Boccace

“ But Boccaccio was just the son of a small Florentine trader; and he was a Poet. To proclaim himself—half secretly—illegitimate was a gain to him, a gain in romance. How could a youthful poet, in love with a princess too, announce himself as the son of a petty trader, a mere ordinary bourgeois, to a lady so fine as the blonde Fiammetta? Of course he could not absolutely deny that this was so, especially after his father's visit (1327) , and also we must remember that the Florentine trader held, or is supposed to have held, quite a good social position even in feudal Naples. ”

“ But, for the love of God, however the case may be, get thee into yonder vat, whilst I go open to him, and we shall see what is the meaning of his returning home so early this morning.' Accordingly, Giannello betook himself in all haste into the vat, whilst Peronella, going to the door, opened to her husband and said to him, with an angry air, 'What is to do now, that thou returnest home so soon this morning? Meseemeth thou hast a mind to do nought to-day, that I see thee come back, tools in hand; and if thou do thus, on what are we to live? Whence shall we get bread? ”

“ So, as the abbot did not return, he drew out one of the loaves which he had brought with him, and began to eat. The abbot, after a while, bade one of his servants go see whether Primasso were gone. The servant returned with the answer:--"No, sir, and (what is more) he is eating a loaf of bread, which he seems to have brought with him." "Be it so then," said the abbot, who was vexed that he was not gone of his own accord, but was not disposed to turn him out; "let him eat his own bread, if he have any, for he shall have none of ours today." ”

“ And of course we saw a little house where Boccaccio [Pg 152] was supposed to have lived, and the place in front of Santa Maria Novella (a church) where he, Boccaccio, met seven lovely ladies, one morning in 1348, just after Mass, when the city lay stricken under the horror of the plague. Mr. Wake pointed Boccaccio out to us as we were coming home past the church, one bleak November afternoon, after a walk that had taken us to the churches on the South Side of the Arno. ”

“ Why, what a shiver it gives one to realise that not Boccaccio himself can convey to us any real picture of his love! Even the magic of his style, informed by all the passion of his burning heart, can give us nothing better than a catalogue of charms such as any village lover of to-day might write! The dead are dead; and no wizard can set them before us as they lived. ”

“ In them Boccaccio expounds a theory already sketched in outline by Petrarch. We have seen that the worst obstacle to humanistic culture lay, not so much in ignorance, as in misconceptions based upon prejudice and scruple. The notion of fine literature as an elevating and purifying influence had been lost. To restore it was the object of these earliest humanists. By poetry, contends Boccaccio, we must understand whatever of weighty in argument, deep in doctrine, and vivid in imagination the man of genius may produce with conscious art in prose and verse. ”

“ So God save me, there should be no mercy had of such women as she; they should be put to death; they should be cast alive into the fire and burned to ashes.' Then, bethinking her of her gallant, whom she had hard by under the coop, she began to exhort Pietro to betake himself to bed, for that it was time; but he, having more mind to eat than to sleep, enquired if there was aught for supper. 'Supper, quotha!' answered the lady. 'Truly, we are much used to get supper, whenas thou art abroad! A fine thing, indeed! Dost thou take me for Ercolano's wife? ”

“ They are fairer than the painted angels that you have so often shewn me. Oh! if you love me, do but let us take one of these goslings up there, and I will see that she have whereon to bill." "Nay," said the father, "that will not I. Thou knowest not whereon they bill;" and straightway, being ware that nature was more potent than his art, he repented him that he had brought the boy to Florence. ”

“ If in the time of the most renowned and eloquent Boccaccio, the adventure which forms the subject of my tale had come to his knowledge, I do not doubt but that he would have added it to his stories of great men who met with bad fortune. For I think that no nobleman ever had a greater misfortune to bear than the good lord (whom may God pardon!) whose adventure I will relate, and whether his ill fortune is worthy to be in the aforesaid books of Boccaccio, I leave those who hear it to judge. ”

“ The good lady, seeing herself hard pressed and Fra Rinaldo seeming to her belike goodlier than she had thought him aforetime, being one day sore importuned of him, had recourse to that argument which all women use who have a mind to yield that which is asked of them and said, 'How now, Fra Rinaldo? Do monks such things?' 'Madam,' answered he, 'when as I shall have this gown off my back,—and I can put it off mighty easily,—I shall appear to you a man fashioned like other men and not a monk.' The lady pulled a demure face and said, 'Alack, wretched me! You are my gossip ”

“ Besides the much-imposed-upon husband, the all-enduring wife was a favourite theme for the medieval tale-teller, and this plot continued a universal favourite until the modern feminist movement began. Boccaccio’s famous extravaganza of Griselda (“Patient Grizzel”) is perhaps the most imitated story in literature. Medieval lovers were capable of anything, would believe anything—I can vouch the popular ballads to warranty, or Boccaccio’s lady who was easily persuaded that the Angel Gabriel was sore enamoured of her. ”

“ And indeed, I know not any man, however exalted his station, who ought not to be well pleased to have such a sister; much more, then, I, who am but a petty merchant; but, I pray you, resolve me of one thing: how came you to know that I was here?" Then answered she:--"'Twas told me this morning by a poor woman who is much about the house, because, as she tells me, she was long in the service of our father both at Palermo and at Perugia, and, but that it seemed more fitting that thou shouldst come to see me at home than that I should visit thee at an inn, I had long ago sought thee out." ”

“ The ease with which the Italian language lends itself to rhythm and to rhyme, enabled Boccaccio to dress his thoughts in the guise of poetry; but he was, essentially, not a poet. It were too long to enter here into the distinction between the power of the imagination which creates fable and character, and even produces ideal imagery, and the peculiar attributes of poetry, which consists in a greater force and concentration of language, and an ear for the framing poetic numbers. ”

“ But assuredly thou shalt not escape from my hands, ere I have so paid thee for thy dealings that thou shalt never more make mock of any man, without remembering thee of me.' Then to his servant, 'Give her the clothes,' quoth he, 'and bid her go to her mistress, an she will.' The man did his bidding and gave the clothes to the maid, who, knowing them and hearing what Rinieri said, was sore afraid lest they should have slain her mistress and scarce refrained from crying out; then, the scholar being done, she set out with the clothes for the tower, weeping the while. ”

“ Boccacio says, that he composed his tales for the solace of fair and noble ladies in love, who, confined within their melancholy chambers, had no other occupation, but perpetually to revolve in their minds the same consuming thoughts, rendered intolerable by shame and concealment: while man might hunt, hawk, fish, and had a thousand channels for his thoughts. ”

“ When he had drunken, the young men said to him, 'My lord, since you have done us so much favour as to deign to visit this our poor house, whereto we came to invite you, we would have you be pleased to view a small matter with which we would fain show you.' The bishop answered that he would well; whereupon one of the young men, taking a lighted flambeau in his hand, made for the chamber where my lord rector lay with Ciutazza, followed by the bishop and all the rest. ”

“ Presently, the lady said to her lover, 'Let us go look from a lattice what yonder fellow, of whom thou art waxed jealous, doth and hear what he shall answer the maid, whom I have sent to parley with him.' Accordingly, they betook themselves to a lattice and thence, seeing, without being seen, they heard the maid from another lattice bespeak the scholar and say, 'Rinieri, my lady is the woefullest woman that was aye, for that there is one of her brothers come hither to-night, who hath talked much with her and after must needs sup with her, nor is yet gone away ”

“ It chanced one day that, as he abode all alone in the midcourt of his palace, there came in, by one of the gates, a poor woman, who sought of him an alms and had it; then, coming in again to him by the second, she had of him another alms, and so on for twelve times in succession; but, whenas she returned for the thirteenth time, he said to her, 'Good woman, thou art very diligent in this thine asking,' and natheless gave her an alms. The old crone, hearing these words, exclaimed, 'O liberality of Nathan, how marvellous art thou! ”

“ The good man then smeared him all over with honey, and covered him with down, set a chain on his neck and a vizard on his face, gave him a stout cudgel to carry in one hand, and two huge dogs, which he had brought from the shambles, to lead with the other, and sent a man to the Rialto to announce that whoso would see the Angel Gabriel should hie him to the piazza of San Marco ”

“ The good wife, having searched and found the thing which had fallen was not what she thought, never troubled herself to kindle a light, to see it, but, chiding the cat, returned to the chamber and groped her way to the bed where her husband lay. Finding the cradle not there, 'Mercy o' me!' quoth she in herself. 'See what I was about to do! As I am a Christian, I had well nigh gone straight to our guest's bed.' Then, going a little farther and finding the cradle, she entered the bed whereby it stood and laid herself down beside Adriano, thinking to couch with her husband. ”

“ In a more limited field Boccaccio exercised an influence resembling that of Petrarch. His fame too was that of a moral philosopher, and by no means rested on the Decamerone. He was honoured as the "doctor of patience in adversity," as the author of De casibus virorum illustrium and of De claris mulieribus. Because of these queer writings treating of the inconstancy of human fate "messire Jehan Bocace" had made himself a sort of impresario of Fortune. ”

“ The lady, marking that in the first flush of his wrath he had given her nothing worse than hard words, and discerning, as she thought, that he was secretly overjoyed to hold so beautiful a boy by the hand, took heart of grace and said:--"I doubt not indeed that thou wouldst be well pleased that fire should fall from heaven and devour us all, seeing that thou art as fond of us as a dog is of the stick, though by the Holy Rood thou wilt be disappointed ”

“ The girl, seeing that her visitor was none other than the abbot, quite lost her presence of mind, and quaking with shame began to weep. Master abbot surveyed her from head to foot, and seeing that she was fresh and comely, fell a prey, old though he was, to fleshly cravings no less poignant and sudden than those which the young monk had experienced, and began thus to commune with himself:--"Alas! why take I not my pleasure when I may, seeing that I never need lack for occasions of trouble and vexation of spirit? ”

“ STRANGER. So freedom means: freedom to oppress others. That's new to me.
MELCHER. Then let's go on without further comment to the portrait collection. Number one in the catalogue. Boccaccio, with two heads—all our portraits have at least two heads. His story's well known. The great man began his career by writing dissolute and godless tales, which he dedicated to Queen Johanna of Naples, who'd seduced the son of St. Brigitta. Boccaccio ended up as a saint in a monastery where he lectured on Dante's Hell and the devils that, in his youth, he had thought to drive out in a most original way. ”

“ One passage on the Italian poets indicates a possible borrowing of thought and figure on Shelley’s part when he wrote of Boccaccio that he was superior to Ariosto and to Tasso, “the children of a later and colder day.... How much do I admire Boccaccio! What descriptions of nature are those in his little introduction to every new day! It is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us.” [308] Hunt wrote: “Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante are the morning, noon and night of the great Italian day.” ”

“ Belcolore came down and taking a seat, fell to picking over cabbage-seed which her husband had threshed out a while before; whereupon quoth the priest to her, 'Well, Belcolore, wilt thou still cause me die for thee on this wise?' She laughed and answered, 'What is it I do to you?' Quoth he, 'Thou dost nought to me, but thou sufferest me not do to thee that which I would fain do and which God commandeth.' 'Alack!' cried Belcolore, 'Go to, go to. Do priests do such things?' 'Ay do we,' replied he, 'as well as other men ”

“ Yet it is just there that Boccaccio's comic genius is seen at its best; it is his most frequent theme. And just there too we come upon the unreality of this most real book. His spose are all beautiful young women [307] who live in the arms of beautiful youths; they are nearly all adulteresses; Griselda, indeed, might seem to be the only faithful wife among them. Consider, then, the wife of Pietro di Vincolo, [668] who sells herself fresh and lovely as she is. Consider the pretty Prunella the Neapolitan, who abandons herself voluptuously in her husband's presence to Gianello Galeone. ”