The First Day: Pampinea's Reign — Any Subject

Proem

Here begins the book called Decameron, surnamed Prince Galeotto, which contains a hundred tales told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men.

It is a human thing to have compassion on the afflicted; and though it befits everyone, it is most required of those who have needed comfort and have found it in others. I am one of these. From my earliest youth until now I have been inflamed beyond measure by a lofty and noble love; and in that pain the pleasant talk of a friend and his praiseworthy consolations were such a help to me that I firmly believe it is owing to them that I am not dead. Now that, by the will of Him who has ordained that all things shall have an end, my love has diminished of itself, I would give some comfort, in return for what I received, not to those who need it least — men, who have hunting, fishing, riding, gaming and business to distract them — but to ladies, who, held in by the wishes of fathers and mothers, brothers and husbands, keep the flames of love hidden in their delicate breasts, and pass most of their time shut up in the narrow circle of their rooms. For their help and refuge, I mean to tell a hundred tales, or fables, or parables, or histories, as we may choose to call them, told in ten days by an honourable company of seven ladies and three young men, in the time of the late deadly pestilence, with some songs sung by those ladies for their pleasure. In these tales will be found pleasant and harsh cases of love, and other events of fortune, in our times and in ancient ones; and the ladies who read them may take delight in the amusing things they show, and useful counsel, learning what to flee and what to follow.

Introduction to the First Day

Whenever, most gracious ladies, I consider how compassionate you all are by nature, I know that this work will seem to you to have a grave and painful beginning, for it bears on its front the sad memory of the deadly mortality lately past. But I would not have this frighten you from reading further, as if you must pass through sighs and tears all the way. This horrid beginning is to you as a steep and rugged mountain is to travellers, beyond which lies a beautiful and delightful plain.

I say, then, that the years of the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of God had reached the number of one thousand three hundred and forty-eight, when into the noble city of Florence, the fairest of all Italy, there came the deadly pestilence. It had begun some years before in the lands of the East; and, spreading from place to place without stopping, it had come westward. Against it all human wisdom and foresight were useless — though the city was cleansed of much filth, and the sick were forbidden to enter, and many prayers were made. It did not show itself as in the East, where bleeding from the nose was a sign of certain death; here, at the beginning, there appeared in men and women alike certain swellings in the groin or the armpit, some as big as an apple, some as an egg, which the common people called plague-boils; and soon after, black or livid spots on the arms and thighs and elsewhere; and almost all who had them died within three days. No physician's advice, no medicine, seemed to be of any use. And the plague was so violent that it passed from the sick to the healthy by mere contact, as fire to dry or oily things brought close to it; and not only talking with the sick, but touching their clothes, gave the disease.

From these things, and many others like them, various fears and fancies arose among those who were left alive. Some thought that to live temperately would be their defence, and shut themselves up in houses where no one was sick, eating the most delicate food and drinking the best wines in moderation. Others held that drinking much and enjoying oneself, and laughing at everything, was the sure remedy; and they went from tavern to tavern, day and night, drinking without measure. Others took a middle course; others, crueller, said that the only medicine was to flee; and many men and women abandoned their city, their houses, their kin and their goods. And in this affliction the reverend authority of the laws, divine and human, had almost collapsed, for their ministers were all dead or sick. One citizen avoided another; neighbours did not care for one another; brother abandoned brother, uncle nephew, wife husband; and — what is hardest to believe — fathers and mothers avoided visiting and helping their own children, as if they were not theirs. The dead were no longer accompanied to church with candles and mourners; the poor died by thousands in the streets; and when the churchyards were full, great trenches were dug, in which they were laid by hundreds, stowed layer upon layer like goods in a ship's hold, each covered with a little earth, until the trench was full. I believe that between March and July more than a hundred thousand human beings were taken from the life of this world inside the walls of Florence.

While our city was in this state, it happened, as I heard afterwards from a trustworthy person, that on a Tuesday morning, in the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella, after hearing the divine office in mourning garments, there met seven young ladies, all connected by friendship or kinship, none older than twenty-eight nor younger than eighteen, each wise, of noble blood, beautiful in form, and of graceful manners. I will not tell their real names, but I will call them Pampinea, Fiammetta, Filomena, Emilia, Lauretta, Neifile and Elissa. Pampinea, the eldest, spoke: they ought, she said, to do what everyone has a right to do — to preserve their lives; and since they stayed in the city only to count the dead and listen to the bells, and found their houses empty, they should go together to one of their country houses, of which each had several, and there take what pleasure they could, without in any way overstepping the bounds of reason. Filomena said that women are changeable and quarrelsome, and need men to guide them; and Elissa said that men are the heads of women. At that moment three young men came into the church, the youngest of whom was not less than twenty-five — Panfilo, Filostrato and Dioneo — whose loves were among the ladies; and the ladies invited them to come, and they, after their first wonder, gladly agreed.

The next morning, Wednesday, at dawn, with their servants, they left the city, and came, two short miles away, to a little hill, on the top of which stood a palace with a fine large courtyard in its midst, galleries, halls and rooms, meadows around it, marvellous gardens, wells of cool water, and cellars full of precious wines. There Pampinea, who was made queen for the first day and crowned with laurel, gave each of the servants their tasks, and said: "Here is a fine and cool place, and, as you see, there are tables and chess-boards. But if you will follow my advice, we will spend this hot part of the day not in gaming, in which the mind of one player must be troubled without great pleasure to the other, but in telling stories, in which one telling can delight the whole company." And so, sitting in a circle on the grass in the shade, they began; and the queen let each speak of whatever pleased him most.

First Tale (Panfilo): Ser Ciappelletto

Musciatto Franzesi, a rich merchant who had become a knight in France, had to collect debts from some Burgundians, a quarrelsome and dishonest people; and he thought of Ser Cepparello of Prato, whom the French called Ciappelletto. He was a notary who was ashamed if any of his documents were found to be other than false; he gave false witness gladly; he stirred up hatred among friends; he would rob and murder with pleasure; he blasphemed, never went to church, and was a glutton and a drunkard. He was, in short, perhaps the worst man ever born. He went to Burgundy and lodged with two Florentine brothers, usurers, and there fell mortally ill. The brothers were afraid: if they put him out, they would be blamed; if he died unconfessed, no church would bury him, and the people would rise against them as usurers. Ciappelletto told them not to worry, and asked for the holiest friar they could find. To him he made a confession so devout — he wept because he had once spat in church, and because he had once cursed his mother as a child, and he swore he was a virgin, and that he had fasted on bread and water — that the friar believed him a saint. He died; the friar preached his holiness; the people tore his clothes for relics; and he was called Saint Ciappelletto, and many miracles were said to happen through him. "And so," said Panfilo, "great is God's kindness to us, who looks not at our error but at the purity of our faith, and hears those who pray to Him even through an intermediary who is His enemy."

Second Tale (Neifile): Abraham the Jew

In Paris there was a merchant, Giannotto di Civignì, who often urged his friend Abraham, a rich and honest Jew, to become a Christian. Abraham at last said he would go to Rome and see the Pope and the cardinals, and if their lives showed that the Christian faith was better than his own, he would become a Christian. Giannotto despaired, knowing what he would see there. Abraham went, and found from the greatest to the least all given to lust, gluttony, avarice and simony. He came back and said he would be baptised: "For it seems to me that your Shepherd, and all the others, strive with all their art to bring the Christian religion to nothing; and since they do not succeed, but it grows ever brighter, it must be that the Holy Spirit is its foundation and support." And he was baptised in Notre Dame, and named Giovanni.

Third Tale (Filomena): The Three Rings

Saladin, Sultan of Babylon, needing money, sent for Melchizedek, a rich Jew of Alexandria, and, to trap him, asked which of the three laws he held to be the true one: the Jewish, the Saracen, or the Christian. Melchizedek answered with a story. A great man had a precious ring, and ordered that whichever of his sons had it after his death should be his heir. So it passed for many generations, until it came to a father who had three sons equally dear to him, and who had promised it to each. He secretly had two other rings made so like it that he himself could not tell them apart, and gave one to each son. After his death each claimed the inheritance, and the question of which was the true heir remains still undecided. "So it is, my lord, with the three laws given by God the Father to three peoples: each believes it has His inheritance, His true law and His commandments; but which really has them is still undecided, like the rings." Saladin, seeing how cleverly he had escaped the snare, told him his need; and Melchizedek served him freely, and Saladin repaid him and kept him as a friend.

Fourth to Tenth Tales

Dioneo told of a young monk who had a girl in his cell, and saw his abbot spying; he left the abbot the key, and the abbot fell into the same sin; and the young monk, reproached, pointed out that he had only followed his abbot's example — so that both kept the girl's company afterwards in secret. Fiammetta told how the Marchioness of Monferrato, courted by the King of France, gave him a dinner of nothing but hens, dressed in many ways; and when he asked if there were no cocks in that country, she answered: "No, my lord; but the women, though they differ somewhat in dress and rank, are made here as they are elsewhere" — and the king understood, and went away. Emilia told of a good man who rebuked the hypocrisy of an inquisitor, who extorted money from him for a careless word: the friars, he said, had promised a hundredfold for each bowl of broth given to the poor, and if that were true, they would all be drowned in broth. Filostrato told how the jester Bergamino rebuked the meanness of Can Grande della Scala with a story of the poet Primasso and the abbot of Cluny. Lauretta told how Guglielmo Borsiere, asked by the miserly Ermino de' Grimaldi for something new to paint in his hall, answered: "Paint Courtesy" — and Ermino was so ashamed that he became the most generous of men. Elissa told how a lady of Gascony, wronged in Cyprus, went to the king, who was a coward, and asked him to teach her how he bore the many insults done to him, so that she might learn to bear hers; and the king was so stung that he became a stern punisher of wrongs. And Pampinea, the queen, told how Master Alberto of Bologna, an old physician in love with a widow, was mocked by her and her friends; and he answered that he had seen ladies eat the green leaves of the leek, which are worthless, and leave the white head, which is the best; and the lady, ashamed, begged his pardon.

When the sun had begun to set, the queen took off her crown and put it on Filomena's head, making her queen for the next day. Dioneo asked one favour: that he should not be bound by the subject set each day, but should always tell the last tale, on whatever he pleased; and it was granted. They supped, and danced, and Emilia sang a ballata, in which she said that she was so in love with her own beauty that she would never love another.