The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (best classic books of all time txt) 📕

supper came well nigh unlooked for; whereupon, the tables being set round about the fair fountain, they supped there in the evening with the utmost delight.

As soon as the tables were taken away, Filostrato, not to depart from the course holden of those who had been queens before him, commanded Lauretta to lead up a dance and sing a song. “My lord,” answered she, “I know none of other folk’s songs, nor have I in mind any of mine own which should best beseem so joyous a company; but, an you choose one of those which I have, I will willingly sing it.” Quote the king, “Nothing of thine can be other than goodly and pleasing; wherefore sing us such as thou hast.” Lauretta, then, with a sweet voice enough, but in a somewhat plaintive style, began thus, the other ladies answering:

No maid disconsolate
Hath cause as I, alack!
Who sigh for love in vain, to mourn her fate.

He who moves heaven and all the stars in air
Made me for His delight
Lovesome and sprightly, kind and debonair,
E’en here below to give each lofty spright
Some inkling of that fair
That still in heaven abideth in His sight;
But erring men’s unright,
Ill knowing me, my worth
Accepted not, nay, with dispraise did bate.

Erst was there one who held me dear and fain
Took me, a youngling maid,
Into his arms and thought and heart and brain,
Caught fire at my sweet eyes; yea time, unstayed
Of aught, that flits amain
And lightly, all to wooing me he laid.
I, courteous, nought gainsaid
And held210 him worthy me;
But now, woe’s me, of him I’m desolate.

Then unto me there did himself present
A youngling proud and haught,
Renowning him for valorous and gent;
He took and holds me and with erring thought211
To jealousy is bent;
Whence I, alack! nigh to despair am wrought,
As knowing myself⁠—brought
Into this world for good
Of many an one⁠—engrossed of one sole mate.

The luckless hour I curse, in very deed,
When I, alas! said yea,
Vesture to change⁠—so fair in that dusk wede
I was and glad, whereas in this more gay
A weary life I lead,
Far less than erst held honest, welaway!
Ah, dolorous bridal day,
Would God I had been dead
Or e’er I proved thee in such ill estate!

O lover dear, with whom well pleased was I
Whilere past all that be⁠—
Who now before Him sittest in the sky
Who fashioned us⁠—have pity upon me
Who cannot, though I die,
Forget thee for another; cause me see
The flame that kindled thee
For me lives yet unquenched
And my recall up thither212 impetrate.

Here Lauretta made an end of her song, wherein, albeit attentively followed of all, she was diversely apprehended of diverse persons, and there were those who would e’en understand, Milan-fashion, that a good hog was better than a handsome wench;213 but others were of a loftier and better and truer apprehension, whereof it booteth not to tell at this present. Thereafter the king let kindle store of flambeaux upon the grass and among the flowers and caused sing diverse other songs, until every star began to decline, that was above the horizon, when, deeming it time for sleep, he bade all with a good night betake themselves to their chambers.

Here endeth the Third Day of the Decameron.

Day the Fourth Day the Fourth Introduction

Here beginneth the fourth day of the Decameron wherein under the governance of Filostrato is discoursed of those whose loves have had unhappy endings.

Dearest ladies, as well by words of wise men heard as by things many a time both seen and read of myself, I had conceived that the boisterous and burning blast of envy was apt to smite none but lofty towers or the highest summits of the trees; but I find myself mistaken in my conceit, for that, fleeing, as I have still studied to flee, from the cruel onslaught of that raging wind, I have striven to go, not only in the plains, but in the very deepest of the valleys, as many manifestly enough appear to whoso considereth these present stories, the which have been written by me, not only in vulgar Florentine and in prose and without [author’s] name, but eke in as humble and sober a style as might be. Yet for all this have I not availed to escape being cruelly shaken, nay, well nigh uprooted, of the aforesaid wind and all torn of the fangs of envy; wherefore I can very manifestly understand that to be true which the wise use to say, to wit, that misery alone in things present is without envy.214

There are then, discreet ladies, some who, reading these stories, have said that you please me overmuch and that it is not a seemly thing that I should take so much delight in pleasuring and solacing you; and some have said yet worse of commending you as I do. Others, making a show of wishing to speak more maturely, have said that it sorteth ill with mine age henceforth to follow after things of this kind, to wit, to discourse of women or to study to please them. And many, feigning themselves mighty tender of my repute, avouch that I should do more wisely to abide with the Muses on Parnassus than to busy myself among you with these toys. Again, there be some who, speaking more despitefully than advisedly, have said that I should do more discreetly to consider whence I might get me bread than to go peddling after these baubles, feeding upon wind; and certain others, in disparagement of my pains, study to prove the things recounted by me to have been otherwise than as I present them to you.

With such, then, and so many blusterings,215 such atrocious backbitings, such needle-pricks, noble ladies, am I, what while I