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Boccaccio's Decameron Day 4


Day 4 –Story 1 as told by Filostrato.

The overall theme of Day 4 stories is:love stories with unhappy endings!

Tancred, Prince of Salerno, has a daughter who was young and widowed and attractive. She wants love and marriage again, but her father is not trying to find her a husband, so she decides to take a lover. She likes Giuscardo, her father’s valet, and he loves her.

She asks Giuscardo to meet her at a cave in the mountain that was abandoned—one could reach it by a secret stairway. They meet and enjoy one another. One day Tancred comes into her chamber to socialize with her. He falls asleep—she doesn’t even notice that he is there. She lets her lover into her chamber from the secret stairway of the cave. Tancred is furious—orders Giuscardo to be put to death.

Tancred’s daughter appeals to him and tells her father she saw the same virtues in Giuscardo that he saw.

Day 4 –Story 2 as told by Pampinea

She starts the story with a proverb: “ A wicked man who bears good fame may play the devil and get no blame”

It is an example of the deceit of the religious orders. People have to listen to the rantings of friars when they disapprove of others. They think they are guaranteed the afterlife. They should be punished for their lies as in the case of Friar Minor of Venice.

A man named Bartodella Massia who lived a corrupt life—called himself Friar Alberto—most people held him as guarantee and guardian of their savings. Lisetta, the wife of an important merchant confessed to him. He asked if she had a lover, and then told her she was guilty of vanity. He goes to see her, and apologizes for the remark of accusing her of the sin of vanity by saying that the angel Gabriel reprimanded him. But he also says that Gabriel is in love with her and wants to spend the night with her. But since he is an angel, he first has to turn into a man. Then the friar tells her that the angel can come into HIS body. “He’ll take my spirit and slip it into himself—and put my soul in Paradise while he remains with you.”

Lisetta tells her neighbors—they tell their husbands; her brothers-in-law come to see the angel “fly” one night as they enter Lisetta’s apartment. Friar Albert barely escapes by jumping into the Gran Canal—he was picked up, and stayed at the rescuer’s house. This man needs a “sham beast” for the festival. If Friar Albert agrees, at the end he can go free, because there is no way to escape Lisetta’s family.

So the man anoints him with honey—puts a chain around his neck,a club in his hand, and announces him as Angel Gabriel to the people in the town square. He is chained to a pole. Then the man takes off his mask and says to the people watching: “I’ll show you Angel Gabriel who comes at night to comfort Venetian ladies”.

In the end all tricksters come to the same fate! Bees attacked him.

Day 4 –story 3 as told by Lauretta

What is wrath? A sudden emotion incited by insult! AND it rushes us off into ruin. This is a greater disaster for a woman than a man.

In Marseilles, there is a rich and honest merchant named Narnald Clua. He had 3 daughters. Restignone is in love with one daughter named Ninetta. Restignone proposes an idea to the 2 other men who like her sisters that they bring all 3 girls (with the money they have from their father) to an island where they can all share the money equally and enjoy life.

They all meet at the ship provided for the journey and sail to Crete, where they purchased estates and enjoyed life. Eventually Restignone grew tired of Ninetta, and liked someone else. Ninetta became wildly jealous, She poisons him. Her life is in peril.

Meddalena offers to sleep with the Duke if he lets Ninetta escape punishment. Meanwhile the two other men thought Ninetta had already been put to death. In rage, one of them slays Meddalena, and takes Ninetta leaving the last sister, and man to be imprisoned. Luckily they have enough money to bribe their keepers. All of them escape on a ship and land in Rhodes. However, over time, poverty kills all of them.

4th day -- Story 4 as continued by Elisa

The King of Sicily has 3 children. One boy named Gerbino is a handsome, honest lad who hears of a beautiful girl who is the King of Tunis’ daughter the same way she hears of him—through other people. Both fall in love with each other.

She is supposed to be married to the king of Grenada, and her father is afraid that Gerbino will interfere so he asks the King of Tunis for safe passage through the sea for his daughter.

The daughter does not want to marry the King of Grenada and sends a messenger to tell Gerbino that now is the time to show your love for me. Gerbino did not want to look weak so he outfits 3 galleys to intercept and attack her ship. They do intercept, and try to kill off the sailors only but cannot seem to do it, so Gerbino sends a flaming boat to set fire to the ship. As the sailors know what is going to happen, they take the girl and slay her; throw her into the ocean. Gerbino is devastated. Then the king of Tunis hears what has happened and had Gerbino beheaded.

This is a tale of 2 lovers who did not taste the fruits of love.

Day 4—Story 5 as told by Filomena

There are 3 young brothers from San Gimignano; their sister is named Isabetta. Isabetta loves a Pisan boy named Lorenzo who is employed in the family business. The eldest brother catches sight of Isabetta going to where Lorenzo sleeps. The 3 brothers trick him into going into the city for fun, and slay him. Then they told people he was away on business.

Isabetta misses him terribly. Finally he appears to her in a dream, tells her of the murder, and tells her to call on him no more.. He even tells her where he is buried. She finds him, and severs the head; takes it home and puts it in a pot, covers it with earth, and plants basil in the earth. She nourishes the pot with her tears, and it blooms beautifully. The brothers dig it up, and leave for Naples lest the crime is found out. Isabetta dies weeping.

Day 4 Story 6 as told by Pamfilo

A man named Nego da Ponte Carraro had a daughter named Andreola. She like Gabriotto. They met in her father’s garden and secretly wed.

She saw ,in a dream an ugly black thing come for Gabriotto . He sees, in a dream, a white doe that he has caught who stays close to him while a bitch suddenly appears, tears out his heart and carries it off.

As they embrace, he falls to the ground dead. She wanted to go with him, but she gives him last rites. As she is carrying him to his home, the magistrates find her, bring her to courthouse. It was deemed that Gabriotto was not murdered—died by suffocation. The judge attempts to make Andreola his wife; she refuses and enters a nunnery.

Day 4 Story 7 as told by Elisa

A young girl named Simona spun wool for a merchant. A young man named Pasquino loves her. They go to a park to enjoy the day. With them was another couple named Puccino and Lagina. While there, Pasquino finds a sagebrush bush from which he plucked a branch; touches it to his lips, and suddenly dies.

The magistrate comes and thinks Simona has murdered her lover. But within minutes another person dies by copying what Pasquino did. Was the bush poisonous? There was a big toad underneath the bush—contact with the toad resulted in death.

Day 4 Story 8 as told by Neifile

There was a merchant named Leonardi Sighieri who had a son named Girolano. Girolano loved a tailor’s daughter named Silvestra. So his guardians propose he go to Paris for a year to cool his feelings for the girl. He does not want to , but he does.

Silvestra marries someone else. When he returns, he is stil in love with her, so he enters her house, thinking her husband was asleep. “Go”, she says. “I’m now a married woman.”

“I am so cold; stay with me until my body warms up and then I’ll go”, he says. But not wanting to live without her, he held his breath, and expired..

Silvestra could not rouse him. Her husband said the body needed to go back to his family which it did, and then on to the church for burial. When Silvestra viewed the body at the church, she was so overcome, she also died. They laid the two bodies in the same grave.

Day 4 Story 9 as told by Dioneo

Sir William of Roussillon and Sir William Guaretang were both knights and good friends. Guaretang fell in love with Sir Roussillon’s wife.

A tournament came up. Sir Roussillon killed Sir Guaretang, tore out his heart and had the cook cook it.

The wife wonders why Sir Guaretang did not come home from the tournament with her husband, and Sir Roussillon tells her what he has done.

She is heartbroken, and tells him she should have been the one to pay the price for the affair. And with that she jumps from the window to her own death.

Day 4 Story 10 as told by The King

A surgeon named Dr. Montagna had a wife who suffered from a cold. He felt a man paid a heavy price for sleeping with a woman—he lost his energy.

The wife, who does not have much love from her husband falls for a rogue named Ruggieri da Jeroli. They begin to see each other.

Dr. Montagna has a patient whose leg was in bad shape. He plans to do surgery and has a drug in a container ready to use. But he suddenly has a call to go to Malfi.

The wife, thinking her husband will be out of town, calls for Ruggieri and tells him to wait in the doctor’s room. Ruggieri has a terrible thirst; thinking the drug is just water, drinks it. The wife could not seem to wake him up and thinking him dead, put him in a chest outside the shop of a neighbor.

Two moneylenders were moving in to the neighborhood, see the chest on the street and think they can use it. Meanwhile Ruggieri wakes up and people think he is a robber. The doctor returns; doesn’t find his drug. The maid, who helped the wife move Ruggieri into the chest, tells the doctor that Ruggieri drank the water, and was hidden in the chest. Ruggieri wakes up when the women of the house hear him rumbling inside the chest—they go to the window and cry out “Stop Thief” at which point he is captured and brought to the town police.

The maid finds out what’s happened goes to the Master of the house; makes up a story about sleeping with Riggieri and in the middle of the night he gets thirsty, takes the drug—says she’s sorry but he is about to lose his life, and please can she try to save him.

She goes to the prison; the judge questions the surgeon, the carpenter, the moneylenders; in the end he feels that Ruggieri should be released. Both the maid and the Mistress of the house are happy .


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