The Decameron, Volume II

by Giovanni Boccaccio

saying:--"Foolish woman, what is't thou sayst? Howshouldst thou want Federigo, who has not a thing in the world?" To whomshe answered:--"My brothers, well wot I that 'tis as you say; but I hadrather have a man without wealth than wealth without a man." Thebrothers, perceiving that her mind was made up, and knowing Federigo fora good man and true, poor though he was, gave her to him with all herwealth. And so Federigo, being mated with such a wife, and one that hehad so much loved, and being very wealthy to boot, lived happily, keepingmore exact accounts, to the end of his days.

  NOVEL X.

  --Pietro di Vinciolo goes from home to sup: his wife brings a boy into thehouse to bear her company: Pietro returns, and she hides her gallantunder a hen-coop: Pietro explains that in the house of Ercolano, withwhom he was to have supped, there was discovered a young man bestowedthere by Ercolano's wife: the lady thereupon censures Ercolano's wife:but unluckily an ass treads on the fingers of the boy that is hiddenunder the hen-coop, so that he cries for pain: Pietro runs to the place,sees him, and apprehends the trick played on him by his wife, whichnevertheless he finally condones, for that he is not himself free fromblame.--

  When the queen had done speaking, and all had praised God that He hadworthily rewarded Federigo, Dioneo, who never waited to be bidden, thusbegan:--I know not whether I am to term it a vice accidental andsuperinduced by bad habits in us mortals, or whether it be a fault seatedin nature, that we are more prone to laugh at things dishonourable thanat good deeds, and that more especially when they concern not ourselves.However, as the sole scope of all my efforts has been and still shall beto dispel your melancholy, and in lieu thereof to minister to youlaughter and jollity; therefore, enamoured my damsels, albeit the ensuingstory is not altogether free from matter that is scarce seemly, yet, asit may afford you pleasure, I shall not fail to relate it; premonishingyou my hearers, that you take it with the like discretion as when, goinginto your gardens, you stretch forth your delicate hands and cull theroses, leaving the thorns alone: which, being interpreted, means that youwill leave the caitiff husband to abide in sorry plight with hisdishonour, and will gaily laugh at the amorous wiles or his wife, andcommiserate her unfortunate gallant, when occasion requires.

  'Tis no great while since there dwelt at Perugia a rich man named Pietrodi Vinciolo, who rather, perchance, to blind others and mitigate the evilrepute in which he was held by the citizens of Perugia, than for anydesire to wed, took a wife: and such being his motive, Fortune providedhim with just such a spouse as he merited. For the wife of his choice wasa stout, red-haired young woman, and so hot-blooded that two husbandswould have been more to her mind than one, whereas one fell to her lotthat gave her only a subordinate place in his regard. Which sheperceiving, while she knew herself to be fair and lusty, and felt herselfto be gamesome and fit, waxed very wroth, and now and again had highwords with her husband, and led but a sorry life with him at most times.Then, seeing that thereby she was more like to fret herself than todispose her husband to conduct less base, she said to herself:--This poorcreature deserts me to go walk in pattens in the dry; wherefore it shallgo hard but I will bring another aboard the ship for the wet weather. Imarried him, and brought him a great and goodly dowry, knowing that hewas a man, and supposing him to have the desires which men have and oughtto have; and had I not deemed him to be a man, I should never havemarried him. He knew me to be a woman: why then took he me to wife, ifwomen were not to his mind? 'Tis not to be endured. Had I not been mindedto live in the world, I had become a nun; and being minded there to live,as I am, if I am to wait until I have pleasure or solace of him, I shallwait perchance until I am old; and then, too late, I shall bethink me tomy sorrow that I have wasted my youth; and as to the way in which Ishould seek its proper solace I need no better teacher and guide thanhim, who finds his delight where I should find mine, and finds it to hisown condemnation, whereas in me 'twere commendable. 'Tis but the lawsthat I shall set at nought, whereas he sets both them and Nature herselfat nought.

  So the good lady reasoned, and peradventure more than once; and then,casting about how she might privily compass her end, she made friendswith an old beldam, that shewed as a veritable Santa Verdiana,foster-mother of vipers, who was ever to be seen going to pardonings witha parcel of paternosters in her hand, and talked of nothing but the livesof the holy Fathers, and the wounds of St. Francis, and was generallyreputed a saint; to whom in due time she opened her whole mind. "Mydaughter," replied the beldam, "God, who knows all things, knows thatthou wilt do very rightly indeed: were it for no other reason, 'twould bemeet for thee and every other young woman so to do, that the heyday ofyouth be not wasted; for there is no grief like that of knowing that ithas been wasted. And what the devil are we women fit for when we are oldexcept to pore over the cinders on the hearth? The which if any know, andmay attest it, 'tis I, who, now that I am old, call to mind the time thatI let slip from me, not without most sore and bitter and fruitlessregret: and albeit 'twas not all wasted, for I would not have thee thinkthat I was entirely without sense, yet I did not make the best use of it:whereof when I bethink me, and that I am now, even as thou seest me, sucha hag that never a spark of fire may I hope to get from any, God knowshow I rue it. Now with men 'tis otherwise: they are born meet for athousand uses, not for this alone; and the more part of them are of muchgreater consequence in old age than in youth: but women are fit fornought but this, and 'tis but for that they bear children that they arecherished. Whereof, if not otherwise, thou mayst assure thyself, if thoudo but consider that we are ever ready for it; which is not the case withmen; besides which, one woman will tire out many men without beingherself tired out. Seeing then that 'tis for this we are born, I tellthee again that thou wilt do very rightly to give thy husband thy loaffor his cake, that in thy old age thy soul may have no cause of complaintagainst thy flesh. Every one has just as much of this life as heappropriates: and this is especially true of women, whom therefore itbehoves, much more than men, to seize the moment as it flies: indeed, asthou mayst see for thyself, when we grow old neither husband, nor anyother man will spare us a glance; but, on the contrary, they banish us tothe kitchen, there to tell stories to the cat, and to count the pots andpans; or, worse, they make rhymes about us:--'To the damsel dainty bits;to the beldam ague-fits;' and such-like catches. But to make no morewords about it, I tell thee at once that there is no person in the worldto whom thou couldst open thy mind with more advantage than to me; forthere is no gentleman so fine but I dare speak my mind to him, nor any soharsh and forbidding but I know well how to soften him and fashion him tomy will. Tell me only what thou wouldst have, and leave the rest to me:but one word more: I pray thee to have me in kindly remembrance, for thatI am poor; and thou shalt henceforth go shares with me in all myindulgences and every paternoster that I say, that God may make thereoflight and tapers for thy dead:" wherewith she ended.

  So the lady came to an understanding with the beldam, that, as soon asshe set eyes on a boy that often came along that street, and of whom thelady gave her a particular description, she would know what she was todo: and thereupon the lady gave her a chunk of salt meat, and bade herGod-speed. The beldam before long smuggled into the lady's chamber theboy of whom she had spoken, and not long after another, such being thehumour of the lady, who, standing in perpetual dread of her husband, wasdisposed, in this particular, to make the most of her opportunities. Andone of these days, her husband being to sup in the evening with a friendnamed Ercolano, the lady bade the beldam bring her a boy as pretty anddainty as was to be found in Perugia; and so the beldam forthwith did.But the lady and the boy being set at table to sup, lo, Pietro's voicewas heard at the door, bidding open to him. Whereupon the lady gaveherself up for dead; but being fain, if she might, to screen the boy, andknowing not where else to convey or conceal him, bestowed him under ahen-coop that stood in a veranda hard by the chamber in which they weresupping, and threw over it a sorry mattress that she had that day emptiedof its straw; which done she hastened to open the door to her husband;sayin
g to him as he entered:--"You have gulped your supper mighty quicklyto-night." Whereto Pietro replied:--"We have not so much as tasted it.""How so?" enquired the lady. "I will tell thee," said Pietro. "No soonerwere we set at table, Ercolano, his wife, and I, than we heard a sneezeclose to us, to which, though 'twas repeated, we paid no heed; but as thesneezer continued to sneeze a third, a fourth, a fifth, and many anothertime to boot, we all began to wonder, and Ercolano, who was somewhat outof humour with his wife, because she had kept us a long time at the doorbefore she opened it, burst out in a sort of rage with:--'What meansthis? Who is't that thus sneezes?' and made off to a stair hard by,beneath which and close to its foot was a wooden closet, of the sortwhich, when folk are furnishing their houses, they commonly cause