Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  When one turns to look at what is available in English from publishers on this side of the Atlantic, the prospect, though rather less cluttered, is only slightly better focused on the central issues.Kathleen Speight’s edition for the Manchester University Press of twenty of the novelle has a brief introduction containing a succinct account of Boccaccio’s life and of his influential role in the history of European literature. Aimed at the student of Italian, it also has a bibliography and a series of notes clarifying some of the complexities of Boccaccio’s style and language. Also from the Manchester school, there is Robert Hastings’ elegant series of short essays on Nature and Reason in the ‘Decameron’. Then we have Guido Almansi’s slightly flawed but brilliantly perceptive and entertaining analysis of a dozen of the novelle, with sundry characteristic glosses on a great many more, in his The Writer as Liar. Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin’s Religion and the Clergy in Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ is an excellent survey of one of the work’s most important ingredients, showing how Boccaccio exploits the Church, its institutions and its iconography for his own narrative purposes. Finally, as in America so over here, there are numerous articles in learned journals on both general and particular aspects of the work, those by Jonathan Usher being among the most perceptive and thought-provoking examples of the genre.

  Without necessarily provoking a superabundance of thought, what the new introduction to the Penguin Classics Decameron attempts to provide is a fairly detailed and informative account of Boccaccio’s life and literary output, special attention naturally being paid to those lesser works of his that seem to have a direct bearing on the eventual formation of the Decameron itself.

  As to the critical method of the new introduction, the approach is unashamedly neo-positivist. In the section outlining Boccaccio’s life, the unreliability of autobiographical motifs in the Prologue (Proemio), the Introduction to the Fourth Day and the Author’s Epilogue (Conclusione dell’autore) is explained for the benefit of those readers who are unacquainted with the conventions of medieval literature. Due prominence is given to such matters as Boccaccio’s lifelong attachment to his primus studiorum dux, in other words to Dante, and to the importance of the Divine Comedy as a structural model for his own secular epic. Emphasis is also placed upon the relevance of Boccaccio’s close association in his earlier years with Neapolitan courtly and commercial circles, the influence of French culture at the Angevin court, and the contacts he established in Naples with eminent figures in the spheres of poetry and scholarship. The events of Boccaccio’s later post-Decameronian life, including his friendship with Petrarch, his diplomatic missions and other travels, and his retirement to Certaldo, are sketched in with economy, their bearing on the composition of the Decameron being no more than marginal.

  The account of Boccaccio’s life and work takes up about a fifth of the new introduction, the rest being devoted to an analysis of the Decameron itself, beginning with a survey of its antecedents. There is some discussion of previous collections of novelle, such as John of Capua’s re-working of the Panchatantra in his Directorium Vitae Humanae, the Libro dei sette savi and the Novellino. The significance of the phrase used by Boccaccio in the Prologue to describe his own collection of tales (‘a hundred stories or fables or parables or histories’) is underlined by pointing out its curiously exact correspondence with their known sources in French fabliaux, medieval Latin exempla and fourteenth-century Italian chronicles respectively. The possible influence of antecedents on the actual form taken by the Decameron is briefly examined before the conclusion is reached that ‘no amount of source-hunting can obscure the fact that the frame of the Decameron is a unique and original creation, the product of a fertile and imaginative intellect which had already supplied the impetus for several of the more important genres of western literature.’

  In analysing the work’s structure, a deaf ear is turned to the siren songs of Joy Hambuechen Potter in her Five Frames for the ‘Decameron’, so that only three separate levels of reality are identified: author, narrators and narratives. The authorial viewpoint of the Prologue, Introduction to the Fourth Day and Author’s Epilogue is treated with the required degree of scepticism, and an attempt is made to uncover the real motives for Boccaccio’s interventions, the main one being identified as a determination to defend the hitherto neglected or despised poetic genre of narrative prose fiction. As far as the narrators are concerned, I take it to be inconceivable that the ten members of the lieta brigata do not have an allegorical function, even though, contrary to Boccaccio’s practice in his earlier works, none whatsoever is specified. So the pre-lapsarian world of the narrators is seen as a refined and extended version of the locus amœnus, peopled (in accordance with the scheme suggested by Victoria Kirkham) on the one hand by female figures embodying the seven virtues, and on the other by male figures representing the tripartite division of the soul into the baser human emotions of Anger and Lust and the nobler, intellectual power of Reason. The narratives themselves are analysed under the traditional thematic headings of Love, Intelligence and Fortune, with major emphasis on the first and the second.

  Apart from the revised and expanded introduction, a major innovation in the new Penguin Classics Decameron is the provision of copious explanatory notes to the individual stories. For a long time, it has seemed to me unreasonable that a text judged to require 600 pages of commentary in Vittore Branca’s incomparable edition for the Classici Mondadori has no version in English that makes any serious attempt to answer the many questions that may arise in the mind of the monoglot English reader. In compiling the notes, my debt to Branca is freely acknowledged, but I do not necessarily agree with all of his conclusions and interpretations. Where it was felt to be appropriate, the notes include indications of sources, both known and presumptive. Comparisons are drawn, also, with some of the more obvious analogues, especially those of English writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Keats. In addition, the notes hazard interpretations of some of the more enigmatic words or phrases in Boccaccio’s text, one example being his own gloss on the name of the main character of the opening tale, where he writes that

  … the French, who did not know the meaning of the word Cepperello, thinking that it signified chapel, which in their language means ‘garland’, and because as we have said he was a little man, used to call him, not Ciappello, but Ciappelletto.

  Would it really have affected the Burgundians’ assessment of Cepperello’s character if they had known that his name was suggestive of a log rather than a garland? Is it not more likely that the name Cepperello (‘little log’ or ‘little stump’) had some pejorative or possibly obscene connotation in popular fourteenth-century Florentine speech? Another name that requires a word of explanation is that of Monna Belcolore’s husband, Bentivegna del Mazzo (VIII, 2). Branca merely tells us that Bentivegna was a very common name, and that a Bentivegna, probably from Certaldo, was a colleague of Boccaccio’s in the Compagnia dei Bardi. But that is to overlook the sexual associations of the name, literally ‘May good come to you of the rod’, for which a near-equivalent in modern colloquial English is ‘Get stuffed!’

  As already pointed out, the explanatory notes appended to this second edition of my translation owe much to Branca’s masterly commentary to his own edition of Boccaccio’s text. But even Branca’s scholarly and comprehensive notes are occasionally in need of revision. Who, for instance, was the King of England with the transvestite daughter who elected to dress up as an abbot (II, 3)? Branca plumps for Henry II, on the grounds that the ‘unexpected war’ referred to at one point in the narrative is possibly the rebellion against Henry II led by his sons, Henry and Richard, in 1173. True, the action of the narrative takes place some time after the ‘unexpected war’, but in 1173 the King of Scotland was William I, still only thirty years old, who would hardly fit the pseudo-Abbot’s description of him as ‘a very old man’. Other features of the tale, such as the reference to barons and their castles, suggest that the tale is set in a period close
r to Boccaccio’s own day, possibly during the turbulent reign (1307–27) of Edward II, which was marked by an endless series of conflicts including his defeat at Bannockburn in 1314. A more plausible candidate as the princess’s prospective husband would therefore be Robert the Bruce, who by 1327 was in his early fifties and suffering from the terminal illness, possibly leprosy, which led to his death in 1329.

  In addition to the explanatory notes, a further innovatory feature of this second edition of the Penguin Classics Decameron is a select bibliography, listing works both in English and Italian that will serve as an aid to further study of Boccaccio and his literary work. The maps of Florence and Tuscany, Italy, the Mediterranean, and north-west Europe will, it is hoped, help to clarify the precise location of the surprisingly large number of places named by Boccaccio in the text of the Decameron. The indexes at the end of the volume include references to proper nouns both in the translation itself and in my introduction and notes.

  The observant reader will perhaps note that translated passages in the introduction do not always conform to the wording in the actual text of the translation. This is because a word-for-word translation was sometimes thought preferable in order to illustrate more clearly a particular argument. With the exception of one quotation from Christopher Ryan’s English version of Dante’s Convivio, the remaining translations of excerpts from Italian or Latin texts that appear in the introduction and notes are my own.

  In conclusion, I take the opportunity to express my grateful thanks to those without whose help and support, whether in the distant past or in more recent times, it would not have been possible for me to complete this present undertaking. It was my earliest teacher of Italian, Professor Gwyn Griffith, who suggested to the then editor of Penguin Classics, Robert Baldick, that I might be a suitable recruit to the ranks of his translators. To Professor Peter Brand I owe a special debt of gratitude for his long and patient encouragement of my research in the area of Boccaccio studies. Like all serious Boccaccio scholars, I have taken advantage of the formidable amount of research undertaken and published by Professor Vittore Branca, whose lectures I first had the privilege of attending over forty years ago at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, and whose edition of the Decameron is the main text on which my translation is based. I remember with particular affection the many lively conversations I had in Canterbury in the late 1960s on possible interpretations of Boccaccio’s narratives with Professor Guido Almansi. To Mr Peter Hainsworth I am grateful for his agreeing to read through the text of the translation in its original form, and for granting it his imprimatur. More recently, Professor John Woodhouse kindly read my new introduction and notes, and made several valuable suggestions for their emendation, many of which I have acted upon. My first wife, Jennifer, not only encouraged me against my better judgement to undertake the translation of a text that I believed to be untranslatable, but also gave me useful advice on English prosody when I was translating the canzoni that are sung towards the end of the company’s proceedings on each of the ten days. My present wife, Elizabeth, read the new introduction and notes, encouraged me with a flattering assessment of their worth, and suggested how they might be improved upon. To both, I put on record my profound appreciation for their infinite patience and understanding during half a lifetime spent in the pursuit of my Boccaccio translation and research. I must thank Paul Keegan, chief editor of Penguin Classics, for his generous response to my several requests concerning this new edition. Thanks are also owed to my text editor, Richard Duguid, to my cartographer, Reg Piggott, who displayed Griselda-like patience in complying with my numerous suggested additions and amendments to his maps, and to David Bowron, who prepared the indexes. It is perhaps needless to add that for any errors, infelicities or omissions, whether in the translation itself or in the introduction, bibliography, notes, maps or indexes, I myself accept full responsibility.

  G. H. McWilliam

  Lewins, Chalfont St Peter

  1995

  Here begins the book called Decameron,1 otherwise known as Prince Galahalt, wherein are contained a hundred stories, told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men.

  PROLOGUE

  To take pity2 on people in distress is a human quality which every man and woman should possess, but it is especially requisite in those who have once needed comfort, and found it in others. I number myself as one of these, because if ever anyone required or appreciated comfort, or indeed derived pleasure therefrom, I was that person. For from my earliest youth until the present day, I have been inflamed beyond measure with a most lofty and noble love,3 far loftier and nobler than might perhaps be thought proper, were I to describe it, in a person of my humble condition. And although people of good judgement, to whose notice it had come, praised me for it and rated me much higher in their esteem, nevertheless it was exceedingly difficult for me to endure. The reason, I hasten to add, was not the cruelty of my lady-love, but the immoderate passion engendered within my mind by a craving that was ill-restrained. This, since it would allow me no proper respite, often caused me an inordinate amount of distress. But in my anguish I have on occasion derived much relief from the agreeable conversation and the admirable expressions of sympathy offered by friends, without which I am firmly convinced that I should have perished. However, the One who is infinite decreed by immutable law that all earthly things should come to an end. And it pleased Him that this love of mine, whose warmth exceeded all others, and which had stood firm and unyielding against all the pressures of good intention, helpful advice, and the risk of danger and open scandal, should in the course of time diminish of its own accord. So that now, all that is left of it in my mind is the delectable feeling which Love habitually reserves for those who refrain from venturing too far upon its deepest waters. And thus what was once a source of pain has now become, having shed all discomfort, an abiding sensation of pleasure.

  But though the pain has ceased, I still preserve a clear recollection of the kindnesses I received in the past from people who, prompted by feelings of goodwill towards me, showed a concern for my sufferings. This memory will never, I think, fade for as long as I live. And since it is my conviction that gratitude, of all the virtues, is most highly to be commended and its opposite condemned, I have resolved, in order not to appear ungrateful, to employ what modest talents I possess in making restitution for what I have received. Thus, now that I can claim to have achieved my freedom, I intend to offer some solace, if not to those who assisted me (since their good sense or good fortune will perhaps render such a gift superfluous), at least to those who stand in need of it. And even though my support, or if you prefer, my encouragement, may seem very slight (as indeed it is) to the people concerned, I feel none the less that it should for preference be directed where it seems to be most needed, because that is the quarter in which it will be more effective and, at the same time, more readily welcomed.

  And who will deny that such encouragement, however small, should much rather be offered to the charming ladies than to the men? For the ladies, out of fear or shame, conceal the flames of passion within their fragile breasts, and a hidden love is far more potent than one which is worn on the sleeve, as everyone knows who has had experience of these matters. Moreover they are forced to follow the whims, fancies and dictates of their fathers, mothers, brothers and husbands, so that they spend most of their time cooped up within the narrow confines of their rooms, where they sit in apparent idleness, wishing one thing and at the same time wishing its opposite, and reflecting on various matters, which cannot possibly always be pleasant to contemplate. And if, in the course of their meditations, their minds should be invaded by melancholy arising out of the flames of longing, it will inevitably take root there and make them suffer greatly, unless it be dislodged by new interests. Besides which, their powers of endurance are considerably weaker than those that men possess.

  When men are in love, they are not affected in this way, as we can see quite plainly. They, whenever they are weig
hed down by melancholy or ponderous thoughts, have many ways of relieving or expelling them. For if they wish, they can always walk abroad, see and hear many things, go fowling, hunting, fishing, riding and gambling, or attend to their business affairs. Each of these pursuits has the power of engaging men’s minds, either wholly or in part, and diverting them from their gloomy meditations, at least for a certain period: after which, some form of consolation will ensue, or the affliction will grow less intense.

  So in order that I may to some extent repair the omissions of Fortune, which (as we may see in the case of the more delicate sex) was always more sparing of support wherever natural strength was more deficient, I intend to provide succour and diversion for the ladies, but only for those who are in love, since the others can make do with their needles, their reels and their spindles. I shall narrate a hundred stories or fables or parables or histories4 or whatever you choose to call them, recited in ten days by a worthy band of seven ladies and three young men, who assembled together during the plague which recently took such heavy toll of life. And I shall also include some songs, which these seven ladies sang for their mutual amusement.

  In these tales will be found a variety of love adventures, bitter as well as pleasing, and other exciting incidents, which took place in both ancient and modern times. In reading them, the aforesaid ladies will be able to derive, not only pleasure from the entertaining matters therein set forth, but also some useful advice. For they will learn to recognize what should be avoided and likewise what should be pursued, and these things can only lead, in my opinion, to the removal of their affliction. If this should happen (and may God grant that it should), let them give thanks to Love, which, in freeing me from its bonds, has granted me the power of making provision for their pleasures.