The Decameron

can be overlong, so but it do that for which he useth it. Things brief are far better suited unto students, who study, not to pass away, but usefully to employ time, than to you ladies, who have on your hands all the time that you spend not in the pleasures of love; more by token that, as none of you goeth to Athens or Bologna or Paris to study, it behoveth to speak to you more at large than to those who have had their wits whetted by study. Again, I doubt not a jot but there be yet some of you who will say that the things aforesaid are full of quips and cranks and quodlibets and that it ill beseemeth a man of weight and gravity to have written thus. To these I am bound to render and do render thanks, for that, moved by a virtuous jealousy, they are so tender of my fame; but to their objection I reply on this wise; I confess to being a man of weight and to have been often weighed in my time, wherefore, speaking to those ladies who have not weighed me, I declare that I am not heavy; nay, I am so light that I abide like a nutgall in water, and considering that the preachments made of friars, to rebuke men of their sins, are nowadays for the most part seen full of quips and cranks and gibes, I conceived that these latter would not sit amiss in my stories written to ease women of melancholy. Algates, an they should laugh overmuch on that account, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Passion of our Saviour and the Complaint of Mary Magdalen will lightly avail to cure them thereof.

Again, who can doubt but there will to boot be found some to say that I have an ill tongue and a venomous, for that I have in sundry places written the truth anent the friars? To those who shall say thus it must be forgiven, since it is not credible that they are moved by other than just cause, for that the friars are a good sort of folk, who eschew unease for the love of God and who grind with a full head of water and tell no tales, and but that they all savour somewhat of the buck-goat, their commerce would be far more agreeable. Natheless, I confess that the things of this world have no stability and are still on the change, and so may it have befallen of my tongue, the which, not to trust to mine own judgment, (which I eschew as most I may in my affairs), a she-neighbour of mine told me, not long since, was the best and sweetest in the world; and in good sooth, were this the case, there had been few of the foregoing stories to write. But, for that those who say thus speak despitefully, I will have that which hath been said suffice them for a reply; wherefore, leaving each of you henceforth to say and believe as seemeth good to her, it is time for me to make an end of words, humbly thanking Him who hath, after so long a labour, brought us with His help to the desired end. And you, charming ladies, abide you in peace with His favour, remembering you of me, if perchance it profit any of you aught to have read these stories.

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Here endeth the book called Decameron and surnamed Prince Galahalt.

Endnotes

1. Galahalt or Gallehaut (Ital. Galeotto), a personage of the old chivalric romance of “Lancelot du Lac,” where he is described as a neighbouring king (“roy doultre les marches”), who, after first opposing the hero, is vanquished by him and becoming his confidant, brings about the first amorous interview between him and Guenevere; hence his name is generically used by Boccacio (following his great and favourite examplar, Dante cf. Inferno, Canto V l. 137, “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse”), for a pander, go-between or one who kindles amorous desire in women and provokes them to satisfy it. In this case he seems, by giving this surname to his book (or perhaps rather merely recording the fact that it had been so surnamed) to imply that its perusal is likely to have the same effect upon lovers or persons amorously inclined as that of the book unknown the reading of which played the Galahalt between Francesca and Paolo, loco citato. It is, however, not improbable that the words “and surnamed Prince Galahalt” may have been added by someone other than Boccaccio, although the implied reference to Dante is so much in his style and habit of thought as to make it at least probable that he was himself responsible for the addition. It may be noted, by the way, that Galahalt appears in the Morte d’Arthur, where he is always styled “le haut prince,” but does not figure as go-between the two lovers. ↩

2. I.e. those not in love. ↩

3. Syn. adventures (casi). ↩

4. I.e. the few pages of which he speaks above. ↩

5. Syn. provisions made or means taken (consigli dati). Boccaccio constantly uses consiglio in this latter sense. ↩

6. Syn. help, remedy. ↩

7. Accidente, what a modern physician would call “complication.” “Symptom” does not express the whole meaning of the Italian word. ↩

8. I.e. aromatic drugs. ↩

9. I.e. gravediggers (becchini). ↩

10. Lit. four or six. This is the equivalent Italian idiom. ↩

11. I.e. but few tapers. ↩

12. I.e. expectation of gain from acting as tenders of the sick, gravediggers, etc. The word speranza is, however, constantly used