The Decameron

The next storyteller is Filostrato. In Naples, an attractive young woman named Peronella is married to “a poor man” (770). When a man named Giannello Scrignario sees Peronella for the first time, he immediately falls in love with her. Giannello and Peronella begin a secret affair; he visits every day after Peronella’s husband leaves the house to work. One day, however, Peronella’s husband returns home before he is expected. She hides her lover in a barrel and then turns to her husband to criticize him for not working a full day. He responds that no one is working on this particular day due to a religious festival. Thankfully, he tells her, they will not miss out on the day’s wages because he sold their barrel to a friend. Peronella knows that Giannello is hidden inside the barrel. She thinks fast, telling her husband that she has already sold the barrel for more money. The new owner, she says, is currently in the barrel, “seeing whether it is sound” (773). While her husband sends the first barrel buyer away, Peronella lifts Giannello from the barrel. He pretends to be interested in the barrel but insists that it must be cleaned before he buys it. While her husband cleans the barrel, Peronella takes Giannello to the bedroom. After, Giannello is “satisfied” (775) and pays for the barrel, asking Peronella’s husband to deliver it to his home.

The next storyteller is Elissa. In Siena, Rinaldo is in love with Agnesa, his neighbor’s wife, but Agnesa is not interested in him. Agnesa is already pregnant and—in an attempt to endear himself to her—Rinaldo offers “himself as the child’s godfather” (776). Rinaldo becomes increasingly religious and, like many members of the clergy, he is corrupt. Once he is a friar, he is able to convince Agnesa to finally have sex with him “very frequently” (779). However, their affair is interrupted by the early return of her husband. Agnesa sends Rinaldo and the baby to meet her husband, to whom she explains that Rinaldo’s devout prayers have saved the baby’s life. Her husband is so thankful that he believes the “nonsense” (781) and invites Rinaldo to eat with the family.

The next storyteller is Lauretta. Monna Ghita is married to Tofano, a man notorious for his “fondness for drink” (784). She has a young lover and, so that she can make time to meet him, she encourages Tofano to drink himself to sleep. Once he is in bed, she can sneak away. Tofano becomes suspicious and he fakes his tiredness one evening, forgoing any alcohol. Once Ghita exits the house, he locks the door behind her and refuses to let her back in. Ghita protests loudly, claiming that she will throw herself into the well if he does not relent, meaning that Tofano will likely have his “head chopped off” (785) for murder. Tofano ignores her. Ghita takes “an enormous stone” (786) and throws it down the well. Worried that his wife has killed herself, Tofano unlocks the door. While he runs to the well, she sneaks into the house and locks him out. She shouts loudly, waking the neighbors. Despite Tofano’s attempts to explain the reality of the situation, the neighbors do not believe him. They assume that Tofano is simply drunk and begin “reviling him for slandering his poor wife” (787). Ghita’s family learn what is happening and they attack Tofano. Afterward, Ghita moves back into her family home. Not long later, Tofano decides that he misses his wife. They reconcile and he swears that he will no longer be jealous of her.

The next storyteller is Fiammetta. In Rimini, a husband is so jealous of his wife that he says that she cannot “stand at the window or cast so much as a solitary glance outside the house” (790). His innocent wife resents his jealousy, so she decides to have an affair with a neighbor named Filippo. She talks to Filippo through a crack in the wall which separates their properties. At first, all they can do is touch hands through the gap in the wall. By Christmas, the wife has devised a plan. She asks her husband for permission to visit the church. He is “suspicious” (792), wondering what sins might need to be confessed by a woman who is locked inside all day. He gives her a limited amount of time to visit a small family chapel, whereupon he will spy on her while disguised as a priest. The wife figures out her husband’s plan “immediately” (793). She goes to confession with her disguised husband and invents a story about how she has sex with a priest every night. The priest, she explains, can magically unlock all the doors in the house. When she refuses to end this imaginary affair, the husband decides to stay up all night to confront the priest. While he is “lying in wait” (795), the wife is able to meet with Filippo. This arrangement continues for several nights until the husband finally confesses to the wife that he was the priest. She assures him that she knew this to be the case. The husband feels ashamed for not trusting his wife and he asks for her forgiveness. He begins “to look upon his wife as a model of intelligence and virtue” (798) and she is able to continue her affair with Filippo.

The next storyteller is Pampinea. A wealthy married woman named Isabella sees a man named Leonetto and falls in love. However, Leonetto comes from a lower social class. At the same time, a nobleman named Lambertuccio falls in love with Isabella but she does not return his affection as she finds him to be “very tiresome and disagreeable” (799). Lambertuccio resents her rejection and plots revenge, threatening Isabella until she does what he asks. During the summer, Isabella goes to her husband’s countryside villa. She invites Leonetto, while Lambertuccio invites himself. Isabella’s husband is away, so she has sex with Leonetto. While they are in bed, Lambertuccio knocks on the door. Isabella hides Leonetto behind the bed and invites Lambertuccio into the room.

When Isabella’s husband returns home unexpectedly, “with extraordinary presence of mind” (801), she tells Lambertuccio to run out of the house with his dagger and ride away. Lambertuccio does as she asks, astonishing Isabella’s husband. Isabella invents a story for her husband, telling it loudly enough for the hidden Leonetto to hear. She says that Lambertuccio chased a young man into the house and that she hid him behind the bed to save him from Lambertuccio’s fury. Isabella’s husband is pleased that she “did the right thing” (802) and prevented a murder in their home. Introducing Leonetto to her husband, Isabella prompts her lover to continue the story. Leonetto explains that Lambertuccio was chasing him for no reason. Isabella’s husband wants to help. He takes Leonetto home, offering him protection. After, Isabella tells Leonetto to explain the situation to Lambertuccio so that her husband will never suspect what truly happened.

The next storyteller is Filomena. Lodovico is a young man from Florence who hears a story about an attractive married woman named Beatrice who lives in the city of Bologna. He becomes “inflamed with such a longing to see her that he could think of nothing else” (805) and visits the city to see her for himself, realizing that she is even more attractive than he expected. Determined to meet her, he disguises himself as a servant and gets a job in her house. He is hired by her husband, Egano, and quickly becomes Egano’s most trusted servant. While Egano is away, Lodovico plays chess with Beatrice and sends her “into transports of joy” (806). He reveals his true identity and they kiss. They plan to have sex and, that night, he crawls into her bed while Egano sleeps beside her. However, Egano wakes up. Thinking fast, Beatrice asks her husband whether he trusts his “most loyal” (808) servant. She convinces him to go to the garden, disguised as her, and wait for Lodovico to arrive. She explains that, if Ludovico cannot be trusted, he will try and seduce the person he believes to be Beatrice. So Egano goes to the garden in disguise while Beatrice and Ludovico remain in the bedroom. After they have sex, Ludovico goes to the garden and shouts at Egano (still disguised as Beatrice) for potentially betraying her husband. He gives Egano “a sound thrashing” (810), pretending that Egano is Beatrice, for the disloyalty. Later, Egano returns to his bedroom. He is badly beaten but convinced that Ludovico is a loyal servant and that Beatrice is a faithful wife. As such, Ludovico and Beatrice are able to continue their affair.

The next storyteller is Neifile. A “very rich merchant” (812) named Arriguccio marries Sismonda, a much younger woman from a noble family. However, Sismonda has an affair with a man named Ruberto. When Arriguccio learns of his wife’s affair, he tries to expose her. Sismonda develops an “ingenious device” (814) with a piece of string to secretly alert Ruberto when she wants to meet him. When Arriguccio uncovers the string method, however, he chases after Ruberto. Sismonda tells her maid to pretend to be Sismonda, asking her to take the abuse that Arriguccio will surely mete out on her once he returns. Arriguccio returns and beats the maid he thinks is his wife until she is “black and blue all over” (815). Then, he goes to her family and tells them what she has done. When he returns, however, he discovers that Sismonda is unharmed and unblemished. She accuses Arriguccio of mistaking her for another woman and for being unfaithful to her. Sismonda’s family side with her, threatening to beat the “loathsome, ungrateful cur” (820) Arriguccio for tarnishing the reputation of the “most chaste and respectable girl in the city” (821).

The next storyteller is Panfilo. In Greece, “a noble lord” (822) named Nicostratus is married to Lydia. Nicostratus has a retainer named Pyrrhus who is young and attractive. Lydia falls in love with Pyrrhus, who wants to be sure that she really loves him before he returns her affection. He asks her to show her love for him in three ways. First, she must kill Nicostratus’s beloved sparrowhawk. Then, she must cut off a piece of her husband’s beard. Finally, she must take out one of Nicostratus’s teeth. Lydia agrees, even claiming that she will “make love to Pyrrhus under the old man’s nose, and then persuade Nicostratos that he was suffering from hallucinations” (826). When she has completed her tasks, she pretends to be sick and asks Pyrrhus and Nicostratus to carry her into the garden. At her request, Pyrrhus brings her a pear. When he fetches the pear, he calls out saying that he sees Nicostratus and Lydia caught in a romantic moment. He convinces Nicostratus that the “enchanted” (832) pear tree can trick people into seeing others having sex. Nicostratus is convinced to climb the tree to see for himself. When he is at the top, Pyrrhus and Lydia have sex. Nicostratus is convinced that he is seeing an illusion. When he returns and describes what he saw, Lydia and Pyrrhus are offended at the thought of their infidelity. Lydia demands that Pyrrhus cut down the tree so as to avoid anything of the sort ever happening again. Nicostratus apologizes for the scandalous suggestion and the offence he may have caused.

The final storyteller is Dioneo. In Siena, Tingoccio Mini and Meuccio di Tura are friends who often attend church together. They talk about religion and, in particular, what will happen to them after they die. Each man makes “a solemn oath” (836) to the other, saying that he will return as a ghost and explain to the other what happens. Both men fall in love with a woman named Monna Mita, though they keep their affections for her secret from one another. Tingoccio and Mita have sex, even though Tingoccio is the godfather of Mita’s child. Tingoccio dies a short time later. As promised, he returns to Meuccio to bring him “tidings of the other world” (837). He explains that he has been sent to purgatory to atone for his sins before he can ascend to heaven. Meuccio asks whether one of those sins is having sex with Mita, who was the mother of Tingoccio’s godson. After their reunion, the ghost of Tingoccio leaves and Meuccio is pleased to know that there is “nothing special down here about the mother of a godchild” (839).