The Decameron, Volume I
The Decameron, Volume I
Translated by J. M. (James Macmullen) Rigg
In 1348 Florence, death rides through the streets like a conqueror. Ten young people, seven women and three men, flee the Black Death for a country villa, where they agree to tell stories for ten days. What begins as distraction becomes something else entirely: a riotous celebration of narrative itself, told with a wink and sometimes a blush. Boccaccio's hundred tales span the spectrum of human behavior. We meet a merchant's wife who outwits the husband who doubts her, a friar who goes to extraordinary lengths to bury a sin he didn't commit, and a man so convinced of his wife's infidelity that he proves her innocence by being absurd. The clergy come in for particular mockery. So do the proud, the greedy, and the duped. But beneath the irreverence lies something tender: these refugees from death choose creation over despair, laughter over grief. They build a world with stories when the real one is crumbling. The Decameron is a portrait of humanity in all its cunning, lust, and surprising grace. It is funny, filthy, dark, and alive. Six centuries later, it remains the proof that when the world ends, we tell stories to survive.
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“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Nothing is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“it is obvious that all vices have a grievous effect on those who indulge them and often on others too. But I believe that the one which can transport us with the most unbridled haste into danger is anger. This is nothing other than a sudden thoughtless impulse, provoked by some perceived offence, which banishes reason and clouds the eyes of the mind, rousing the soul to blazing fury.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Let this grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged and steep mountain.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“The scholar, as wise as he was full of wrath, knowing that threats only serve as weapons to the person so threatened, kept all his resentment within his own breast [...]””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Senseless creatures, you don't see how much evil is concealed under a little good appearance.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
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Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron, Volume I. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-decameron-volume-i-ed3ef996-4bd3-4e33-9fe5-e02474685ecb.Boccaccio, G. (n.d.). The Decameron, Volume I. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-decameron-volume-i-ed3ef996-4bd3-4e33-9fe5-e02474685ecbBoccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron, Volume I. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-decameron-volume-i-ed3ef996-4bd3-4e33-9fe5-e02474685ecb.
