Copyright 2020 Evelyn C. Leeper.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio:
THE DECAMERON by Giovanni Boccaccio (translated by John Payne [*]) (Project Gutenberg) was written in 1353 and set during the Black Death, the premise being that ten people take refuge in a villa outside Florence, Italy, and entertain themselves by each telling one story a day for ten days.
[*] Note: all the spellings and translations are from Payne's translation, which is from 1886. I hope that those reading other translations will be able to at least recognize the characters' names. For example, "Jehannot" is "Giannotto" and "Melchizedek" is "Melchisedech: in the translation "Classical Stuff You Should Know" is using.
The "Classical Stuff You Should Know" (a.k.a. "Quarantine Stuff You Should Know", a.k.a. QSYSK) is (was) an hour-long weekly podcast by three teachers at a Classical Christian academy in Texas. However, social distancing being what it is, they have switched to a new format: one single podcaster, doing a twenty-minute (or so) daily podcast on THE DECAMERON, one story per day. I had originally thought that this column would not show up until mid-July, when the book was done. But it would be ludicrously long by then, so I will probably run it in sections (e.g., ten stories, or ten days' story-telling, at a time). Actually, even this results in really long columns--at least this first one! I realize this may also conflict with the columns about the Retro Hugo nominees, which should finish before the Hugo voting deadline, which is currently unknown, but I'm guessing late June or early July. I may end up with two columns in some issues.
The Introduction: Boccaccio writes, "On the following morning, Wednesday to wit, ... departing Florence, [they] set out upon their way; nor had they gone more than two short miles from the city, when they came to the place fore-appointed of them..." Think about that--they were fleeing the city because of the plague, and their idea of how far they should travel was ... two miles! It turns out that medieval villages tended to be only two or three miles apart (cities were more distant from each other), so I guess two miles was considered a safe distance.
"Master Ciappelletto (I-1)": Boccaccio works at making sure Ciappelletto has broken all ten of the commandments and displayed all seven of the deadly sins, and then some. He particularly notes, "Of women he was as fond as dogs of the stick, but in the contrary he delighted more than any filthy fellow alive." The contrary to women being men, this is Boccaccio's roundabout way of saying that Ciappelletto was a homosexual. But I find this most interesting as having the seeds of some of what I see as part of Protestantism and the Reformation, namely, the idea that a human being (the priest) has the power to forgive all one's sins, and indeed, promote the sainthood of someone who conceals their sins. It is true that the Catholic Church says that intentionally concealing (mortal) sins makes the absolution null and void, but then one has to ask, why confess to a fallible human being at all?
"Abraham the Jew" (I-2): If the persistence of Christianity, even with its leaders and clerics apparently trying their hardest to destroy it, is enough reason for Abraham to believe in it and to convert, why isn't the persistence of Judaism, even with everyone trying their hardest to destroy it, enough reason for Jehannot to believe in it and to convert? As we are reminded every year at Passover in the Haggadah, "In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands." And indeed, though in 1353 Boccaccio might write that Jehannot "fell to beseeching [Abraham] on friendly wise leave the errors of the Jewish faith and turn to the Christian verity, which he might see still wax and prosper, as being holy and good, whereas his own faith, on the contrary, was manifestly on the wane and dwindling to nought," yet now, 650 years later, Abraham's faith has not dwindled to nought. But I have to say that it is delightful to read a story of this period in which the Jew is not a villain, and in fact is an honorable and good man--this is certainly better than Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale" of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln.
"Melchizedek and the Three Rings" (I-3): Not only a story in which the Jew is the hero, but a story of religious tolerance as well. It is worth noting that the Pope at the time of the Black Death and the writing of THE DECAMERON issued a papal bull condemning violence against the Jews over the Plague, said it was the Devil who convinced people that the Jews had caused the Plague, and directed the clergy to protect the Jews. This may have affected Boccaccio's favorable portrayal. Conversely, not Chaucer nor anyone else in Chaucer's England had seen a Jew in a hundred years, as they had been expelled by Edward I in 1290 and had been massacred in York a hundred years before that, in 1190.
The idea of giving the ring (and his inheritance) to all three sons seems to indicate that while the sons may have been worthy, the father clearly was not the sharpest tool in the shed (as you noted). It brings to mind Alexander saying he left his kingdom "to the strongest"--yeah, no risk of problems there.
"The Monk and the Abbot" (I-4): There is not much to comment on here--it's one of the standard tropes of the time, with a lustful monk who manages to get what he wants without punishment because the abbot is just as sinful. What seems to be noteworthy are the variations in translation.
In the original Italian, for example, the abbot is concerned about his weight and so has the girl on top and himself on the bottom. (Thanks, Google Translate!) John Payne (1886) and J. M. Rigg (1903) both refer to this, as does the translation used by QSYSK, but John Florio's 1620 translation (the first one into English) does not. However, Payne drops the pay-off, which is in the other versions (even Florio's): the monk says that he had not realized how monks were supposed to use women (i.e., which position to use), but having seen the abbot, he now knows and will always follow that example. Rigg is the only one to have both the set-up and the pay-off, and hence the only one to really translate the whole joke as a joke.
[At this point, I will comment that I would switch to Rigg, but it's readable only on my desktop (individual HTML pages at https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb, while Payne is downloadable from Project Gutenberg. Florio is much harder to read; it's Jacobean English without the modernized spelling one finds in most works from then.]
"The Marchioness and the King of France" (I-5): The podcaster seemed a bit confused by what the marchioness was trying to say when she said, "... women, albeit in apparel and dignities they may differ somewhat from others, are natheless all of the same fashion here as elsewhere."
I think the meaning of the marchioness's statement is expressed by the proverb "in the dark all cats are gray". Or as Benjamin Franklin elaborated in his "Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress", (1745 June 25): "And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement."
In other words, the marchioness is saying that just as no matter how you "dress up" a hen (or as we would call it, a chicken), it will still seem like chicken, and a lot like any other chicken, so when it actually comes to physical love, the appearance of the person will not make any difference.
("Chicken" refers to the species, composed of hens and roosters. But my grandmother used to talk about how one made chicken soup from a hen, which in the butcher shop parlance of her time meant an older chicken. These are now called stewing chickens. The bottom line of all this is when I read "hen", I think of someone/something older, which actually ties in well with Franklin's statement.)
"An Honest Man and Hypocrisy" (I-6): When the inquisitor accuses the good man by saying, "Then hast thou made Christ a wine-bibber and curious in wines of choice, as if he were Cinciglione or what not other of your drunken sots and tavern-haunters; and now thou speakest lowly and wouldst feign this to be a very light matter!" I was reminded of one of the many truly excellent speeches in the play A CASE OF LIBEL by Henry Denker:
"You do not want to be called onto the witness stand to defend your character. A good lawyer could destroy the character of Jesus Christ Himself. 'Mr. Christ, isn't it true that you are frequently seen in the company of known prostitutes and criminals? And haven't you often been seen drinking? Oh, only wine? And only at weddings? And didn't you cause a riot in the Temple, destroying the property of law-abiding merchants?' If He fares that way, how do you think you'll do?"
"Primasso and the Abbot of Cluny" (I-7): I don't have much to say about the story, except the idea that the abbot would suddenly get stingy towards this one person seems very contrived. I will however note that more recent translations probably eschew the word "niggardliness"; see also the next story. (Florio and Payne use it; Rigg uses "avarice". Rigg apparently says "Courtesy" instead of "Liberality" in #8 which strikes me as not the right thing at all.)
"The Niggardliness of Ermino" (I-8): Lauretta voices the eternal complaint of older people (even though she is not that old), saying that something is "a sore and shameful reproach to the present age and a manifest proof that the virtues have departed this lower world and left us wretched mortals to wallow in the slough of the vices." In other words, we were all virtuous and noble in the past, but now are degraded and fallen. (And she is not referring to Edenic times, but just a few generations earlier. Ah, for the good old days!)
When Guglielmo offers to tell Ermino of something which he had never yet beheld, and it turns out to be Liberality, it is like the old Henny Youngman joke where he asks his wife where she wants to go for their anniversary. "Somewhere I have never been," she replies. "How about the kitchen?" he suggests.
"The King of Cyprus and a Gascon Lady" (I-9): The stories are getting shorter, and a bit repetitive. In this one at least, the fault that is corrected by a snappy line is not miserliness, but more like sloth: the King refuses to respond to attacks on his character, so a Gascon lady asks him to teach her how to ignore insults as well, which makes him realize his fault. (It is not entirely clear from either the original or any of the translation I have access to whether the lady was actually raped or merely accosted. Florio says "shee was villanously abused by certaine base wretches"; Payne says "she was shamefully abused of certain lewd fellows"; Rigg says "[she] met with brutal outrage at the hands of certain ruffians." The Italian is "da alcuni scellerati uomini villanamente fu oltraggiata", which Google translates as "she was outraged by some villainous men". One can presume she was raped, but the Italian does not use the specific word "violentata".)
The lady was returning from a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is particularly topical, since the closure this March of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was the first such closure since 1349 and the Black Plague.
"Master Alberto and the Lady" (I-10): Boccaccio has Pampinea give us a long speech about how the women of that time have given up clever or intelligent conversation and replaced it with fancy clothes and ornaments. It's quite sexist, and having it delivered by a female character does not make it magically un-sexist--it's clearly Boccaccio speaking. It is not unlike what Robert A. Heinlein does in STARSHIP TROOPERS, in which he has a character defend their political system of flogging for various offenses, allowing only veterans to vote, etc., by pointing out how well it works. Heinlein is hoping you don't notice it works that well because he wrote it that way. Similarly, Boccaccio is hoping you believe this speech about women because it is given by a woman, without remembering that he (a man) wrote it that way.
Someone (I wish I could remember who) said that fiction is really what George Orwell called "doublethink" in 1984: "holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." We know that Elizabeth Bennett is imaginary, but as we are reading PRIDE AND PREJUDICE we accept (at least at some level) her reality.
After the tenth tale, the Queen for the next day is chosen and she sets a theme for the stories to be told: reversals of fortune (from bad to good).
Marcellino Is Healed (II-1): The whole "fake healing" reminds me of Lon Chaney's film THE MIRACLE MAN, although in that Chaney is a confidence trickster, rather than just a tourist trying to get in to see the saint's relics. (THE MIRACLE MAN is a lost film, but the excerpt in which Chaney is healed still exists and is on YouTube. In the Chaney biopic MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, James Cagney re-creates the scene brilliantly.) When Marcellino is described (in the original Italian and in the Payne translation) as being "carded without a comb", that is Italian slang of the time for being beaten up. Rigg avoids the obscure term. It is depressing to realize that so many people are willing to lie about Marcellino having stolen their purses, but even more depressing to realize that everyone seems to be having a good laugh while Marcellino is being tortured.
Rinaldo Is Robbed (II-2): The most notable aspect of this story, at least in Payne's translation, is the excessive use of words formed around "seem"; we have not only "seemed" and "seemly", but also "meseemeth", "himseemed", "herseemed", and "meseeming". What is worth noting is that there is no form "meseem"--"meseems" means "it seems to me that ..." and so is always in the third person singuler (i.e., with the terminal 's'). The attachment of the objective pronoun to the beginning of the verb is what one sees as a regular occurrence in (for example) Spanish, but rarely in English. A close second are "there" words, with one stretch of 32 words containing three versions: "he determined to go bide thereunder till day. Accordingly, betaking himself thither, he found there a door, albeit it was shut, and gathering at foot thereof somewhat of straw that was therenigh..."
None of this has anything to do with Boccaccio's story, of course, but it does provide an example of why many people feel a more modern translation of THE DECAMERON is desirable. The story seems to imply that praying to God and the saints will get you laid, not to mention seeing that the people who robbed you get hanged.
Allessandro and the Abbot (II-3): Internal evidence indicates this story takes place in 1173 or 1174, when Henry the Young King was in rebellion against his father, King Henry II. (Henry II seemed to have problems getting along with people. He had a falling out with his friend Thomas Becket, locked his wife up for the last sixteen years of his life, and was threatened with excommunication by the Pope.) However, although Henry II had three daughters, none were promised to the King of Scotland (or North Wales, in Florio's translation) or married a Florentine, and no Florentine became King of Scotland. (This was well before usury was made illegal in England.)
One can argue that Pampinea is an unreliable narrator, since her telling of the tale uses male pronouns to refer to the abbot, knowing the abbot is a woman in disguise. (No real spoiler here, as the story precis at the beginning says this.) Clearly Lauretta is trying to tell the story in such a way as to make it sound totally outrageous, but turn out to be, well, not exactly innocent, but at least normative for the time.
By the way, when the abbot says (in Payne's translation), "I was on my way to the Pope, that he might marry me," she means for the Pope to officiate at her wedding, not to marry with her.
Ruffolo Becomes a Corsair (II-4): A corsair is not an ordinary pirate. A privateer is a pirate with some sort of authority from a government to harass its enemies, and a corsair is specifically a privateer in the Mediterranean either on the Christian or the Muslim side, authorized to attack the other. By making Ruffolo a corsair rather than a plain old pirate, Boccaccio makes him almost noble (at least to his contemporary audience), fighting the Muslims, rather than an ordinary bandit.
Andreuccio, the Horse-Trader (II-5): Lauretta, on the other hand, apparently doesn't think people will mind that her "hero" is a grave-robber. The whole story sounds like the sort of plot Roger Corman would put in one of his 1960s AIP flicks. At least the con artist's ploy is not the usual one of seduction. And Andreuccio reminds me of Michael York's D'Artagnan in the 1973 version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS.
Madam Beritola Is Shipwrecked (II-6): Manfred was crowned King of Sicily in 1258. Boccaccio seems to like placing his stories in definite times and places to make them seem more real, as opposed to setting them in indefinite times and places. (Think of the Universal 1930s horror movies, set in some vague Middle European area where there are cars and such, but no Nazis, and all the villagers dress in colorful 19th century costumes.)
In this story, we have a widow of sixteen, and a girl given as a wife at the age of eleven. In England in the Middle Ages, the minimum age for marriage for girls was twelve, but even then, marriage at such a young age was only seen in the nobility. One presumes most of Europe was similar, so eleven seems really out of the ordinary, unless this was just a betrothal. (In Connie Willis's DOOMSDAY BOOK, Rosemund is betrothed at age twelve at Christmas, and the wedding is planned for Easter.)
The notes on the Gutenberg Project's edition say that what Payne translates as "tierce" is 9AM and that "Boccaccio's habit of measuring time by the canonical hours has been a sore stumbling-block to the ordinary English and French translator, who is generally terribly at sea as to his meaning, inclining to render tierce three, sexte six o'clock and none noon and making shots of the sam wild kind at the other hours. The monasterial rule (which before the general introduction of clocks was commonly followed by the medieval public in the computation of time) divided the twenty-four hours of the day and night into seven parts (six of three hours each and one of six), the inception of which was denoted by the sound of the bells that summoned the clergy to the performance of the seven canonical offices i.e. Matins at 3 a.m., Prime at 6 a.m., Tierce at 9 a.m., Sexte or Noonsong at noon, None at 3 p.m., Vespers or Evensong at 6 p.m. and Complines or Nightsong at 9 p.m., and at the same time served the laity as a clock."
When Payne says "tierce", he is avoiding this common mistake; Florio gets it more or less right, speaking the passing of nine hours ("with the expence of nine hours and more"), which is closer to the true meaning.
The Sultan's Daughter (II-7): The chronology geek in me points out that this story apparently takes place between 1313 and 1328 when both Andronikos II Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor and Og Beg Khan ruled the Turks. Andronikos had a son named Constantine and also a brother named Manuel (so it is likely that he had a nephew of that name as well). (Spellings vary wildly on these names; live with it.)
The basic story itself seems to have re-surfaced in Daniel Defoe's MOLL FLANDERS and Voltaire's CANDIDE. Moll goes through voluntary relationships with seven men (one twice, and one her half-brother), but she does not attempt to pass herself off as a maid at the end of it all. In CANDIDE (at least in Leonard Bernstein's operetta of it), Cunegonde also has relationships with several men and while her words (in the aria "Glitter and Be Gay") bemoan her fate, they are clearly insincere. In Boccaccio's story, Alatiel seems to be a willing participant, although at the end still wishes to return with everyone believing she is a virtuous maid.
Florio changes many of the names, e.g., Pericone to Bajazeth, and Marato to Amurath. He also omits any mention of "Saint Waxeth-in the-hand", which is a fairly direct translation from the Italian ("santo cresci in man che").
The Exiled Count (II-8): This takes place in 912 with the death of the last of the Carlovingians. Was there a plague in Wales in the tenth century that killed half the people?
Bernabo Wrongly Condemns His Wife to Death (II-9): Elements of this seem to have shown up in OTHELLO and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, though whether the idea of falsely convincing a man that his wife/fiancee is unfaithful may be a common trope in general. It is not clear that Ambrogiuolo has any particular motive in defaming Ginevra other than a refusal to back down from his claims, or possibly a financial gain. Iago and Beatrice are both looking for revenge of one sort or another, but Ambrogiuolo seems particularly amoral in his persistence.
Ginevra is established early on as knowing how to ride a horse, fly a hawk, read, write, and calculate, setting up how she can pass for a man. And it is interesting that the pronoun used to refer to Sicurano is "he", where most authors would use "she", because the reader is fully aware that Sicurano is really Ginevra. So using pronouns based on presentation rather than on biology is not a new thing, dating back at least to the 14th century.
Apparently the Soldan (Sultan) considered Ambrogiuolo's crime as even worse than ordinary murder, based on the punishment he prescribed.
Paganino Steals Ricciardo's Wife (II-10): One can understand why the "Classical/Quarantine Stuff You Should Know" folks might have given up on THE DECAMERON; this is a story that glorifies not just sexuality, but adultery. A young and beautiful woman (never named) is given by her father in marriage to old Ricciardo. But Ricciardo, though he wanted a young beautiful wife, had not the energy for her, and since he can "perform" only about once a month, he tells her almost every day that it is some sort of saint's day when sex is prohibited. The wife gets abducted at some point by a young, energetic corsair, and in no time at all they are paying no attention to saints' days at all. When Ricciardo shows up to ransom his wife, she pretends not to know him, and stays with Paganino, where they continue ignoring saints' days and the fact they are not only not married, but that she us married to someone else, until Ricciardo dies, at which point they do actually marry. No one repents, or confesses for absolution, or does anything that might give this any sort or moral, other than perhaps Aleister Crowley's, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Since "Classical Stuff You Should Know" originates at a Christian academy, the fact that the Decameron is actually fairly racy (without being overly explicit) may have given them second thoughts about spending a hundred podcasts on it.
This has some of the most sarcastic writing so far; some examples:
"The thing came to pass according to his wish, for Messer Lotto Gualandi gave him to wife a daughter of his, Bartolomea by name, one of the fairest and handsomest young ladies of Pisa, albeit there be few there that are not very lizards to look upon."
"The judge accordingly brought her home with the utmost pomp and having held a magnificent wedding, made shift the first night to hand her one venue for the consummation of the marriage, but came within an ace of making a stalemate of it, whereafter, lean and dry and scant of wind as he was, it behoved him on the morrow bring himself back to life with malmsey and restorative confections and other remedies."
"Thenceforward, ... he feigned to her, there was no day in the year but was sacred not to one saint only, but to many, in reverence of whom he showed by divers reasons that man and wife should abstain from carnal conversation; and to these be added, to boot, fast days and Emberdays and the vigils of the Apostles and of a thousand other saints and Fridays and Saturdays and Lord's Day and all Lent and certain seasons of the moon and store of other exceptions, conceiving belike that it behoved to keep holiday with women in bed like as he did bytimes whilst pleading in the courts of civil law. This fashion (to the no small chagrin of the lady, whom he handled maybe once a month, ...
"[Paganino] studied to comfort her with soft words till nightfall, when, his calendar having dropped from his girdle and saints' days and holidays gone clean out of his head, he fell to comforting her with deeds, himseeming that words had availed little by day; and after such a fashion did he console her that, ere they came to Monaco, the judge and his ordinances had altogether escaped her mind and she began to lead the merriest of lives with Paganino."
"[The wife says to her husband,] 'If the study of the laws was more agreeable to you than your wife, you should not have taken her, albeit it never appeared to me that you were a judge; nay, you seemed to me rather a common crier of saints' days and sacraments and fasts and vigils, so well you knew them. And I tell you this, that, had you suffered the husbandmen who till your lands keep as many holidays as you allowed him who had the tilling of my poor little field, you would never have reaped the least grain of corn.'"
(Day 3 Introduction): At the beginning of Day 3, the ten Florentines (and their servants) move to another palace, less than two thousand paces (about a mile) away. Again, everything is a lot closer than we envision, given our perspective of both population density and cars.
Boccaccio's description of the beautiful grounds and flora and fountains of the new palace reminded me of Tolkien's descriptions of places like Lothlorien and Rivendell in THE LORD OF THE RINGS, probably because I am re-reading the latter concurrently with THE DECAMERON.
Masetto the Mute Gardener (III-1): This story sounds familiar to me; I don't think Chaucer used it, but I'm sure I've read it somewhere, and I and not refering to the 2017 film THE LITTLE HOURS, which was based on it (see below).
The trope of randy nuns (and lustful monks) is common in Gothic literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, but in Gothic Literature it is portrayed negatively (usually alongside oppression, cruelty, and corruption), while here it is presented more as something quite natural, and the celibacy requirement as foolish.
Regarding THE LITTLE HOURS (now streaming on Netflix), Mark and I liked it, but it's not for everyone. The setting is medieval, but the dialogue is modern. (For eample, it has dozens of F-bombs.) I read that they did not work with a fixed script, but let the actors improvise from an outline, much as Christopher Guest does. There is a lot added to the story (SPOILERS): Jews, lesbians, witchcraft, graphic descriptions of violence and torture, and a lot of above-the-waist nudity and (simulated) sex. (Well, how could Boccaccio have included the latter unless he also invented the graphic novel in the process?) For film fans who are reading THE DECAMERON I would recommend it, but for the audience of "Classical Stuff You Should Know" it's probably a poor choice.
There are apparently a lot of films based on, or at least inspired by, THE DECAMERON after Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1971 film, THE DECAMERON, but many are not truly based on Boccaccio's stories, or are not readily available, at least in the United States. (Most of them are Italian.) There is also a film based on the framing story of THE DECAMERON, VIRGIN TERRITORY, which I have have requested on DVD from Netflix.
King Agilulf, Queen Theodolinda, and the Horsekeeper (III-2): This takes place some time between 590 and 626; Agilulf and Theodolinda are real, and Agilulf did frequently accuse her of adultery. But in this story, Agilulf seems to have decided it was not her fault, and it wouldn't do any good to shame her, and himself in the process. And the horsekeeper shows some cleverness, although were Agilulf less willing to cover everything up, all the stablehands could have ended punished for what the horsekeeper did.
Payne describes what Agilulf (and later the horseman) did as "polling", which even in his day was probably an archaic term. "To poll" is to cut hair, in this case, to cut the long locks on one side ut not the other. I suppose it could become a new trend.
The Lady and the Confession to the Friar (III-3): This relies a lot on the friar telling the object of the woman's affections in detail what the woman accuses him of, so that he can do precisely that. One wonders if Boccaccio was starting to regret committing to a hundred stories as the "Quarantine Stuff You Should Know" podcaster apparently did (and for that matter, as did Chaucer, who promised 120 stories, but delivered only 24). However, Boccaccio did eventually deliver a hundred stories; it's just that some of them are pretty thin.
Dom Felice Tricks Fra Puccio in Order to Enjoy His Wife (III-4): And this is another weak tale, with Dom Felice convincing Fra Puccio to stand a sort of vigil so that Dom Felice can sleep with Fra Puccio's wife without fear of interruption. The wife, by the way, is twice described admiringly as plump ("freah and fair and plump as a lady-apple" and "so fresh and plump'). These is 250 years before Peter Paul Rubens, but evidently also a period in which a full-figured woman was preferred to a slimmer one.
Fra Nastagio's preachments seem to have been lost to us, but the "Complaint of Mary Magdalene" is a real thing, about which poems and hymns have een written.
Il Zima Deceives Messer Francesco (III-5): The plot is similar to the third story of the day ("The Lady and the Confession to the Friar") in that someone gives instructions to a prospective lover through false attribution of words. The description in Payne's translation is almost incoherent; were he constructing such a deception, the lover would not have a clue as to what was intended. :-)
The idea of love even after death ("if in the other world folk love as they do here below, I shall love you to all eternity") is a recurring one in poetry. The best known example may be Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43":
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Ricciardo Deceives Catella (III-6): Well, actually it's more like Ricciardo rapes Catella through deception, and first convinces her that if she claims it was rape, no one will believe, and then convinces her to willingly continue their adultery because he's such a good lover. Maybe the Italians thought this a light, diverting story, but it is really quite offensive.
Of course, there is a lot that passed for humor or even normal that we now realize is offensive. And I don't mean just people in blackface, or ethnic slurs. Many people have pointed out that Benjamin Braddock in THE GRADUATE is what we now would call a stalker. In TOPPER, George Kerby's driving while intoxicated was considered humorous in the 1930s; now he's a drunk driver who luckily killed only (!) himself and his wife. For that matter, in the 1930s, intoxication was used a lot as a comedic element--it probably had something to do with the end of Prohibition. In THE QUIET MAN, an old woman hands John Wayne a stick and says, "Here's a good stick, to beat the lovely lady [Maureen O'Hara." But I have wandered somewhat afield from THE DECAMERON.
Tedaldo Is Thought Dead, But Convinces Ermellina How to Save Her Accused Husband (III-7): We are now getting into the realm of the truly obnoxious, where Tedaldo (in the guise of a friar) tells Ermellina that if at some point she accedes to a man's desires, she is obliged to continue to do so even if she changes her mind, because it's not fair to him otherwise. (Did they have the word "incel" in medieval Italian?)
The Abbot Convinces Ferondo He Is in Purgatory (III-8): We're back with the randy abbot, who drugs the husband and then locks him in a dark basement for months, telling him he is in Purgatory and needs to expiate his sins. Then after he gets the wife pregnant, he tells the husband he is being allowed to go back to earth, but that the husband needs to avoid all sins, including jealousy, which lets the abbot and the wife continue their trysts.
Gillette Deceives Her Husband to Get Him to Accept Her (III-9): I could swear I've read this story somewhere else: Man forced to marry someone he thinks beneath him in status. He swears never to live with her as a couple until she is wearing his signet ring and has his child in her arms. So she takes the place of the girl he is trying to seduce, gets the ring, and pregnant. When she shows up a year later, he is so impressed with what she did to get him, he decides she is worthy after all. Bleh. [And sure enough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Decameron_tales mentions that this was the basis Shakespeare's ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL."
Putting the Devil in Hell (III-10): This was apparently considered so salacious that Payne did not even translate a major chunk of it, but left it in the original Italian. (This reminds me of Samuel Pepys use of foreign languages to "encode" the racier parts of his diary, or Richard Burton's use of Latin in his journals for the same reason.) The plot here involves a girl described as being "simple" who is so devoted to God that she decides to become a hermit. She eventually finds another hermit who decides to use her as a temptation to test himself. He fails the test and ends up teaching her how to "put the Devil in Hell," the Devil being something he possesses and Hell being something she possesses. It is hard to see the male hermit as anything but a rapist, since the girl is clearly not giving any sort of informed consent. Eventually she goes back to her home, but is relieved to find that she can continue her religious duty of "putting the Devil in Hell."
Checking further, I discovered that Florio's translation of THE DECAMERON has a completely different story for the tenth story of the third day. I guess "putting the Devil in Hell" was too racy even for him, and so he made another one up. The original Italian has the story that I described.
(If the content of the stories was why the "Quarantine Stuff You Should Know" podcaster gave up in the middle of Day Two, one can only imagine his reaction to some of these stories!)
The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales by Pier Paolo Pasolini:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/11/2020]
I have slacked off my reading of THE DECAMERON because the stories had a certain sameness to them, especially since each day had a theme (virtue rewarded or some such), so all that day's stories were similar. (Does this sound like science fiction theme anthologies?)
However, I recently watched Piers Paolo Pasolini's 1971 film THE DECAMERON. It is 111 minutes long and has nine of the stories, so none gets much time, especially given that the opening credits and first film together take up 23 minutes.
The stories (in Boccaccio's order) are I-1 (deathbed confession), II-5 (fake sister), III-1 (deaf-mute gardener), artist, IV-5 (brothers' revenge), V-4 (sleeping on the balcony), VI-5 (artist's inspiration), VII-2 (oil jar), VII-10 (ghost says fornication not a sin), and IX-10 (attempted seduction of friend's wife).
The artist looking at ordinary people and everyday goings-on to use in his fresco gives Pasolini an excuse to have the camera linger on people's faces. Pasolini's faces are like Jean-Jacques Annaud's in THE NAME OF THE ROSE, distinctive and evocative of the time and place of the film. (Or maybe the credit should go to Annaud's casting crew: Gianni Arduini, Dominique Besnehard, Celestia Fox, David Rubin, and Sabine Schroth. Usually there is a single casting director--Pasolini's was Alberto De Stefanis--but Annaud had a whole team.)
The story of the artist is split up as interstitial bits between the stories of the second half of the film; I have no idea why, since it is not as if it ties in to them in any way. At the end, the artist asks why paint the scenes when the dreaming of them is what is beautiful. This sounded a bit like Alfred Hitchcock's claim that the actual filming was a bit of an anticlimax because after he finished his (extensive) storyboarding, he already had seen the whole film in his head.
There is plenty of sex and nudity (both sexes and all angles); Pasolini did not have to worry about the MPA ratings for his audience, which not surprisingly gave this film an X. Even today this would probably end up NC-17, or (more likely) not submitted for a rating at all.
So then I decided to watch Pasolini's THE CANTERBURY TALES as well. (Given that I bought the two as a set on eBay, because it was only marginally more expensive than buying THE DECAMERON alone, that's not too surprising.) This is eight tales and is also 111 minutes long.
The stories (in film order) are "The Merchant's Tale", "The Friar's Tale", "The Cook's Tale", "The Miller's Tale", "The Wife of Bath's Prologue", "The Reeve's Tale", "The Pardoner's Tale", and "The Summoner's Tale".
This claimed to be "the original English-language version" though the credits were in Italian. Also, it starts with a straight credits sequence rather than showing credits over activity the way THE DECAMERON does.
Pasolini had fewer stories to choose from for this film, but a wider variety of plots and themes. He filmed a few brief framing sequences with himself as Geoffrey Chaucer writing the tale, and in one he is shown reading THE DECAMERON (a small in-joke).
In "The Merchant's Tale", the old man (played by the irrepressible Hugh Griffith) is named Sir January and the young bride May as a reference to the phrase "January and May marriage" (which seems to be the same thing as a "May-December marriage"). In either case. one person is in the spring of their life, while the other is in their winter. Recall also that in Chaucer's time, the year started in March, so both December and January came after May. When the calendar changed, May-January gave way to May-December.
"The Cook's Tale" is quite strange: the main character is dressed like the Little Tramp and is a Chaplin-esque fool, there are a couple of Keystone Cops, and the whole story is very slapstick.
"The Miller's Tale" is "The Miller's Tale", and other stories have fart jokes as well. Just so you know. (And there's lots of sex and nudity in this film, just as in THE DECAMERON.) [-ecl] Tweet
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