Boccaccio's The Decameron

According to The translator of this book, a Nineteenth century critic said that "Dante brings one epoch to a close, Boccaccio opens up another" (McWilliam 1972 23). He also makes another comparison between the two, considering that "The Decameron could be called "The Human Comedy" as set off from "The Divine Comedy". While it is not mentioned in the copy assigned for reading, one could also compare the means of telling stories to that of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". "The Decameron" has three men and seven women, telling a hundred stories over a ten-day period. Many of these Boccaccio considered "love stories", and, as he makes quite clear in his preface "The reason...was not the cruelty of my lady-love, but the immoderate passion engendered within my mind by a craving that was ill-restrained" (p. 45). It was almost as if Bocccaccio were devising some bawdy, sexual "stories" as a means of getting even for some actions he was not permitted to take, or which were rebuffed in real life. In addition, one might consider both the telling of the stories, and Boccaccio's rationale for "using" them, according to the ten people involved, as a means of overcoming the awfulness of the Plague. Today, we often see the publication of books dealing with some sort of post-apocalyptic time, where characters try to reassure one another (perhaps "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute is a good example). Nevertheless, here was a group of people trying to amuse and persuade one another, and, as Boccaccio says in his Prologue: "And were it not for the fact that I am one of the many people who saw it with my own eyes, I would scarcely dare to believe it, let alone commit it to paper, even though I had heard it from a person whose word I could trust" (p. 51). Today, with the threat and implied threat of anthrax and smallpox and other potential biological warfare scenarios, this fourteenth century reminiscence of The Plague has more meaning than previous generations who read this work as a school assignment could possibly have understood. Boccaccio makes it clear that this catastrophe called The Plague changed civilization in Europe forever. But, he does not use all the stories and characters to be Cassandra-like in predicting nothing but doom. That is why Brigata's stories- as one critic on an Internet Boccaccio website called it: "Brigata's attempts at diversion, attempts to create in an uncertain and malevolent world their own utopia" (DecameronWeb 2001 3) It is interesting to note that, while Bocccaccio is quite explicit about the plague in his introduction, he never mentions it again. "...the earliest symptoms, in men and women alike, was the appearance of certain swellings in the groin or armpit, some of which were egg-shaped, whilst others were roughly the size of the common apple." (p. 50) Historians say that no one else has written as graphically about the Plague. He may also be the only one to show how the infection spread, not only among humans but among animals. "One day, for instance, the rags of a pauper who had died from the disease were thrown into the street where they attracted the attention of two pigs....within a short time they began to writhe as though they had been poisoned, then they both dropped dead to the ground..." (p. 51-2) One has to wonder whether this was an incident Boccaccio was told about, or something he actually witnessed. There seems to be little proof that he was somehow affected by the Plague himself.

Today, we are concerned about the Attorney-General's crackdown on potential "terrorist" activities, with civil libertarian crying foul. Boccaccio, in the fourteenth century, felt the same thing: "In face of so much affliction and misery, all respect for the laws of God and man had virtually broken down and been extinguished in our city" (p. 53). At the same time, in this Introduction, Boccaccio points to the class distinctions which seem, for the poor, to be more pitiful. "As for the common people and a large proportion of the bourgeoisie, they presented a much more pathetic spectacle....Being confined to their own parts of the city, they fell ill daily in the thousands..." (p. 55) He then turns to the scene of the stories, beginning with the seven young ladies, who obviously were seeking refuge in the church of Santa Maria Novella. Why did they start telling stories? One of the ladies explains it this way: "Here we linger for no other purpose, or so it seems to me, than to count the number of corpses being taken to burial" (p. 59). One has to think, therefore, not merely of "The Canterbury Tales" (as a means of whiling away time) but also "A Thousand And One Nights", where, Scheherezade kept telling stories to have her life spared. As Pampinea further explains it: ...if we do nothing we shall inevitably be confronted with distress and mourning, and possibly forfeit out lives into the bargain.." (p. 61). What is also interesting, from a historical point of view, is that the stories not merely use the imagination to create "love stories" and some of them very erotic, but also stories about history that the story-tellers seemed to have learned, as well as stories about the power of the Church, as the Jew, Abraham, who converts to Christianity in the second story of the First Day. Perhaps, fearing imminent death, the ladies were not afraid to be bawdy, even in the presence of the three men who interrupted their journey to participate. As Boccaccio explains himself in the Epilogue: "...I have sometimes caused ladies to say, and very often to hear, things which are not very suitable to be said or heard by virtuous women..." (p. 829) Yet, in the face of possible death from the Plague, there was no restraint, just as today we may think of what to do in our final moments. CITATIONS: Boccaccio G. Translator: McWiklliam, G. H.) The Decameron London UK: Penguin Books