Читать книгу Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study - Edward Hutton - Страница 13

"Poi che ciascun sen fu ito a dormire,

E la casa rimasta tutta cheta,

Tosto parve a Griseida di gire

Dov' era Troilo ni parte segreta,

Il qual, com' egli la sentì venire,

Drizzato ni piè, e con la faccia lieta

Le si fe' incontro, tacito aspettando,

Per esser presto ad ogni suo comando.

"Avea la donna un torchio in mano acceso,

E tutta sola discese le scale,

E Troilo vide aspettarla sospeso,

Cui ella salutò, poi disse, quale

Ella potè: signor, se io ho offeso,

In parte tale il tuo splendor reale

Tenendo chiuso, pregoti per Dio,

Che mi perdoni, dolce mio disio.

"A cui Troilo disse: donna bella

Sola speranza e ben della mia mente,

Sempre davanti m' è stata la stella

Del tuo bel viso splendido e lucente,

E stata m' è più casa particella

Questa, che 'l mio palagio certamente;

E dimandar perdono a ciò non tocca;

Poi l' abbracciò e baciaronsi in bocca.

"Non si partiron prima di quel loco

Che mille volta insieme s' abbracciaro

Con dolce festa e con ardente gioco,

Ed altrettante vie più si baciaro,

Siccome que' ch' ardevan d' ugual foco,

E che l' un l' altro molto aveva caro;

Ma come l' accoglienze si finiro,

Salir le scale e'n camera ne giro.

"Lungo sarebbe a raccontar la festa

E impossibile a dire il diletto

Che insieme preser pervenuti in questa:

E' si spogliarono e entraron nel letto;

Dove la donna nell' ultima vesta

Rimasa già, con piacevole detto

Gli disse: speglio mio, le nuove spose

Son la notte primiera vergognose.

"A cui Troilo disse: anima mia,

I' te ne prego, sì ch' io t' abbia in braccio

Ignuda sì come il mio cor disia.

Ed ella allora: ve' che me ne spaccio;

E la camicia sua gittata via,

Nelle sue braccia si raccolse avaccio

E strignendo l' un l' altro con fervore,

D' amor sentiron l' ultimo valore.

"O dolce notte, e molto disiata,

Chente fostu alli due lieti amanti!"[235]

But the happiness of the Trojan prince does not last. Calchas, who desires to see his daughter, contrives that she shall come to him in an exchange of prisoners. Inexpressible is the sorrow of Troilus when he learns of this design.[236] He prays the gods, if they wish to punish him, to take from him his brother Hector or Polissena, but to leave him his Criseyde.[237] Nor is Criseyde less affected.[238] Pandarus, when appealed to, suggests that Troilus shall take the girl, if need be, by force: a marriage seems to have been out of the question.

"Pensato ancora avea di domandarla

Di grazia al padre mio che la mi desse;

Poi penso questo fora un accusarla,

E far palese le cose commesse;

Nè spero ancora ch' el dovesse darla,

Sì per non romper le cose promesse,

E perchè la direbbe diseguale

A me, al qual vuol dar donna reale."[239]

In fact, Cassandra has already discovered that her brother is in love with a lady of no birth, the daughter of a wretched and vulgar priest. So Troilus decides to have a last meeting with Criseyde before she goes, to contrive with her what is to be done. At this meeting the lovers swear eternal fidelity[240] and Criseyde promises to return to him in Troy in ten days' time. Then in that same day Diomede delivers one prisoner and takes Criseyde back with him to the Greek camp.

Now Troilus is alone with his sorrow. He visits all the places that remind him of Criseyde, and this pilgrimage is described in some of the most splendid verses of the poem:—[241]

"Quindi sen gì per Troia cavalcando

E ciascun luogo gliel tornava a mente;

De' quai con seco giva ragionando:

Quivi rider la vidi lietamente;

Quivi la vidi verso me guardando:

Quivi mi salutò benignamente;

Quivi far festa e quivi star pensosa,

Quivi la vidi a? miei sospir pietosa.

"Colà istava, quand' ella mi prese

Con gli occhi belli e vaghi con amore;

… …

"Colà la vidi altiera, e là umile

Mi si mostrò la mia donna gentile."

So he passes the time. In vain Pandarus seeks to distract him;[242] in vain he seeks to comfort himself with making verses; the longing to see Criseyde again is stronger than anything else.

MARCUS MANLIUS HURLED FROM THE TARPEIAN ROCK

An English woodcut from Lydgate's "Falles of Princes." (Pynson, London, 1527.) It is a copy in reverse from the French translation of the "De Casibus." (Du Pré, Paris. 1483.) (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)

At last the ten days pass, and Criseyde ought to return to Troy. Troilus awaits her at dawn at the gate of the city; but in vain: she does not come. He consoles himself, however, by thinking that perhaps she has forgotten to count the days and will come to-morrow. But neither does she come on the morrow. Thus he awaits her for a whole week in vain at the gate of the city, till at last in despair he resolves to take his own life.[243]

Meanwhile Criseyde, from the day of her departure, has passed the time much better than Troilus. For in truth she has consoled herself with Diomede, who, after the first four days, has easily made her forget the Trojan. She does not wish, however, that Troilus should know she has broken faith. She answers his letters and puts him off with words and excuses.

"My love with words and errors still she feeds,

But edifies another with her deeds."[244]

This sort of deception, however, cannot last long. Troilus grows more and more suspicious, till one day Deiphebus having fought with Diomede, he brings into Troy a clasp taken from the Greek which Troilus recognises as the same he had given to Criseyde, and is persuaded of her falsity.[245] So he resolves to avenge himself on Diomede. In every encounter he rushes headlong on the foe, achieving miracles of valour, seeking everywhere for Diomede; but fate is against him even here, and he falls at last unavenged, but at least by the noble hand of Achilles.[246]

"The wraththe, as I began yow for to seye

Of Troilus, the Grekes boughten dere;

For thousands his hondes maden deye

As he that was with-outen any pere,

Save Ector, in his tyme, as I can here.

But weylaway save only goddes will

Dispitously him slough the fiers Achille."[247]

Thus ends this simple work. In it we see an extraordinary advance on the Filocolo and the Teseide, both of which were possibly planned and begun before the Filostrato and finished later, for there is a fine unity about the last which suggests that it was begun and ended without intervention. Certainly here Boccaccio has freed himself from all the mythological nonsense of those works as well as from the lay figures and ghosts of knights who take antique names and follow impossible ways. Here are real people of flesh and blood, and among them nothing is finer than the study of Criseyde. She is as living as any figure in the Decameron itself. We see her first as a widow mourning for a husband she has altogether forgotten; yet when Pandarus makes his first overtures, she pleads her bereavement, while she reads with delight the letters Troilus sends her, and is already contriving in her little head how and when she shall meet him. She tries to make Pandarus think she is doing everything out of pity, but in her mind she has already decided to give everything to her lover, although she writes him that she is "desirous to please him so far as she may with safety to her honour and chastity." Then, as soon as she has left Troy weeping, and Diomede has revealed his love to her, she forgets Troilus because the Greek "was tall and strong and beautiful":—

"Egli era grande e bel della persona,

Giovane fresco e piacevole assai

E forte e fier siccome si ragiona. …

E ad amor la natura aveva prona."[248]

So she takes him, but even to him she lies, for she tells him she has loved and been loved by no one but her dead husband, whom she served loyally:—

"Amore io non conobbi, poi morio

Colui al qual lealmente il servai,

Sì come a marito e signor mio;

Nè Greco nè Troian mai non curai

In cotal fatto, nè me m' è in disio

Curarne alcuno, nè mi fia giammai. … "[249]

This character, vain, false, and light, but absolutely living and a very woman, is opposed to the loyal character of Pandarus, and is doubtless subtly modelled without too much exaggeration on that of Fiammetta. In direct contrast to it is the character of Troilus, the most beautiful in the poem: so eager, so ardent, so perfectly youth itself. He knows no country, no religion, no filial affection, but lives and sees only Criseyde. Every day he will thrust himself into the thickest of the fight in search of glory that he may lay it at her feet and win her praise. It is love that has made him a hero, as it made Boccaccio a poet: but both Criseyde and Fiammetta were women; what should they care for that? Troilus is a real creation, the first of those marvellous living figures who later people the Decameron: the first and the most charming, the most youthful, the most beautiful. But the whole poem is marvellously original alike in its characters and in its versification.

As for the story, Boccaccio, it seems, got it partly from Benoît de Sainte-More, whose Roman de Troie had been composed from the uncertainly dated works of "Dictys Cretensis" and "Dares Phrygius," and partly from the prose Latin Hystoria Troiana of Guido delle Colonne; there is certainly nothing of the Iliad there. But the Filostrato is really an original composition, owing little or nothing to any previous work. If there be any imitations to be found in it they are not of the Roman de Troie or of Guido delle Colonne, but of Dante:[250] the Divine Comedy even at this time having cast its shadow over Boccaccio.

In the ninth and last book of the poem, which is not indeed a part of it, but rather a sort of epilogue, he dedicates his work to Fiammetta,

"Alla donna gentil della mia mente,"

and tells her that she may find there his own tears and sighs because of—

"De' suoi begli occhi i raggi chiari,

Mi si occultaron per la sua partenza

Che lieto sol vivea di lor presenza."

These words to some extent date the poem, which was apparently finished before Fiammetta had betrayed him, and it seems likely even that he had not as yet obtained from her the favours he valued so highly and of which she was so generous to so many. These are the reasons why I have considered the Filostrato so early a work in spite of its perfection.

The poem was published for the first time about 1480 by Luca Veneto in Venice; it was translated into French[251] by Louis de Beauveau, Seneschal d'Anjou, and as we shall see, Chaucer drew from it his exquisite poem Troilus and Criseyde.

In turning now to the Teseide we come apparently to the third work, in point of time, of Boccaccio's youth. In the Filocolo, itself a labour of love, he has told us of his first joy; in the Filostrato of his hopes, torments, doubts, and waiting; in the Teseide we see the agonies of his jealousy. It was written to some extent under the influence of Virgil as we should suppose, since it was begun, as we may think, in the shadow of his tomb when Boccaccio had left the city of Naples,[252] and it proves indeed to be written in twelve books, and to have precisely the same number of lines as the Æneid, namely 9896; it is therefore about twice as long as the Filostrato. It is prefaced by a letter "To Fiammetta," in which he tells us why he has written the poem, while "thinking of past joy in present misery." The work professes to be a story of ancient times, and to be concerned with the love two brothers in arms, Palemon and Arcite, bear Emilia; but this is merely an excuse. "It is to please you," he tells Fiammetta, "that I have composed this love story." Was it with some idea of winning back her love by this stupendous manuscript? How charming and how naive, how like Giovanni too; but how absurd to dream of thus influencing Fiammetta. Did she ever read these nine thousand odd verses? Che! che!

The story is meagrely as follows:—

In the barbarous land of Scythia,[253] on the shores of the Black Sea, dwelt the Amazons under Ippolyta, their queen. Now certain Greeks cast up on that coast in a tempest had been ill-treated there, and Theseus, Duke of Athens, undertakes a war of vengeance against that kingdom, and in spite of a valorous defence conquers it.[254] His price of peace is absolute submission and the hand of the Queen Ippolyta. And it was so, and many of the Greeks too, longing for women after the campaign, married also. And when Theseus had lived in peace there with his wife Ippolyta for more than a year,[255] scarce thinking of Athens, his friend Peritoo appeared to him in a dream urging his return. So he set out and came to Athens with Ippolyta and her younger sister Emilia.

Scarcely is he come to Athens when he is urged by a deputation of the Greek princesses to declare war on Creon, who will not permit the burial rites to be performed for those who fell in the war of succession. Theseus conquers Thebes and Creon is killed, the bodies of the Greek princes are solemnly burned and their ashes conserved.

So far the introduction, in which Boccaccio has followed tradition with an almost perfect faithfulness: now begins his own work, to which these adventures of Theseus are but the preface.

Two youths of the royal Theban stock, Palemon and Arcite, have been made prisoners by Theseus and taken to Athens. There they see from the window of their prison the beautiful Emilia of the blonde hair, sister of the Amazonian queen. She is walking in the garden when they see her and she them. She quickly finds that she likes to be admired, and in all innocence coquets with the two young prisoners,[256] who for six months lament their love without hope.

Now as it happens, by the help of Peritoo, Arcite is set at liberty, on condition that he goes into exile and only returns to Athens under pain of death. Profoundly sorrowful to leave Emilia, he sets out in company with some esquires as a knight-errant, and wanders all over Greece, until at last his love compels him to return to Athens.[257] Once more in Athens, he enters the service of Theseus, undiscovered and unknown, but that the little Emilia recognises him, though she does not betray him. He is, however, discovered and betrayed by his own imprudence. For he arouses the jealousy of Palemon, who escapes from his prison, and finding his friend and rival in a wood, forces him to fight in order to decide who shall have Emilia.[258]

THE TITLE OF THE "NOBLES MALHEUREUX" (DE CASIBUS). (PARIS, 1538)

(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton)

While they were calling on Mars, Venus, and Emilia,[259] in the same way as the Christian knights called on Madonna and their lady, suddenly Emilia, who was hunting in that very wood, came upon them, and they, made fiercer by her presence, start in earnest.[260] But at last Theseus arrives called by Emilia, to end the combat and learn the cause of the quarrel. Hearing it he pardons them, for he himself has been young and has loved too, but he attaches to his pardon a condition, to wit, that each of them, aided by a hundred knights, shall combat in public for Emilia's hand.[261]

The young lovers must send into all lands messengers to enrol two hundred knights,[262] and these at last are gathered together in the place of combat. Among the rest came Peleus, still a youth, the great twin brethren Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and Paris, Narcissus, Nestor, Ulysses, Pygmalion, prince of Tyre, Sichæus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, who have abandoned their judgment seats in Orcus to witness the fight. Indeed, as Landau has well said, if Homer had been there, he would certainly have been delighted to find again so many he had known of old, but he would also have marvelled to find among them so many jongleurs.

Before beginning the struggle Theseus, Palemon, and Arcite hold long discourses; the two rivals and Emilia recite long prayers.

The prayer of Arcite is to Mars, who lives in the mists of Thrace amid snow and ice. There in a thick wood of stout oaks stands his palace of iron with gates of diamond, at which mount guard Mad Fury, Murder, and Eternal Anger red as fire.

On the other hand, Palemon's prayer is to Venus, who lives in a garden full of fountains and streams and singing birds. There meet Grace, Courtesy, Delight, Beauty, Youth, and Mad Ardour. At the entrance sits Madonna Pace (Peace), and near her Patience and Cunning in Love. Within, however, Jealousy tortures his victims; while the door which leads to the sanctuary where Venus reposes between Bacchus and Ceres is guarded by Riches.[263]

The tourney is then described in the usual way, and ends in the defeat of Palemon. However, as Arcite only asked Mars for victory, he cannot enjoy it or its fruit. Palemon, it seems, asked not for victory, but that he might have Emilia. So the gods decide it. And therefore Venus sends a Fury who throws Arcite, and he is mortally wounded after his victory.[264] Before his death, however, he is married to Emilia,[265] makes his will, in which he leaves his wife and fortune to his friend and rival, and ends by swearing to him that he has only had of Emilia a single kiss.[266] After this Arcite is buried with great pomp, and tourneys are held in his honour, and there follows the marriage of Emilia and Palemon.[267]

What are we to make of such a work as this? Ambitious and complicated though it be, it is out of all comparison feebler than the simple tale of Troilus and Criseyde. Nor has it the gift of life, nor the subtle characterisation of the Filostrato. The two youths Palemon and Arcite are alike in their artificiality; they have never breathed the air we breathe, and we care nothing for or against them. And it would be the same with Emilia, but that her absolute stupidity angers us, and we soon come to find her unbearable. She is always praying the gods to give her the man she loves for a husband, but she herself is absolutely ignorant which of the two he may be.

But it might seem that the last thing Boccaccio thought of here was the creation of an impersonal work of art. His intention was rather to express his own sufferings. In the agonies of Palemon and Arcite he wished Fiammetta to see his own misery; and it may be that in the protection of Venus by which Palemon got at last what he most desired, he wished to tell Fiammetta that he too expected to triumph, even then, by virtue of his passion, the singleness of his love. Certainly, he seemed to say, you are worthy of the love of heroes, but it is the heart of a poet that Venus protects and satisfies; then give me your grace, since I am so faithful. That something of this sort was in his mind is obvious from the dedicatory letter to Fiammetta.[268]

As for the sources from which Boccaccio had the tale, we have seen that he certainly knew the Thebais of Statius,[269] but it was not only from Statius that he borrowed; he used also, as Crescini[270] has proved, the Roman de Thèbes, especially towards the end of his poem. Nor must we altogether pass over the influence of the Æneid, in which he found not only the form, but often the substance of his work.[271]

The first edition of the Teseide, full of faults, was published in Ferrara in 1475 by Pietro Andrea Bassi. As for translations, there have been many, the first being a Greek version issued in Venice in 1529. There followed an Italian prose paraphrase published in Lucca in 1579; while in 1597 a French version was published in Paris. The most famous translation or rather paraphrase was made, however, by Chaucer for the Knight's Tale in the Canterbury Tales; and of this I speak elsewhere.

In the shadow of Virgil's tomb, in a classic country still full of an old renown, Boccaccio had followed classic models, had written two epics and a romance in the manner of Apuleius; but in Tuscany, the country of Dante and Petrarch, he came under the influence of different work, and we find him writing pastorals. The Ameto is a pastoral romance written in prose scattered with verses, and to the superficial reader it cannot but be full of weariness. The action takes place in the country about Florence under the hills of Fiesole in the woods there, and begins with the description of the rude hunter Ameto (ἄδμητος), who only thinks of the chase and of the way through the forest[272]. Then he comes upon a nymph, Lia by name, and scarcely has he seen her and heard her sing than he loves her. After many pages of description of the love of Ameto, the struggle between his love and his timidity, he tells Lia at last that he loves her, and makes her accompany him in the chase. Winter comes, however, and separates them. But in the spring Ameto finds her again near a temple in which are gathered a company of fauns, dryads, satyrs, and naiads. There too in a private place a party of nymphs and shepherds meet close to Ameto and Lia. Many pages of description follow concerning each of the six nymphs, Mopsa, Emilia, Fiammetta, Acrimonia, Agapes, and Adiona. These descriptions are very wearying, for they are almost exactly alike, so like, indeed, that we may think Boccaccio was describing one woman and that Fiammetta. One after another these nymphs tell their amorous adventures, and each closes her account with a song in terza rima. Then Venus appears in the form of a column of fire,[273] and Ameto not being able to support the sight of the goddess, the nymphs come to his aid. When he is himself again, he prays the goddess to be favourable to his love.

Till now the pagan and sensual character of the book is complete, but here Ameto suddenly sees the error of his ways, all is changed in a moment, the spiritual beauty of the nymphs seems to him to surpass altogether their physical beauty. He understands that their loves are not men; the gods and temples about which they discourse are not those of the Pagans, and he is ashamed to have loved one of them as he might have loved any mortal girl. Then suddenly he breaks into a hymn in honour of the Trinity, and they all return to their own homes. Thus the work ends without telling us of the fate of Ameto or the nymphs.

The book, however, full as it is of imitations of Dante, is an allegory within an allegory. The nymphs and shepherds are not real people, but it seems personifications of the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues and their opposites. Thus Mopsa is Wisdom, and she loves Afron, Foolishness; Emilia is Justice, and she loves Ibrida, Pride; Adiona is Temperance, and she loves Dioneo, Licence; Acrimonia is Fortitude, and she loves Apaten, Insensibility; Agapes is Charity, and she loves Apiros, Indifference; Fiammetta is Hope, and she loves Caleone, Despair; Lia is Faith, and she loves Ameto, Ignorance. In their songs the seven nymphs praise and exalt the seven divinities that correspond to the seven virtues which they impersonate; thus Pallas is praised by Mopsa (Wisdom), Diana by Emilia (Justice), Pomona by Adiona (Temperance), Bellona by Acrimonia (Fortitude), Venus by Agapes (Charity), Vesta by Fiammetta (Hope), and Cibele by Lia (Faith). The whole action of the work then becomes symbolical, and Boccaccio, it has been said, had the intention of showing that a man, however rude and savage, can find God only by means of the seven virtues which are the foundation of all morals. If such were his intention he has indeed chosen strange means of carrying it out. The stories of the seven nymphs are extremely licentious, and all confess that they do not love their husbands and are seeking to make the shepherds fall in love with them. All this is, as we see, obscure, medieval, and far-fetched. Let it be what it may be. It is not in this allegory we shall find much to interest us, but in certain other allusions in which the work is rich. Thus we shall note that Fiammetta is Hope, and that she gives Hope to Caleone, who is Despair. That Caleone is Boccaccio himself there can be no manner of doubt. We see then that at the time the Ameto was written he still had some hope of winning Fiammetta again. In fact in the Ameto Fiammetta has the mission of saving Caleone from death, for he is resolved to kill himself. I have spoken of the autobiographical allusions in the Ameto, however, elsewhere.[274] It will be sufficient to say here that the Ameto was written, as Boccaccio himself tells us, in order that he might tell freely without regret or fear what he had seen and heard. It is all his life that we find in the stories of the nymphs. Emilia tells of Boccaccino's love for Jeanne (Gannai), his desertion of her, his marriage, and his ruin. Fiammetta tells how her mother was seduced by King Robert, who is here called Midas.[275] Then she describes the passion of Caleone (Boccaccio), his nocturnal surprise of her, and his triumph. The work is in fact a complete biography; and since this is so, there are in fact no sources from which it can be said to be derived. We find there some imitations of the Divine Comedy, some hints from Ovid and Virgil, of Moschus and Theocritus. The Ameto was dedicated to Niccola di Bartolo del Bruno, his "only friend in time of trouble." It was first published in small quarto in Rome in 1478. It has never been translated into any language.

FRONTISPIECE OF THE "DECAMERON." (VENICE, 1492)

There follows the Amorosa Visione, which was almost certainly begun immediately after the Ameto; at any rate, all modern authorities are agreed that it was written between 1341 and 1344. It recalls the happier time of his love, and Fiammetta is the very soul of the poem. Written in terza rima, not its only likeness to the Divine Comedy, it is dedicated to Maria d'Aquino (Fiammetta) in an acrostic, which is solved by reading the initial letters of the first verse of each terzina; the result being two sonnets and a ballata.[276] The name of "Madonna Maria" is formed by the initials of the twelfth to the twenty-second terzine of chapter x, and the name "Fiamma" by those of the twenty-fifth to the thirty-first of chapter xiii. Here is no allegory at all, but a clear statement; the three last lines of the first sonnet reading:—

"Cara Fiamma, per cui 'l core ò caldo,

Que' che vi manda questa Visione

Giovanni è di Boccaccio da Certaldo."

As the title proclaims, the poem is a Vision—a vision which Love discovers to the poet-lover. While he is falling asleep a lady appears to him who is to be his guide. He follows her in a dream, and together they come to a noble castello; there by a steep stairway they enter into the promised land, as it were, of Happiness, choosing not the wearying road of Good to the left, but passing through a wide portal into a spacious room on the right, whence come delicious sounds of festa. Two youths, one dressed in white, the other in red, after disputing with his guide, lead him into the festa, where he sees four triumphs—of Wisdom, of Fame, of Love, and of Fortune. In the triumph of Wisdom he sees all the learned men, philosophers, and poets of the world, among them Homer, Virgil, and Cicero, Horace, Sallust, Livy, Galen, Cato, Apuleius, Claudian, Martial, and Dante.[277] In the triumph of Fame he sees all the famous heroes and heroines of Antiquity and the Middle Age, among them Saturn, Electra, Baal, Paris, Absalom, Hecuba, Brutus, Jason, Medea, Hannibal, Cleopatra, Cornelia, Giulia, and Solomon, Charlemagne, Charles of Apulia, and Corradino.[278] The uniformity of the descriptions is pleasantly interrupted by certain apparitions, among them Robert of Naples[279] and Boccaccino, [280] besides a host of priests.[281] Once in speaking of the sufferings of poverty he seems to be writing of his own experiences:—

"Ha! lasso, quanto nelli orecchi fioco

Risuona altrui il senno del mendico,

Nè par che luce o caldo abbia 'l suo foco.

E 'l più caro parente gli è nemico,

Ciascun lo schifa, e se non ha moneta,

Alcun non è che 'l voglia per amico."[282]

After all, it is the experience of all who have been poor for a season.

There follows the triumph of Love, in which he sees all the fortunate and unfortunate lovers famous in poetry from the mythology of Greece to Lancelot and Guinevere, and Tristram and Iseult; and among these he sees Fiammetta.

So we pass to the triumph of Fortune, in which we learn the stories of Thebes, of Troy, of Carthage, of Alexander, of Pompey, of Niobe, and we are told of the inconstancy of terrestrial things.[283] And thus disillusioned, the poet makes the firm resolve to follow his guide in spite of every temptation. Yet almost at once a certain beautiful garden destroys his resolve. For he enters there and finds a marvellous fountain of marble, and a company of fair women who are presented to him under mysterious pseudonyms.[284] Among these are the bella Lombarda, the Lia of the Ameto, and finally the lady who writes her name in letters of gold in the heart of the poet.[285] And this lady he chooses for his sun, with the approval of his guide, who seems to have forgotten, as he has certainly done, the resolves so lately taken. However, the guide now discreetly leaves him in a somewhat compromising position; and it is thus Fiammetta who leads him into the abandoned road of virtue.[286]

These Trionfi were written before the Trionfi of Petrarch, and their true source is to be found not in any of Petrarch's work, but in the Divine Comedy and in the sources Dante used.[287] Boccaccio has evidently studied the great poem very closely. He imitates it not only in motives and symbols and words, but, as we have seen, in the form of his verse, and to some extent in the construction of his poem, which consists of fifty capitoli, each composed of twenty-nine terzine and a verse of chiusa, that is of eighty-eight verses in each.

The first edition was published in Milan in 1521 with an Apologia contro ai detrattori della poesia del Boccaccio by Girolamo Claricio of Imola. No translation has ever been made.[288]

We turn now to the Fiammetta,[289] which must have been the last of the works directly concerned with his passion for Maria d'Aquino. Crescini[290] thinks it was written in 1343, but others[291] assure us that it is later work.[292] Crescini's argument is, however, so formidable that we shall do better to accept his conclusions and to consider the Fiammetta as a work of this first Florentine period. Though concerned with the same subject, his love, the allegory is worth noting, for while in all the other books concerned with Fiammetta he assures us he was betrayed by her, here he asserts that Panfilo (himself) betrayed Fiammetta! Moreover, he warns us that here he speaks the truth,[293] but in fact it is only here he is a liar. It is impossible to believe that every one had not penetrated his various disguises, and he must have known that this was, and would be, so. Wishing, then, both to revenge and to vindicate himself—for his "betrayal" still hurt him keenly—and guessing that Fiammetta would read the book, he tells us that it was he who left her, not she him. The book then is very amusing for us who are behind the scenes, as it was, doubtless, for many of those who read it in his day.

The action is very simple, the story being told by Fiammetta as though it were an autobiography. It begins with a dream in which Fiammetta is warned that great unhappiness is in store for her. She knows Panfilo,[294] and suddenly there arises between them an eager love. Warned of the danger they run in entertaining so impetuous a passion, they yet take no heed; till quite as suddenly as it had begun, their love is broken. Panfilo must go away, it seems, being recalled to Florence by his old father. In vain Fiammetta tries to detain him; she can only obtain from him a promise that he will return to Naples in four months. The ingenious lying in that!

All alone she passes her days and nights in weeping. The four months pass and Panfilo does not come back to her. One day she hears from a merchant that he has taken a wife in Florence. This news increases her agony, and she asks aid of Venus. Then her husband, seeing her to be ill, but unaware of the cause of her sufferings, takes her to Baia; but no distraction helps her, and Baia only reminds her of the bygone days she spent there with Panfilo. At last she hears from a faithful servant come from Florence that Panfilo has not taken a wife, that the young woman in his house is the new wife of his old father; but it seems though he be unmarried he is in love with another lady, which is even worse. New jealousy and lamentations of Fiammetta. She refuses to be comforted and thinks only of death and suicide, and even tries to throw herself from her window, but is prevented. Finally the return of Panfilo is announced. Fiammetta thanks Venus and adorns herself again. She waits; but Panfilo does not come, and at last she is reduced to comforting herself by thinking of all those who suffer from love even as she. The work closes with a sort of epilogue.

As a work of art the Fiammetta is the best thing Boccaccio has yet achieved. The psychology is fine, subtle, and full of insight, but not so dramatic nor so simple and profound as that in the Filostrato. He shows again that he understands a woman's innermost nature, her continual doubts of herself, her gift of introspection. The torment of soul that a deserted woman suffers, the helpless fury of jealousy, are studied and explained with marvellous knowledge and coolness. The husband, who, ignorant of all, is so sorry for his wife's unhappiness, and seeks to console and comfort her, really lives and is the fine prototype of a lot of base work done later in which the cruel absurdity of the situation and the ridiculous figure he cuts who plays his part in it are insisted on. In fact, in the Fiammetta we find many of the finest features of the Decameron. It is the first novel of psychology ever written in Europe.