest man who ever lived. The Bishop ordered him to dress, and when he had done so, he was marched back to the church under heavy escort, there to suffer severe penance for the sin he had committed.

  Before taking his leave of the lady’s brothers, the Bishop asked them how it had come about that the Provost had gone to their house to sleep with Ciutazza, and the young men told him the whole story from beginning to end. On hearing what had happened, the Bishop warmly commended the lady and the two young men, who, not wishing to soil their hands with the blood of a priest, had treated the Provost as he deserved.

  The Provost was forced by his bishop to do forty days’ penance for his sin, but love and indignation prolonged his suffering to forty-nine days at the very least, to say nothing of the fact that for a long time afterwards, he was unable to walk down the street without being pointed at by small boys, who would taunt him with the words: ‘There goes the man who went to bed with Ciutazza.’ And this riled him so much that he was almost driven out of his mind.

  This, then, was the way in which the worthy lady rid herself of the presumptuous Provost’s insufferable attentions, and Ciutazza won herself a smock.

  FIFTH STORY

  Three young men pull down the breeches of a judge from the Marches whilst he is administering the law on the Florentine bench.

  When Emilia had brought her story to an end, and the widow had been commended by all those present, the queen looked towards Filostrato, and said:

  ‘Now it is your turn to speak.’

  Filostrato promptly replied that he was ready to do so, and began as follows:

  Delectable ladies, after hearing Elissa referring just now to the young man called Maso del Saggio, I have been prompted to discard the tale I was intending to relate in order to tell you one about Maso and some of his companions, which, though not improper, contains certain words that you ladies would hesitate to use. But since it is highly amusing, I am sure you would like to hear it.

  As all of you will doubtless have heard, the chief magistrates of our city very often come from the Marches,1 and tend as a rule to be mean-hearted men, who lead such a frugal and beggarly sort of life that anyone would think they hadn’t a penny to bless themselves with. And because of their inborn miserliness and avarice, they bring with them judges and notaries who seem to have been brought up behind a plough or recruited from a cobbler’s shop rather than from any of the schools of law.

  Now, one of these March-men came here once to take up his appointment as podestà, and among the numerous judges he brought with him, there was one called Messer Niccola da San Lepidio, who looked more like a coppersmith than anything else, and he was assigned to the panel of judges that tried criminal cases.

  Now it frequently happens that people go to the law-courts who have no business to be there at all, and this was the case with Maso del Saggio, who had gone there one morning to look for a friend. His gaze being attracted to the place where this Messer Niccola was sitting, he was struck by the man’s curious and witless appearance, and began to scrutinize him carefully. And amongst the many strange features that he noted, unbecoming in any person of tidy habits and gentle breeding, he saw that die fur of his judge’s cap was thick with grime, that he had a quill-case dangling from his waist, and that his gown was longer than his robe. But the most remarkable thing of all, to Maso’s way of thinking, was a pair of breeches, the crotch of which, when the judge was sitting down and his clothes gaped open in front owing to their skimpiness, appeared to come halfway down his legs.

  Having seen all he wanted to see of the judge’s breeches, he abandoned the search for his friend and set off on a different quest, this time for two companions of his called Ribi and Matteuzzo, who were no less high-spirited than Maso himself. And when he had tracked them down, he said to them:

  ‘If my friendship means anything to you, come along with me to the law-courts, and I’ll show you the most priceless booby you ever saw.’

  So off he went with Ribi and Matteuzzo to the law-courts, where he showed them the judge and his breeches. Viewing this spectacle from the back of the court, they began to laugh, and on coming closer to the platform on which Master Judge was seated, they saw that it would be very easy for a person to conceal himself underneath it. Moreover the plank on which the judge’s feet were resting had a large hole in it, through which a hand and an arm could be thrust with the greatest of ease.

  Maso therefore turned to his companions, and said:

  ‘Let’s pull those breeches right down for the fellow. We can do it quite easily.’

  The other two had already seen how it could be done, and having arranged with one another what they were to say and do, they returned there the following morning. Despite the fact that the courtroom was crowded, Matteuzzo managed to crawl into the space beneath the platform without being seen, and positioned himself exactly below the spot where the judge’s feet were resting. Then Maso went up to the judge on one side and seized the hem of his robe, whilst Ribi approached him from the other side and did the same.

  ‘Sir,’ Maso began. ‘O sir, I beseech you in God’s name not to let this petty thief, who is standing at the other side of you, escape from this courtroom before you have made him give me back the pair of thigh-boots he has stolen from me. He claims he didn’t do it, and yet I saw him, less than a month ago, having them re-soled.’

  Then Ribi shouted in his other ear:

  ‘Don’t you believe him, sir; he’s a lying rogue, and because he knows that I’ve come to lay a complaint against him for stealing a saddlebag of mine, he comes out with this story about the thigh-boots, which I’ve had in my house for donkey’s years. If you don’t believe me, I can call any number of witnesses, such as the woman next door, who runs the fruit stall, and Grassa the tripe-merchant, and a dustman from Santa Maria a Verzaia, who saw him on his way home from town.’

  Maso for his part was not prepared to leave all the talking to Ribi, but he too began to shout, and Ribi shouted even louder. And as the judge stood up and edged closer to them in order to follow what they were saying, Matteuzzo seized his opportunity, thrust his hand through the hole in the plank, took a firm hold on the seat of the judge’s breeches, and pulled hard. The breeches came down forthwith, for the judge was a scraggy fellow, and very lean in the buttocks. Being at a loss to understand how this had come about, the judge tried to cover himself up by drawing his clothes across the front of his body and sitting down, but Maso and Ribi were still holding on to them at either side and shouting their heads off, saying:

  ‘It’s monstrous, sir, that you should refuse me a hearing, and try to withdraw without giving your verdict. Surely you don’t need written evidence to decide a trifling matter of this sort.’ And whilst they were saying all this, they held on to his clothes sufficiently long for everyone in court to perceive that he had lost his breeches. Then finally, Matteuzzo, having clung to them for some little time, released his hold and made good his escape from the courtroom without being seen, whilst Ribi, deciding he had done quite enough, exclaimed:

  ‘I swear to God I’ll appeal to the Senate.’

  At the same time, Maso let go the judge’s robe on his side, saying:

  ‘I shan’t go to any Senate. I’ll keep coming back here, sir, until I find you in less of a muddle than you seem to be in this morning.’

  Then they both made off in opposite directions as fast as their legs would carry them.

  It was only at this point that Master Judge, having pulled up his breeches before all those present, as though he were just getting up out of bed, became aware of the deception and demanded to know what had become of the two men who were arguing about the thigh-boots and the saddlebag. But when they couldn’t be found, he began to swear by the bowels of God that somebody
should tell him whether it was the custom in Florence for a judge to have his breeches removed whilst sitting on the bench of justice.

  When the podestà, for his part, was told what had happened, he practically threw a fit. But when it was pointed out by his friends that this had only been done in order to show him that the Florentines knew he had brought fools with him instead of judges so as to save money, he thought it best to hold his tongue, and nothing more was said about the matter.

  SIXTH STORY

  Bruno and Buffalmacco steal a pig from Calandrino. Pretending to help him find it again, they persuade him to submit to a test using ginger sweets and Vernaccia wine. They give him two sweets, one after the other, consisting of dog ginger seasoned with aloes, so that it appears that he has stolen the pig himself. And finally they extract money from him, by threatening to tell his wife about it.

  Filostrato had no sooner completed his story, which aroused a great deal of laughter, than the queen called on Filomena to follow, whereupon she began, saying:

  Gracious ladies, just as Filostrato was prompted to tell you the previous tale by hearing the name of Maso, in precisely the same way I too have been prompted by hearing the names of Calandrino and his companions to tell you another, which I believe you will find to your liking.

  It is unnecessary for me to explain to you who Calandrino, Bruno and Buffalmacco were, for you have heard enough on that score in the earlier tale. So I shall omit the preliminaries, and tell you that Calandrino had a little farm not far from Florence, which he had received from his wife by way of a dowry. Among the other things he acquired from this farm, every year he used to obtain a pig there, and it was his regular custom to go to the country in December with his wife, slaughter the pig, and have it salted.