The Decameron tancredi

Our King has certainly given us a harsh topic to speak about today,

especially when we consider that, having come together in order to cheer

ourselves up, we are obliged to recount stories about others' tears, stories that

cannot be told without awakening feelings of pity in speaker and listener alike.

Perhaps he chose this topic to temper somewhat the gaiety of the past few

days. However, no matter what moved him to do so, since it is not

appropriate for me to alter the topic that it is his pleasure to have chosen, I

will recount an incident that was not only pitiful, but disastrous, and entirely

worthy of our tears.

Tancredi, Prince of Salerno, was a man of benevolent character and a

ruler known for his humanity, except that in his old age he sullied his hands

with the blood of lovers. In the entire course of his life, he had only a single

daughter, and he would have been happier if he had never had her at all. He

loved the girl more tenderly than any daughter was ever loved by her father,

and not knowing how to part with her because of this tender love, he refused

to arrange a marriage for her, even when she was well beyond the age when

she should have wed. At long last, he gave her away in marriage to one of the

sons of the Duke of Capua, but she lived with him for only a short while

before she was left a widow and returned to her father.

Her face and her body were as beautiful as those of any other woman

who has ever lived. Youthful and vivacious, and wiser than might have been

appropriate in a woman, she lived like a great lady with her doting father in

the midst of real luxury. When she saw, however, that because of his devotion

to her, he was not giving much thought to arranging a new marriage for her,

and since she thought it unseemly for her to ask him to do so, she decided

that she would try to find a clandestine lover for herself who was worthy of

her affection.

After looking over all the men, both noble and non-noble, who fre-

quented her father's court, men of the sort we see in courts everywhere, and

after considering the manners and conduct of quite a number of them, she

found herself attracted to one of her father's young valets above all the rest.

He was named Guiscardo, and although his origins were humble, his virtues

and his manners sufficed to ennoble him. By dint of seeing him of ten, she

soon became secretly inflamed with the most passionate love for him, and her

admiration for the way he comported himself grew greater every day. As for

the young man himself; he was by no means unperceptive, and from the

moment he noticed her interest in him, he took her so deeply into his heart

that he thought of virtually nothing else except his love for her.

In this way, then, the two of them went on secretly loving one

another. The young girl wished for nothing more than to be together with her

beloved, but since she was unwilling to make anyone her confidant in the

matter, she thought up a new trick by means of which she could communicate

her plan to him. She composed a letter in which she explained what he had to

do in order to be with her on the following day, and then she inserted it into

the hollow center of a reed, which she gave to Guiscardo, telling him in a

joking manner: "Make a bellows of this for your servant girl, and she11

rekindle your fire with it this evening."

Guiscardo took it, and thinking that she would not have given it to

him and spoken to him as she did without good reason, he left the room and

returned to his lodging with it. When he examined the reed and discovered

that there was a crack in it, he opened it up and found her letter inside. As he

read it and noted what she wanted him to do, he was the happiest man who

ever lived, and he immediately set about making preparations to meet with

her, following all the details of the plan she had laid out for him.

Next to the Prince's palace there was a mountain containing a grotto

that had been formed in the distant past and that was faintly illuminated by

an air shaft, which had been dug out of the solid rock. The grotto, however,

had been abandoned, and the mouth of the shaft was almost completely

blocked by the brambles and weeds growing over it. From one of the ground-

floor rooms of the palace that were occupied by the lady, a hidden stairway led

into the grotto, although its entrance was barred by a very strong door. So

much time had passed since the stairway had been used that there was

virtually no one who still remembered it. Love, however, from whose eyes

nothing can be concealed, had reminded the enamored lady of its existence.

To keep anyone else from noticing what was going on, she spent

several days working hard on the door with various implements until she

finally got it open. Once she had done so, and had climbed down alone into

the grotto and seen the shaft, she sent word about it to Guiscardo, letting him

know approximately how high its mouth was from the ground and telling him

he should make every effort to get in by that route. With this end in mind,

Guiscardo lost no time in obtaining a rope and tying knots and loops in it so

that he could use it to descend and climb back out again. Then, without

arousing anyone's suspicion about what was going on, the next night he went

to the shaft, wearing a leather suit to protect himself from the brambles. After

securely tying one end of the rope to a sturdy bush growing out of its mouth,

he used the rope to lower himself into the grotto and waited there for the lady

to appear.

The next day the lady sent her ladies-in-waiting away on the pretext

that she wanted to take a nap, and having locked herself alone in her

bedroom, she opened the door to the stairway and descended into the grotto

where she found Guiscardo waiting for her. The two of them greeted one

another with wonderfully warm affection and then went to her bedroom

together where they spent the greater part of the day enjoying themselves in

utter delight. After they had agreed on the most prudent plan for keeping

their love affair a secret, Guiscardo went back to the grotto, while the lady

locked the door and came out to rejoin her attendants. Then, after nightfall,

Guiscardo used the rope to climb out of the shaft, exited from the place where

he had come in, and returned to his lodging.

Having mastered this route, Guiscardo made the return journey many

times after that. Fortune, however, was envious of such great and long-lived

happiness, and made use of a calamity to transform the two lovers' joy into

tears of sorrow.

From time to time, Tancredi was in the habit of going alone to his

daughter's bedroom, where he would stay and chat for a while before he left.

One day he went down there after dinner, and having entered her room

without being seen or heard by anyone, he discovered that the lady, whose

name was Ghismunda, was out in one of hergardens with all of her ladies-in-

waiting. Not wishing to deprive her of her recreation, he sat down to wait on

a stool located at the foot of the bed near one of its corners. The windows of

the room were closed and the bed curtains drawn aside, and after a while

Tancredi pulled one of them over him almost as if he were deliberately trying

to hide, lay his head against the bed, and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, Ghismunda had arranged to have Guiscardo meet her

that day, and as Tancredi was sleeping, she left her ladies-in-waiting in the

garden and quietly returned to her room. Without noticing that anyone was

there, she locked herself in and opened the door for Guiscardo who was

waiting for her. The two of them got into bed as they usually did, and while

they were playing and enjoying themselves together, Tancredi happened to

wake up. When he saw and heard what Guiscardo and his daughter were

doing, his grief overwhelmed him. His first impulse was to scream at them,

but then he decided to hold his peace and, if possible, remain hidden, because

a plan had already taken shape in his mind and he wanted to proceed with

more caution, and with less shame to himself, as he put it into effect.

The two lovers remained together a long time, as they usually did,

without ever once noticing Tancredi. When they felt it was time to part, they

got out of bed, after which Guiscardo returned to the grotto, and the lady left

her room. Despite his advanced age, Tancredi then lowered himself down

from a window into the garden, and without being seen, returned to his

room, sick to death with grief.

At Tancredi's orders, that night around bedtime two of his men

seized Guiscardo, who, encumbered by his leather suit, was just coming out of

the shaft. They then brought him in secret to Tancredi, who said to him,

practically in tears:

“Guiscardo, the kindness I've shown you did not deserve the outrage

and dishonor that you've done to what belongs to me, and that I witnessed

today with my very own eyes."

All that Guiscardo offered by way of reply was to say: "Love is much

more powerful than either you or I.”2 Tancredi ordered his men to take

Guiscardo to an inner room, where he would be guarded in secret, and they

took him away.

Ghismunda knew nothing of all this, and after dinner the next day,

Tancredi, who had spent time thinking up all sorts of strange and terrible

possibilities, went to his daughter's room just as he usually did. Having sent

for her, he locked her in with him and began weeping.

"I never doubted your virtue and honesty, Ghismunda," he sobbed,

"and so, no matter what anyone might have said, it would never have

occurred to me that you could have thought of yielding to any man other than

your husband, let alone actually doing it. But now that I've seen it with my

own eyes, I will be grief stricken whenever I recall it during the little bit of life

that is left to me in myoid age.

“I would to God that if you had to commit such a dishonorable act,

you had chosen a man whose rank was suited to your nobility. Instead, from

among all the people who frequent my court, you selected Guiscardo, a young

man of the basest condition who has been raised in our court as an act of

charity from the time he was a small child right up to the present. Your

behavior has created the most distressing dilemma for me, in that I simply

don't know what I'm going to do about you. As for Guiscardo, I had him

apprehended last night as he was coming out of the grotto and put in prison,

and I've already made up my mind what I will do about him. But God knows,

I have no idea how I'm going to deal with you. I am moved, on the one hand,

by the love I've always felt for you, a love greater than that which any father

ever felt for his daughter. On the other, I'm filled with righteous indignation

because of your folly. My love prompts me to pardon you, while my anger

wants me to go against my nature and show you no pity. Still, before I reach

any decision about you, I'd like to hear what you have to say in reply."

When he finished speaking,Tancredi, like a child who has just been

given a sound beating, lowered his head and wept bitter tears.

As she listened to her father, Ghismunda realized not merely that her

secret love had been discovered, but that Guiscardo had been captured. This

filled her with such incalculable grief that she was frequently on the point of

expressing it by screaming and weeping, as most women usually do. Her lofty

soul enabled her to triumph over such base behavior, however, and instead,

making a marvelous effort to keep her countenance unchanged, she decided

that she would sooner die than make any sort of plea on her own behalf,

convinced as she was that her Guiscardo was already dead. Thus, presenting

herself not like a grief-stricken woman who had been rebuked for a fault, but

like an undaunted figure of courage, she turned to her father with dry eyes

and a fearless look on her face that did not betray the least hint of any distress.

“Tancredi," she said, "I am disposed neither to argue with you nor to

beg, because the first won't help me and I don't want the second to do so. I

intend no appeal to either your mercy or your love. Rather, I will tell you the

truth, and after defending my reputation with sound arguments, I will then,

by means of my actions, resolutely follow the lofty promptings of my heart.

It's true that I have loved – and still love – Guiscardo. In fact, as long as I shall

live, which will not be long, I shall continue to love him. And if there is love

after death, my affection for him will never cease. I have been brought to act

as I did not so much by my womanly frailty as by your lack of concern to see

me married as well as by Guiscardo's own worth.

"It should have been dear enough to you, Tancredi, as a creature of

flesh and blood, that you have produced a daughter of flesh and blood, not

one of stone or iron. And even though you are now an old man, you should

have been mindful all along of the nature and the strength of the laws of

youth. As a man, you may have spent a portion of your best years in martial

activity, but you should still be aware of the powerful effects that idleness and

luxury can have on old and young alike.

"Being your daughter, I am a creature of flesh and blood, and what is

more, I am still quite a young woman. Now, for both of those reasons I am

filled with carnal desires whose force has been enormously increased by the

fact that I was once married and have known the pleasure that comes from

satisfying them. Not being able to resist their force, I decided, being a woman

in the prime of life, to follow where they led me, and as a result, I fell in love.

But insofar as I was able, I certainly did everything in my power to prevent

that to which I was being drawn by my natural sinfulness from conferring

shame on either you or me. To that end I was assisted by compassionate Love

and benevolent Fortune who found out and showed me how to satisfy my

desires in perfect secrecy. No matter who revealed this to you or however you

came to know about it, I do not deny that this is what happened.

"I did not take a lover at random, as many women do, but made a

deliberate choice of Guiscardo, selecting him ahead of everyone else. With

thoughtful planning I drew him to me, and by dint of prudence and

persistence on both of our parts, I have been satisfying my desires with him

for a long time now. What you are blaming me for with such bitterness, far

more than for my carnal sin itself, is that I am consorting with a man of base

condition, as if it wouldn't have bothered you for me to have chosen a

nobleman as my lover. In doing this, you are following common opinion

rather than the truth, for you fail to see that you are not really blaming my

sin, but Fortune, who has very frequently raised the unworthy to great

heights, while keeping the most deserving down low.

"But leaving all this aside, just consider the basic principles involved,

and you will see that we are all made of one flesh and that the same Creator

has created all our souls, giving them equal faculties, powers, and virtues.

Since we are all born equal, and always have been, itis virtue that made the

first distinctions among us, and those who not only had, but actually made

use of a greater portion of it were the ones considered noble, while the rest

were not. Since then, practices to the contrary have obscured this law, but it

has never been erased from Nature or good manners, so that a person who

behaves virtuously shows unmistakably that he is noble, and if anyone calls

him something else, then that person, not the other, is in the wrong.

"Just take a look at your noblemen, and compare their lives, manners,

and general behavior with those of Guiscardo. If you judge them all without

prejudice, you will say that he is the true nobleman and the rest of them are

mere commoners. In estimating the virtues and valor of Guiscardo, I did not

trust the judgment of other people, but that which was contained in your own

words and which my own eyes have confirmed. What person ever

commended him as much as you did for performing all those praiseworthy

deeds for which men of valor merit commendation? And you were certainly

not wrong to do that, because if my eyes have not deceived me, you have

never praised him for something I didn't actually see him do, and usually in a

manner more wonderful than your words could ever express. Thus, if I was

ever deceived at all in this, you were the one who deceived me.

"Will you say, then, that I have allied myself with a man of base

condition? Well, you're simply not telling the truth. Perhaps if you'd said I’d

done so with a poor man, that might be conceded – but it would be conceded

to your shame, because it reveals you have failed to reward such a worthy

servant with the advancement he deserves. In any case, poverty does not take

away a man's nobility of character; only wealth can do that. There have been

many kings, many great princes, who were once poor, and many a farmer and

many a shepherd were once immensely wealthy and are so again.

"As for the last doubt you entertain, namely, about what you should

do with me, banish it altogether. If you are ready in your extreme old age to

do what you were never accustomed to do when you were young, that is, to

treat me with savage cruelty, then go ahead and use all of it on me, since I

myself am the real cause of this supposed sin. I am determined not to offer

you any sort of plea for mercy, and I swear to you that whatever you have

done to Guiscardo, or are planning to do to him, if you don't do the same

thing to me, I will do it to myself with my very own hands. Now get out of

here. Go shed your tears with the women. And then, when you are inclined to

cruelty again, killus both with the same blow if you think we've merited it."

The Prince recognized the lofty nature of his daughter's spirit, but for

all that, he doubted she was so resolute as to do what her words suggested. As

a result, once he left her, he lost any desire he had to take out his anger on her

and decided, instead, that he would cool off her fervent love by punishing her

lover. Consequently, he ordered the two men who were guarding Guiscardo

to strangle him noiselessly that night, and then to take out Guiscardo's heart

and bring it to him. The two of them did as they were ordered, and the next

day the Prince sent for a beautiful large chalice made of gold, into which he

put the heart. Then he had one of his most trusted servants take it to her,

bidding him to say the following words as he handed it over: "Your father

sends you this to comfort you for the loss of the thing you love best, just as

you have comforted him for the loss of what he loved best."

After her father had left her, Ghismunda, who was unflinching in her

fierce resolve, had them bring her poisonous herbs and roots, which she

distilled into a liquid so as to have it at the ready in case what she feared

actually came to pass. When the servant then appeared and presented her with

the cup and the Prince's message, she took it, and with her countenance

unchanged, removed the cover. As soon as she saw what it contained, she

understood the meaning of the Prince's words and had no doubt whatsoever

that this was Guiscardo's heart. Raising her head, she looked straight at the

servant.

"A heart like this," she said, a deserves nothing less splendid than a

sepulcher of gold. At least in this case, my father has acted wisely." And

having spoken, she raised the heart to her lips and kissed it.

“In every respect," she said, “right down to the very end of my life, I

have always found my father's love for me to be most tender, and now it is

more so than ever. Consequently, on my behalf, I ask you to give him the last

thanks I shall ever give him for so great a gift." Having said this, she turned to

the chalice, which she held firmly in her grip, and stared at the heart.

"Ah," she said, ·sweetest vessel of all my pleasures, I curse the cruelty

of the man who now compels me to look at you with the eyes of my body! It

was enough for me to have beheld you at all hours with those of my mind.

You have finished the course of the life that Fortune has allotted you, you

have reached the end to which everyone hastens, and having left behind all the

misery and weariness of the world, you have received from your enemy

himself the sepulcher that your worth deserves. Your funeral rites lacked

nothing but the tears of the woman you loved so dearly while you were alive,

and God prompted my pitiless father to send you to me so that you might

have them now. I shall weep for you, even though I intended to die with my

eyes dry and my countenance completely unmarked by fear. "But once I have

paid you the tears I owe you, I will make no delay in sending my soul, with

your help, to join the one that you have guarded so tenderly.3 Is there another

companion with whom I would be happier or more secure as I travel to that

unknown place? I am certain that your soul is nearby right now, looking down

on the scene of all the delights we shared, and since I am sure it loved me, I

know that it awaits my soul, which loves it beyond all measure." When

Ghismunda finished speaking. she bent her head over the chalice, and

suppressing all sounds of womanly grief, she began weeping in a way that was

wondrous to behold. As her tears poured forth like water from some fountain

in her head, all the while she gave the dead heart an infinite number of kisses.

Her ladies, who were standing around her, did not understand whose heart it

was or what her words meant, but overcome with pity, they, too, began to

weep. Filled with compassion, they asked her to reveal the cause of her

lamentation, but it was all in vain, nor could they comfort her, despite all

their best efforts to do so. When Ghismunda had wept her fill, she raised her

head and dried her eyes. "O my dearly beloved heart," she said, "now that I

have discharged the duty I owe you, the only thing I have left to do is to send

my soul to you and unite it with yours as your eternal companion." Having

made this pronouncement, she sent for the little vial containing the liquid she

had made the day before, and poured it into the chalice where lay the heart

she had bathed with so many of her tears. Then, without a trace of fear, she

brought it to her lips and drained it dry, after which, with the chalice still in

her hand, she climbed up onto her bed. There she arranged her body as

decorously as she could, placed the heart of her dead lover next to her own,

and without saying another word, waited for death.

When her ladies had seen and heard all these things, even though

they did not know the nature of the liquid that she had drunk, they sent word

of it to Tancredi. He was afraid of what was in fact transpiring and

immediately descended to his daughter's room, arriving just as she was

positioning herself on her bed. When he saw the condition she was in, he

tried-too late-to comfort her with sweet words, and then dissolved in a flood

of bitter tears.

"Tancredi," said the lady, "save your tears for some misfortune less

desired than mine is. Just don't shed them for me, for I don't want them.

Who ever heard of anyone, aside from you, weeping when he gets what he

wanted? But if you still retain even a bit of the love you used to feel for me,

grant me one last gift: since it displeased you that I lived quietly with

Guiscardo in secret, let my body be publicly laid to rest beside his wherever it

may be that you had them throw it after his death."

His anguished sobbing did not permit the Prince to respond, where·

upon the young lady. who felt her end approaching, pressed the dead heart to

her bosom, and said: "God be with you, for now I take my leave of you."

Then, her vision grew blurry, her senses failed, and she left this life of sorrow

behind her.

Thus, as you have heard, the love between Guiscardo and Ghismunda

came to its sad conclusion. Tancredi grieved deeply over what had happened,

and although his repentance for his cruelty came too late, he did have the

couple honorably buried in the same tomb, to the universal mourning of all

the people of Salerno