The Decameron, vol. 1 | Page 5

and in a friendly manner asks him to
restore her. He consents, provided she be willing. She refuses to go back with her
husband. Messer Ricciardo dies, and she marries Paganino.
- THIRD DAY -
NOVEL I. - Masetto da Lamporecchio feigns to be dumb, and obtains a gardener's place
at a convent of women, who with one accord make haste to lie with him.
NOVEL II. - A groom lies with the wife of King Agilulf, who learns the fact, keeps his
own counsel, finds out the groom and shears him. The shorn shears all his fellows, and so
comes safe out of the scrape.
NOVEL III. - Under cloak of confession and a most spotless conscience, a lady,
enamoured of a young man, induces a booby friar unwittingly to provide a means to the
entire gratification of her passion.
NOVEL IV. - Dom Felice instructs Fra Puccio how to attain blessedness by doing a
penance. Fra Puccio does the penance, and meanwhile Dom Felice has a good time with
Fra Puccio's wife.
NOVEL V. - Zima gives a palfrey to Messer Francesco Vergellesi, who in return suffers
him to speak with his wife. She keeping silence, he answers in her stead, and the sequel is
in accordance with his answer.
NOVEL VI. - Ricciardo Minutolo loves the wife of Filippello Fighinolfi, and knowing
her to be jealous, makes her believe that his own wife is to meet Filippello at a bagnio on
the ensuing day; whereby she is induced to go thither, where, thinking to have been with
her husband, she discovers that she has tarried with Ricciardo.
NOVEL VII. - Tedaldo, being in disfavour with his lady, departs from Florence. He
returns thither after a while in the guise of a pilgrim, has speech of his lady, and makes
her sensible of her fault. Her husband, convicted of slaying him, he delivers from peril of
death, reconciles him with his brothers, and thereafter discreetly enjoys his lady.
NOVEL VIII. Ÿ Ferondo, having taken a certain powder, is interred for dead; is
disinterred by the abbot, who enjoys his wife; is put in prison and taught to believe that
he is in purgatory; is then resuscitated, and rears as his own a boy begotten by the abbot
upon his wife.
NOVEL IX. - Gillette of Narbonne cures the King of France of a fistula, craves for
spouse Bertrand de Roussillon, who marries her against his will, and hies him in despite
to Florence, where, as he courts a young woman, Gillette lies with him in her stead, and
has two sons by him; for which cause he afterwards takes her into favour and entreats her

as his wife.
NOVEL X. - Alibech turns hermit, and is taught by Rustico, a monk, how the Devil is put
in hell. She is afterwards conveyed thence, and becomes the wife of Neerbale.
- FOURTH DAY -
NOVEL I. - Tancred, Prince of Salerno, slays his daughter's lover, and sends her his heart
in a golden cup: she pours upon it a poisonous distillation, which she drinks and dies.
NOVEL II. - Fra Alberto gives a lady to understand that she is beloved of the Angel
Gabriel, in whose shape he lies with her sundry times; afterward, for fear of her kinsmen,
he flings himself forth of her house, and finds shelter in the house of a poor man, who on
the morrow leads him in the guise of a wild man into the piazza, where, being recognized,
he is apprehended by his brethren and imprisoned.
NOVEL III. - Three young men love three sisters, and flee with them to Crete. The eldest
of the sisters slays her lover for jealousy. The second saves the life of the first by yielding
herself to the Duke of Crete. Her lover slays her, and makes off with the first: the third
sister and her lover are charged with the murder, are arrested and confess the crime. They
escape death by bribing the guards, flee destitute to Rhodes, and there in destitution die.
NOVEL IV. - Gerbino, in breach of the plighted faith of his grandfather, King Guglielmo,
attacks a ship of the King of Tunis to rescue thence his daughter. She being slain by those
aboard the ship, he slays them, and afterwards he is beheaded.
NOVEL V. - Lisabetta's brothers slay her lover: he appears to her in a dream, and shews
her where he is buried: she privily disinters the head, and sets it in a pot of basil, whereon
she daily weeps a great while. The pot being taken from her by her brothers, she dies not
long after.
NOVEL VI. - Andreuola loves Gabriotto: she tells him a dream that she has had; he tells
her a dream of his own,