The Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio ( 13131375 C.E.)
Begun ca. 1349 and finished by 1353 C.E.
Italy
Boccaccio began writing his Decameron shortly after an outbreak of the plague in Florence, Italy, in 1348 that killed about three quarters of the population. The introduction to this frame tale depicts the horrors of the plague, with vivid descriptions of the dying and laments about the lack of a cure. In his story, seven women and three men leave Florence to take refuge in the countryside. They justify their decision in several ways: the right to self-preservation; the bad morals and lewd behavior of many of their neighbors (who are convinced that they are going to die anyway); and their own feelings of abandonment by their families. They decide to tell stories to pass the time: one story each for ten days (the Greek for “ten” is “deka” and for “day” is “hemera,” from which Boccaccio derives his title). Each day, one of them chooses a theme for the stories. As entertaining as the stories are, the discussions between the stories are what make the collection special; the speakers carry on a battle of the sexes as they debate the meaning and relative value of each story. The same dynamic can be found in two other frame tales in this anthology, one of which was influenced by the Decameron: the Thousand and One Nights (written before the Decameron) with its gripping frame story of Shahrazad; and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with the conversations (and arguments) among the pilgrims who are telling the tales.
Written by Laura J. Getty
The Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by John Payne
License: Public Domain
Introduction
To the Ladies
Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by Léopold Flameng
License: Public Domain
When I reflect how disposed you are by nature to compassion, I cannot help being apprehensive lest what I now offer to your acceptance should seem to have but a harsh and offensive beginning; for it presents at the very outset the mournful remembrance of that most fatal plague, so terrible yet in the memories of us all. But let not this dismay you from reading further, as though every page were to cost you sighs and tears. Rather let this beginning, disagreeable as it is, seem to you but as a rugged and steep mountain placed before a delightful valley, which appears more beautiful and pleasant, as the way to it was more difficult: for as joy usually ends in sorrow, so again the end of sorrow is joy. To this short fatigue (I call it short, because contained in few words,) immediately succeeds the mirth and pleasure I had before promised you; and which, but for that promise, you would scarcely expect to find. And in truth could I have brought you by any other way than this, I would gladly have done it: but as the occasion of the occurrences, of which I am going to treat, could not well be made out without such a relation, I am forced to use this Introduction.
In the year then of our Lord 1348, there happened at Florence, the finest city in all Italy,