Читать книгу Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study - Edward Hutton - Страница 8

Table of Contents

1331

HIS MEETING WITH FIAMMETTA AND THE PERIODS OF THEIR LOVE STORY

For it was in the midst of this gay life, full of poetry and study, that he met her who was so much more beautiful than all the other "ninfe Partenopee," and who seemed to him "quella che in Cipri già fu adorata," that is to say, Venus herself. He saw her first on a Holy Saturday, on the Vigil of Easter, as he himself tells us, and as we think on 30th March, 1331.[89] He had gone to Mass, it seems, about ten o'clock in the morning, the fashionable hour of the day, rather to see the people than to attend the service, in the church of S. Lorenzo of the Franciscans. And there amid that great throng of all sorts and conditions of men he first caught sight of the woman who was so profoundly to influence his life and shape his work.

"I found myself," he says, "in a fine church of Naples, named after him who endured to be offered as a sacrifice upon the gridiron. And there, there was a singing compact of sweetest melody. I was listening to the Holy Mass celebrated by a priest, successor to him who first girt himself humbly with the cord, exalting poverty and adopting it. Now while I stood there, the fourth hour of the day, according to my reckoning, having already passed down the eastern sky, there appeared to my eyes the wondrous beauty of a young woman, come thither to hear what I too heard attentively. I had no sooner seen her than my heart began to throb so strongly that I felt it in my slightest pulses; and not knowing why nor yet perceiving what had happened, I began to say, 'Ohimè, what is this?' … But at length, being unable to sate myself with gazing, I said, 'O Love, most noble Lord, whose strength not even the gods were able to resist,[90] I thank thee for setting happiness before my eyes!' … I had no sooner said these words than the flashing eyes of that lovely lady fixed themselves on mine. … "[91]

Fiammetta, for it was she, was tall and slanciata; her hair, he tells us, "is so blonde that the world holds nothing like it; it shades a white forehead of noble width, beneath which are the curves of two black and most slender eyebrows … and under these two roguish eyes … cheeks of no other colour than milk." This description, even in the hands of Boccaccio, is little more than the immortal "Item, two lips, indifferent red. … "[92] Yet little by little in his work Fiammetta lives for us. On that day she was dressed in a bruna vesta,[93] and wearing a veil that fell from her head crowned with a garland.[94] After her golden hair, it is her eyes and her mouth that he loves best in her.

"Due begli occhi luccan, sì che fiammetta

Parea ciascun d' amore luminosa;

E la sua bocca bella e piccioletta

Vermiglia rosa e fresca somigliava."[95]

He seems to have asked one of his companions who she was, but he knew not.