In reading the early romances of Boccaccio, it must be confessed that while his attitude towards woman is not so assured, nor so masterful in its realism and humour as in the Decameron, it is nevertheless much the same in character. In the Filocolo, as in the Ameto, he thinks of her always as a prize, as something to be hunted or cajoled, yes, like a barbarian; nor are his early works less sensual than the Decameron. The physical reality is for him — and not only in regard to woman — so much more than the spiritual.
Yet in spite of the general character of his work, we observe from time to time, and more especially in the Rime, a certain idealism, still eagerly physical, if you will, but none the less ideal on that account, which centres in Fiammetta and his thoughts concerning her.
We have already traced that story from its beginning to its end, we shall but return to it here to repeat that whatever we may come to think of it, this at least is assured and certain: that it was a genuine and sincere passion in which Boccaccio’s whole being was involved — inextricably involved — soul as well as body. To a nature such as Boccaccio’s, so lively and full of energy, that awakening, so far as his physical nature was concerned, came not without preparation — he had had other loves before he saw Fiammetta — but spiritually it seems to have been in the nature of an unexpected revelation. It made him a poet, as we have seen, and one cannot read the Rime without being convinced that something more was involved in his love for his lady than the body.
It would seem, then, that we have here under our hands a history, logical and inevitable, developed by the character of the man in the circumstances which befell him. Like all the men of his day, he was in love with love. Without the profound spiritual energy of Dante, but with a physical vitality greater far than Petrarch’s, Boccaccio was inevitably in youth at the mercy of the lust of the eye, following woman because she was beautiful and because he desired her with all the fresh energy of his nature. He met Fiammetta and loved her. And then, though his desire abated no jot, there was added to it a certain idealism in which to some extent, sometimes greater, sometimes less, the spirit was involved to his joy and his sorrow. So, when Fiammetta forsook him, she wounded him not only in his pride, but in his soul, a wound that might never altogether be healed. That at least might seem certain, for had he loved her only as he had loved the others, to forget her would have been easy; but he could not forget.
Well, this wound, as we might say, grew angry and festered, poisoning his whole being with its bitterness. Thus in the years which follow his betrayal by Fiammetta we see him regarding woman now with a furious bitterness and anger, as in the subtle cruelty of the Fiammetta, now merely sensually as the instrument and means of the pleasure of man — a flower to be plucked in the garden of life, worn a little and thrown away e’er one grow weary of it.
But this phase, mixed of too bitter and too sweet, unhealthy too and without the capacity of laughter, presently passed away before the essential virility and energy of his nature. In the fullness of his youth from thirty-three to forty, busy with important work, engaged in responsible missions, the friend of great men of action as well as of poets and scholars, almost all that bitterness and anger passes away from him, and instead he assumes the pose we see in the Decameron, to which all his knowledge of the world, his tolerance of life, his sense of humour, and in some sort his sanity, must have urged him. He has lost every illusion with regard to woman save that she is able to give him pleasure. He may “call himself free” from her, he says, and he shows her to us, well, as the realist sees her, as she appears, that is, to the bodily eye, and as we find her in the Decameron.
Let it be granted if you will that such an attitude as that of the poets of romantic love was ridiculous, and that like all illusion and untruth it entailed in some sort a denial of life and brought its own penalty. But was Boccaccio’s attitude really, fundamentally any nearer the truth? And if not, must not it too be paid for? Assuredly. Life will not be denied. If woman be nothing but the flesh, however we may glorify her, she is but dust, and our mouth, eloquent with her praises, full of ashes. So it was with Boccaccio. All his early works, including the Decameron, had been written to please women. In the Corbaccio we see the reaction.
It seems that during the time he was writing the Decameron, towards his forty-first year, he found himself taken by a very beautiful woman, a widow, who pretended to encourage him, perhaps because of his fame, provoked his advances, allured him to write to her, and then laughing at this middle-aged and obese lover, gave his letters to her young lover, who scattered them about Florence.
Boccaccio had already been hurt, as we have seen, by the criticisms some had offered on his work.441 This deception by the widow exasperated him, his love for women turned to loathing, and he now composed a sort of invective against them, which was called the Corbaccio, though whether he so named it himself remains unknown.442
The story is as follows: A lover finds himself lost in the forest of love, and is delivered by a spirit. The lover is Boccaccio, the spirit is the husband of the widow who has returned from hell, where his avarice and complaisance have brought him. In setting Boccaccio in the right way, the spirit of the husband reveals to him all the imperfections, artifices and defects, the hidden vices and weaknesses of his wife with the same brutality and grossness that Ovid had employed in his Amoris Remedia. “Had you seen her first thing in the morning with her night-cap on, squatting before the fire, coughing and spitting.... Ah, if I could tell you how many different ways she had of dealing with that golden hair of hers, you would be amazed. Why, she spent all her time treating it with herbs and washing it with the blood of all sorts of animals. The house was full of distillations, little furnaces, oil cups, retorts, and such litter. There wasn’t an apothecary in Florence or a gardener in the environs who wasn’t ordered to send her fluid silver or wild weeds....”
Such was Boccaccio’s revenge. But he was not content with this fierce attack on the foolish woman who had deceived him; he involved the whole sex in his contempt and ridicule. “Women,” he says, “have no other occupation but in making themselves appear beautiful and in winning admiration; ... all are inconstant and light, willing and unwilling in the same heart’s beat, unless what they wish happens to minister to their incorrigible vices. They only come into their husband’s house to upset everything, to spend his money, to quarrel day and night with the servants or with his brothers and relations and children. They make out that they are timid and fearful, so that if they are in a lofty place they complain of vertigo, if in a boat their delicate stomachs are upset, if we must journey by night they fear to meet ghosts, if the wind rattles the window or they hear a pebble fall they tremble with fright; while, as you know, if one tries to do anything, to go anywhere without warning them, they are utterly contrary. But God only knows how bold and how ready they are in things to their taste. There is no place so difficult, precipices among the mountains, the highest palace walls, or the darkest night, that will stop them. Their sole thought, their only object, there one ambition is to rob, to rule, and to deceive their husbands, and for this end they will stoop to anything.”443
The Corbaccio, however, was not the only work in which his pessimism and hatred of woman showed itself. It is visible also in the Vita di Dante, which was written about this time or a little later than the Corbaccio,444 perhaps in 1356-7. All goes well till we come to Dante’s marriage, when there follows a magnificent piece of invective which, while it expresses admirably Boccaccio’s mood and helps us to date the book, has little or nothing to do with Dante. Indeed, we seem to learn there, reading a little between the lines, more of Boccaccio himself than of the husband of Gemma Donati.
“Oh, ye blind souls,” he writes there,445 “oh ye clouded intellects, oh, ye vain purposes of so many mortals, how counter to your intentions in full many a thing are the results that follow; — and for the most part not without reason! What man would take another who felt excessive heat in the sweet air of Italy to the burning sands of Ly
bia to cool himself, or from the Isle of Cyprus to the eternal shades of the Rhodopæan mountains to find warmth? What physician would set about expelling acute fever by means of fire, or a chill in the marrow of the bones with ice or with snow? Of a surety not one; unless it be he who shall think to mitigate the tribulations of love by giving one a bride. They who look to accomplish this thing know not the nature of love, nor how it maketh every other passion feed its own. In vain are succours or counsels brought up against its might, if it have taken firm root in the heart of him who long hath loved. Even as in the beginning every feeblest resistance is of avail, so when it hath gathered head, even the stoutest are wont many times to turn to hurt. But returning to our matter, and conceding for the moment that there may (so far as that goes) be things which have the power to make men forget the pains of love, what hath he done who to draw out of one grievous thought hath plunged me into a thousand greater and more grievous? Verily naught else save by addition of that ill which he hath wrought me, to bring me into a longing for return into that from which he hath drawn me. And this we see come to pass to the most of those who in their blindness marry that they may escape from sorrows, or are induced to marry by others who would draw them hence; nor do they perceive that they have issued out of one tangle into a thousand, until the event brings experience, but without power to turn back howsoever they repent. His relatives and friends gave Dante a wife that his tears for Beatrice might have an end; but I know not whether for this (though the tears passed away, or rather perhaps had already passed) the amorous flame departed; yet I do not think it. But even granted that it were quenched, many fresh burdens, yet more grievous, might take its place. He had been wont, keeping vigil at his sacred studies, to discourse whensoever he would with emperors, with kings, with all other most exalted princes, to dispute with philosophers, to delight himself with most pleasing poets and giving heed to the anguish of others to mitigate his own.446 Now he may be with these only so much as his new lady chooses; and what seasons it is her will shall be withdrawn from so illustrious companionship, he must bestow on female chatter, which, if he will not increase his woes, he must not only endure but must extol. He who was wont, when weary of the vulgar herd, to withdraw into some solitary place, and there consider in his speculations what spirit moveth the heaven, whence cometh life to the animals that are on earth, what are the causes of things; or to rehearse some rare invention, compose some poem which shall make him though dead yet live by fame amongst the folk that are to come; must now not only leave these sweet contemplations as often as the whim seizes his new lady, but must submit to company that ill sorts with such like things. He, who was wont to laugh, to weep, to sing, to sigh, at his will, as sweet or bitter emotions pierced him, now dares it not; for he must needs render an account to his lady, not only of greater affairs, but of every little sigh, explaining what started it, whence it came, and whither it tended; for she takes gladness as evidence of love for another, and sadness as hatred of herself.
“Oh weariness beyond conception of having to live and hold intercourse, and finally grow old and die with so suspicious an animal! I choose not to say aught of the new and most grievous cares which they who are not used to them must bear, and especially in our city; I mean how to provide for clothes, ornaments, and rooms crammed with superfluities that women make themselves believe are a support to an elegant existence; how to provide for man and maid servants, nurses and chambermaids ... I speak not of these ... but rather come to certain things from which there is no escape.
“Who doubts that judgment will be passed by the general whether his wife be fair or no? And if she be reputed fair, who doubts but she will straightway have a crowd of lovers who will most pertinaciously besiege her unstable mind, one with his good works and one with his noble birth and one with marvellous flattery and one with gifts and one with pleasant ways? And that which many desire shall scarce be defended against every one; and women’s chastity need only once be overtaken to make them infamous and their husbands miserable in perpetuity. But if, by misfortune of him who brings her home, she be foul to look upon — well, it is plain to see that even of the fairest women men often and quickly grow weary, and what are we then to think of the others, save that not only they themselves, but every place which they are like to be found of them who must have them for ever with them, will be detested? And hence springs up their wrath; nor is there any wild beast more cruel than an angry woman — no, nor so much. Nor may any man live in safety of his life who hath committed him to any woman who thinketh she hath good cause to be in wrath against him. And they all think it.
“What shall I say of their ways? Would I show how greatly they all run counter to the peace and repose of men, I must draw out my discourse to an all too long harangue; and therefore let me be content to speak of one common to almost all. They imagine that any sorriest menial can keep his place in the house by behaving well, but will be cast out for the contrary. Wherefore they hold that if they themselves behave well theirs is no better than a servile lot; for they only feel that they are ladies when they do ill, but come not to the evil end that servants would.
“Why should I go on pointing out that which all the world knows? I judge it better to hold my tongue, than by my speech to give offence to lovely woman. Who doth not know that trial is first made by him who should buy ere he take to himself any other thing save only his wife — lest she should displease him or ever he have her home? Whoso taketh her must needs have her not such as he would choose, but such as fortune yieldeth her to him. And if these things above be true (as he knoweth who hath tried) we may think what woes those chambers hide, which from outside to whoso hath not eyes whose keenness can pierce through walls, are reputed places of delight.
“Assuredly I do not affirm that these things chanced to Dante; for I do not know it: though true it is that (whether such like things or others were the cause) when once he had parted from her (who had been given him as a consolation in his sufferings!) never would he go where she was, nor suffered he her to come where he was, albeit he was the father of several children by her. But let not any suppose that from the things said above I would conclude that men ought not to take to themselves wives. Contrariwise, I much commend it; but not for every one. Let philosophers leave marrying to wealthy fools, to noblemen and peasants; and let them take their delight with philosophy, who is a far better bride than any other.”
Such then was Boccaccio’s mood, “his state of soul” in the years between 1354 and 1357. Well might Petrarch discern in him “a troubled spirit”: “from many letters of yours,” he writes from Milan on December 20, 1355, “I have extracted one thing, that you have a troubled spirit.”
CHAPTER XIII
1357-1363
LEON PILATUS AND THE TRANSLATION OF HOMER —
THE CONVERSION OF BOCCACCIO
That a profound change had already taken place in Boccaccio’s point of view, in his attitude towards life, in his whole moral consciousness, it might seem impossible to doubt after reading the Corbaccio and the Vita di Dante; but though its full significance only became apparent some years after the publication of those works, the curious psychologist may perhaps find signs of it before the year 1355. For while that change was on the one hand the inevitable consequence of his youth and early manhood, a development from causes that had always been hidden in his soul, it was also a result, as it was a sign, of his age, of his passing from youth to middle age, and it declares itself with the first grey hairs, the first sign of failing powers and loss of activity, in a sort of disillusion and pessimism. From this time his life was to be a kind of looking backward, with a wild regret for the mistakes and wasted opportunities then perhaps for the first time horribly visible.
Yes, a part at least of that bitterness, scorn, and anger against woman might seem to be but the approach of old age. But side by side with that moral and spiritual revolution that by no means reached its crisis in 1355, we may see an intellectual change not less profound, that in i
ts own way too is also a “looking backward.” His creative powers were paralysed. The Corbaccio is the last original or “creative” work that he achieved; henceforth his life was to be devoted to scholarship and to criticism, and however eager we may be to acknowledge the debt we owe him for his labours in those fields, we cannot but admit that they are a sign of failing power, of a lost grip on life, on reality; and though we can hardly have hoped for another Decameron, we are forced to allow that the energy which created the one we have was of quite another and a higher sort than that which produced the works of learning which fill the last twenty years of his life.
When Petrarch first met Boccaccio, as we have seen, it was not so much of Italian letters as of antiquity that they spoke; and ever after we find that the elder poet brings the conversation back to that, to him the most important of subjects, when Boccaccio, with his keener sense of life and greater vitality, would have involved him in political discussion, or persuaded him to consider such aspects of the life of his own time as are to be found, for instance, so plentifully in the Decameron. Seeing the way Petrarch was determined to follow, venerating him as his master and leader, always ready to give him the first place, it is not surprising that Boccaccio interested himself more and more in what so engrossed his friend. In 1354 Petrarch thanks him447 for an anthology from the works of Cicero and Varro that he had composed and given him, and in the same year he thanks him again for S. Augustine’s Commentary on the Psalms.
Long before he met Boccaccio in Florence in 1350, however, Petrarch had begun the study of Greek in Avignon in 1342 under the Basilian monk Barlaam,448 whom he had met there in 1339.
Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 469
