Despair

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  EIGHTH STORY In his love for a young lady of the Traversari family, Nastagio degli Onesti squanders his wealth without being loved in return. He is entreated by his friends to leave the city, and goes away to Classe, where he sees a girl being hunted down and killed by a horseman, and devoured by a brace of hounds. He then invites his kinsfolk and the lady he loves to a banquet, where this same girl is torn to pieces before the eyes of his beloved, who, fearing a similar fate, accepts Nastagio as her husband. No sooner did Lauretta fall silent, than at the bidding of the queen Filomena began as follows: Adorable ladies, just as our pity is commended, so is our cruelty severely punished by divine justice. And in order to prove this to you, as well as to give you an incentive for banishing all cruelty from your hearts, I should like to tell you a story as delightful as it is full of pathos. In Ravenna, 1 a city of great antiquity in Romagna, there once used to live a great many nobles and men of property, among them a young man called Nastagio degli Onesti, who had inherited an incredibly large fortune on the deaths of his father and one of his uncles. Being as yet unmarried, he fell in love, as is the way with young men, with a daughter of Messer Paolo Traversari, a girl of far more noble lineage than his own, whose love he hoped to win by dint of his accomplishments. But though these were very considerable, and splendid, and laudable, far from promoting his cause they appeared to damage it, inasmuch as the girl he loved was persistently cruel, harsh and unfriendly towards him. And on account possibly of her singular beauty, or perhaps because of her exalted rank, she became so haughty and contemptuous of him that she positively loathed him and everything he stood for. All of this was so difficult for Nastagio to bear that he was frequently seized, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, with the longing to kill himself out of sheer despair. But, having stayed his hand, he would then decide that he must give her up altogether, or learn if possible to hate her as she hated him. All such resolutions were unavailing, however, for the more his hopes dwindled, the greater his love seemed to grow. As the young man persisted in wooing the girl and spending money like water, certain of his friends and relatives began to feel that he was in danger of exhausting both himself and his inheritance. They therefore implored and advised him to leave Ravenna and go to live for a while in some other place, with the object of curtailing both his wooing and his spending.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When she heard that Martuccio and his companions were dead, the girl, who had been distressed beyond measure by his departure, wept incessantly and resolved to put an end to her life. Lacking the courage to do herself violently to death, she hit upon a novel but no less certain way of killing herself; and one night, she secretly left her father’s house and made her way to the harbour, where she chanced upon a tiny fishing-boat, lying some distance away from the other vessels. Its owners having gone ashore just a little while earlier, the boat was still equipped with its mast, its sail, and its oars. And since, like most of the women on the island, she had learnt the rudiments of seamanship, she stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind. She calculated that one of two things would inevitably happen: either the boat, being without ballast or rudder, would capsize in the wind, or it would be driven aground somewhere and smashed to pieces. In either case she was certain to drown, for she would be unable to save herself even if she wanted to. So having wrapped a cloak round her head, she lay down, weeping, on the floor of the boat. But her calculations proved quite wrong, for the wind blew so gently from the north that the sea was barely disturbed, the boat maintained an even keel, and towards evening on the following day she drifted ashore near a town called Susa, 2 a hundred miles or so beyond Tunis. The girl was not aware that she was more ashore than afloat, for she had not raised her head once from the position in which it was lying, nor had she any intention of doing so, whatever happened. As luck would have it, when the boat ran aground there was a poor woman on the shore, taking in nets that had been left in the sun by the fishermen for whom she worked. On seeing the boat, she wondered how the fishermen aboard could have let it run aground under full sail, and assumed that they must be asleep. So she went up to the boat, but the only person she could see was this young woman, lying there fast asleep. Having called to her several times, she eventually got her to wake up, and since she could see that the girl was a Christian from the clothes she was wearing, she asked her in Italian how it came about that she had landed in that particular spot, and in that particular boat, all by herself. Hearing herself addressed in Italian, the girl wondered whether she had been driven back to Lipari by a change of wind.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And hence she flailed her arms in all directions, heaping a constant stream of curses upon herself, her life, her lover, and the scholar. Being thus goaded, tormented, and pierced to the very quick by the incalculable heat, the rays of the sun, the flies and gadflies, her hunger and above all her thirst, as well as by a thousand agonizing thoughts, she stood up straight and looked about her in the hope of seeing or hearing someone who could be summoned to her assistance, being by now prepared to do anything, come what may, to effect her release. But here too she was dogged by ill luck. The peasants had all deserted the fields on account of the heat, and in any case nobody had been working near the tower that morning because they were staying at home to thresh the corn. So all she heard was the sound of cicadas, and the only moving thing in sight was the Arno, whose inviting waters did nothing to lessen her thirst, but only made it worse. And scattered about the countryside she could see houses and woods and shaded places, all of which played no less cruelly upon her desires. What more are we to say of this hapless widow? What with the sun beating down from above, the torrid heat of the floor beneath her feet, and the flies and gadflies piercing her flesh all over, she was in such a sorry state that her body, whose whiteness had dispelled the shades of night just a few hours before, had now turned red as madder, and being liberally flecked with blood, it would have seemed, to anyone who saw it, the ugliest thing in the world. There, then, she remained, bereft of all counsel and all hope, expecting rather to die than survive, until late in the afternoon, when the scholar, having risen from his siesta, returned to the tower to see how his lady was faring, and told his servant, who had not yet eaten, to go and procure himself a meal. On hearing him talking to the servant, the lady painfully dragged her weak, tormented body to the aperture, where she sat down, burst into tears, and said: ‘Surely your revenge has exceeded all the bounds of reason, Rinieri. For whereas I made you freeze by night in my courtyard, you have roasted me on this tower by day, or rather burnt me to a cinder, and caused me to die of hunger and thirst in the process. I therefore beg you in God’s name to come up here, and, since I do not have the courage to take my own life, to kill me yourself, for death is the one thing I desire above all else, such is the torture I am suffering.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The girl failed to notice them, and when they perceived how beautiful she was, seeing that she was all alone, the youths resolved to seize her and carry her off. Nor did they waste any time in giving effect to their resolve, but promptly took hold of the girl, and, though she screamed and shouted, bundled her aboard their ship. They then sailed away, but on arriving in Calabria, they fell to arguing among themselves over which of them was to take possession of the girl, each of them wanting her for himself. Being unable to reach any sort of agreement, they decided, rather than make matters worse and bring ruin upon themselves for the sake of a girl, to give her to King Frederick of Sicily,3 who was then a young man, much addicted to pretty things of that sort. And this they did on reaching Palermo. The girl was greatly prized by the King on account of her beauty, but as he was feeling somewhat indisposed, he ordered that until such time as he recovered she should be lodged with a retinue in a sumptuous villa in one of his gardens, known as La Cuba;4 and these instructions were carried out. The girl’s abduction gave rise to a great furore in Ischia, but the worst part about it was that they had no idea who it was that had carried her off. Gianni, who was the person most deeply affected by her disappearance, knew better than to hang about waiting for news in Ischia, and, having ascertained the direction taken by her captors, he hired a frigate of his own, in which, as swiftly as possible, he scoured the whole of the coast from Cape Minerva to Scalea5 in Calabria, making inquiries about the girl wherever he went. Finally, at Scalea, he was told she had been taken by Sicilian sailors to Palermo, and thither he made his way as speedily as he could. On discovering, after searching high and low for her, that she had been given to the King and was being kept by him in La Cuba, he was greatly perturbed and not only despaired of retrieving her but almost gave up hope of ever seeing her again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All he wanted to do now was to die, and so finally, invoking the great love he bore her, he pleaded with her to let him lie down at her side so that he could get warm, pointing out that his limbs had turned numb with cold whilst he was waiting for her. He assured her that he would neither talk to her nor touch her, and promised to go away as soon as he had warmed himself up a little. Feeling rather sorry for him, Salvestra agreed to let him do it, but only if he kept his promises. So the young man lay down at her side without attempting to touch her, and, concentrating his thoughts on his long love for her, on her present coldness towards him, and on the dashing of his hopes, he resolved not to go on living. Without uttering a word, he clenched his fists and held his breath until finally he expired at her side. After a while, wondering what he was doing and fearing lest her husband should wake up, the girl made a move. ‘Girolamo,’ she whispered, ‘it’s time for you to be going.’ On receiving no answer, she assumed that he had fallen asleep. So she stretched out her hand to wake him up and began to prod him, but found to her great astonishment that he was as cold as ice to the touch. She then prodded him more vigorously but it had no effect, and after trying once more she realized that he was dead. The discovery filled her with dismay and for some time she lay there without the slightest notion what to do. In the end she decided to put the case to her husband without saying who was involved, and ask his opinion about what the people concerned ought to do about it; and having woken him up, she described her own recent experience as though it had happened to someone else, then asked him what advice he would give supposing it had happened to her. To this, the worthy soul replied that in his view, the fellow who was dead would have to be taken quietly back to his own house and left there, and that

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Sophronia was then restored to Titus, and being a sensible girl, she made a virtue of necessity and soon accorded Titus the love she had formerly had for Gisippus. And she went with him to Rome, where she was received with great honour. Meanwhile Gisippus stayed on in Athens, but could no longer command much esteem among most of his fellow citizens; and not long afterwards, through factional strife in the city, he was driven out of Athens, poor and destitute, and condemned to perpetual exile along with all the members of his family. Now that he was banished, before very long he became not only a pauper but a beggar, and made his way as best he could to Rome, in order to discover whether Titus still remembered him. On learning that Titus was alive and that all the Romans sang his praises, he found out where he was living, then went and stood outside his house. Eventually Titus made his appearance, and though Gisippus would not venture to address him because of his beggarly condition, he endeavoured to let himself be seen so that Titus might recognize and send for him. When, therefore, Titus passed him by without any show of recognition, Gisippus was convinced that he had been deliberately snubbed, and remembering all he had done for Titus in the past, he retreated from the scene in dudgeon and despair. It was already dark when Gisippus, hungry and penniless, having nowhere to go and heartily wishing he were dead, strayed into a very lonely part of the city where he came across a large cave, into which he crept with the intention of sheltering there for the night. And on the cave’s bare floor, ill-apparelled and exhausted by prolonged weeping, he fell fast asleep. Just before dawn, however, a pair of burglars came to this very cave with the proceeds of their night’s activities, and having started to quarrel with one another, the more powerful of the two killed his companion and made off. All of this was seen and heard by Gisippus, who, being himself intent upon dying, felt that he had now discovered a way of achieving his goal without resorting to suicide. So he stayed where he was until the praetorian guards, having quickly got wind of the affair, arrived at the scene of the crime and bundled him off into custody. He was then interrogated and confessed to the murder, adding that he had been unable to find his way out of the cave; whereupon the praetor, whose name was Marcus Varro, sentenced him to death by crucifixion, which in those days was the regular method of execution. By a singular coincidence, at that very moment Titus turned up at the law court, and on staring the wretched prisoner in the face, having learned the reasons for the sentence, he recognized him at once as Gisippus.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FOURTH STORY Landolfo Rufolo is ruined and turns to piracy; he is captured by the Genoese and shipwrecked, but survives by clinging to a chest, full of very precious jewels; finally, having been succoured by a woman on Corfu, he returns home rich . When she saw that Pampinea had brought her story to its triumphant close, Lauretta, who was seated next to her, took up her cue without a pause and began to speak as follows: Fairest ladies, it is in my opinion impossible to envisage a more striking act of Fortune than the spectacle of a person being raised from the depths of poverty to regal status, which is what happened, as we have been shown by Pampinea’s story, in the case of her Alessandro. And since, from now on, nobody telling a story on the prescribed subject can possibly exceed those limits, I shall not blush to narrate a tale which, whilst it contains greater misfortunes, does not however possess so magnificent an ending. I realize of course, when I think of the previous story, that my own will be followed less attentively. But since it is the best I can manage, I trust that I shall be forgiven. Few parts of Italy, if any, are reckoned to be more delightful than the sea-coast between Reggio and Gaeta. In this region, not far from Salerno, there is a strip of land overlooking the sea, known to the inhabitants as the Amalfi coast, 1 which is dotted with small towns, gardens and fountains, and swarming with as wealthy and enterprising a set of merchants as you will find anywhere. In one of these little towns, called Ravello, 2 there once lived a certain Landolfo Rufolo, and although Ravello still has its quota of rich men, this Rufolo was a very rich man indeed. But being dissatisfied with his fortune, he sought to double it, and as a result he nearly lost every penny he possessed, and his life too. This Rufolo, then, having made the sort of preliminary calculations that merchants normally make, purchased a very large ship, loaded it with a mixed cargo of goods paid for entirely out of his own pocket, and sailed with them to Cyprus. But on his arrival, he discovered that several other ships had docked there, carrying precisely the same kind of goods as those he had brought over himself. And for this reason, not only did he have to sell his cargo at bargain prices, but in order to complete his business he was practically forced to give the stuff away, thus being brought to the verge of ruin. Being extremely distressed about all this, not knowing what to do, and finding himself reduced overnight from great wealth to semi-poverty, he decided he would make good his losses by privateering, or die in the attempt. At all events, having set out a rich man, he was determined not to return home in poverty.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But a few days later, it happened that because of some other piece of villainy, the old woman who had concocted the poisonous potion for Ninetta was arrested. Under torture, she confessed to this particular crime along with the others she had committed, and supplied a full account of what had happened. The Duke of Crete said nothing about it to anyone, but one night he threw a cordon round Folco’s palace, quietly arrested Ninetta, and took her away without a struggle. There was no need to resort to torture, for he very quickly learned from Ninetta everything he wanted to know about Restagnone’s death. Folco and Ughetto had been secretly informed by the Duke of the reason for Ninetta’s arrest, and they in turn informed their ladies. All four were greatly distressed, and spared no effort to save Ninetta from being burnt at the stake, which was the punishment to which they realized she would be condemned, as she richly deserved. But the Duke was determined that justice should take its course, and it seemed that there was nothing they could do to make him change his mind. Maddalena was a strikingly beautiful young woman, and for some little time she had been the object of the Duke’s affection. She had never given him the slightest encouragement, but she now thought that by placating his desires she would be able to rescue her sister from the fire, and she informed him through a trusted messenger that she was ready to do his bidding on two conditions: first, that her sister should be returned to her unharmed; and secondly, that the whole matter should be kept secret. On receipt of the message, the sound of which was much to his liking, the Duke devoted a great deal of thought to it and in the end agreed to its terms, sending back word to that effect. And one evening, with the young woman’s prior consent, he had Folco and Ughetto arrested on the pretext of hearing their version of the affair, and secretly went to spend the night with Maddalena. First, however, he had tied Ninetta up in a sack and made it appear that he intended to dump her in the sea, instead of which he took her with him and presented her to her sister by way of payment for his night of pleasure. Next morning, before leaving, he begged Maddalena not to look upon this first night of their love as the last they would spend together, and implored her to send her guilty sister away so that he should not be taken to task and compelled to put her on trial all over again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When she heard that Martuccio and his companions were dead, the girl, who had been distressed beyond measure by his departure, wept incessantly and resolved to put an end to her life. Lacking the courage to do herself violently to death, she hit upon a novel but no less certain way of killing herself; and one night, she secretly left her father’s house and made her way to the harbour, where she chanced upon a tiny fishing-boat, lying some distance away from the other vessels. Its owners having gone ashore just a little while earlier, the boat was still equipped with its mast, its sail, and its oars. And since, like most of the women on the island, she had learnt the rudiments of seamanship, she stepped promptly aboard, rowed a little way out to sea, and hoisted the sail, after which she threw the oars and rudder overboard and placed herself entirely at the mercy of the wind. She calculated that one of two things would inevitably happen: either the boat, being without ballast or rudder, would capsize in the wind, or it would be driven aground somewhere and smashed to pieces. In either case she was certain to drown, for she would be unable to save herself even if she wanted to. So having wrapped a cloak round her head, she lay down, weeping, on the floor of the boat. But her calculations proved quite wrong, for the wind blew so gently from the north that the sea was barely disturbed, the boat maintained an even keel, and towards evening on the following day she drifted ashore near a town called Susa, 2 a hundred miles or so beyond Tunis. The girl was not aware that she was more ashore than afloat, for she had not raised her head once from the position in which it was lying, nor had she any intention of doing so, whatever happened. As luck would have it, when the boat ran aground there was a poor woman on the shore, taking in nets that had been left in the sun by the fishermen for whom she worked. On seeing the boat, she wondered how the fishermen aboard could have let it run aground under full sail, and assumed that they must be asleep. So she went up to the boat, but the only person she could see was this young woman, lying there fast asleep. Having called to her several times, she eventually got her to wake up, and since she could see that the girl was a Christian from the clothes she was wearing, she asked her in Italian how it came about that she had landed in that particular spot, and in that particular boat, all by herself. Hearing herself addressed in Italian, the girl wondered whether she had been driven back to Lipari by a change of wind.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He therefore re-opened discussions with Cassandra’s kinsfolk and brought them to a successful conclusion, all the parties agreeing that on the day that Pasimondas married Iphigenia, Ormisdas should marry Cassandra. Lysimachus, having heard of this arrangement, was greatly distressed, for it now appeared that all his hopes of marrying Cassandra, provided that Ormisdas did not marry her first, had suddenly vanished. He was wise enough, however, to conceal the agony he was suffering, and began to study various ways and means of preventing the marriage from taking place, eventually concluding that the only possible solution was to abduct her. This seemed a feasible proposition because of the office he held, although if he had held no office at all he would have thought it a far less dishonourable course to take. But in short, after lengthy reflection his sense of honour gave way to his love, and he resolved, come what may, to carry Cassandra off. On giving thought to the sort of companions he would need for effecting his design, and planning the strategy he should adopt, he remembered that he was holding Cimon prisoner, together with all his men, and it occurred to him that for an enterprise such as this it would be impossible to find a better or more

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Since there was nothing he could do about it, he tried to reconcile himself to the situation; and having inquired into where she was living, he began to walk up and down in the manner of a lovelorn youth outside her house, being convinced that she could not have forgotten him, any more than he had forgotten her. But this was not the case, for as the young man very soon perceived, to his no small sorrow, she no more remembered him than if she had never seen him before, and if she did indeed recollect anything at all, she certainly never showed it. Nevertheless the young man did everything he could to make her acknowledge him again; but feeling that he was getting nowhere, he resolved to speak to her in private, even if he were to die in the attempt. Having inquired of a person living nearby regarding the disposition of the rooms, he secretly let himself in to the house one evening whilst she and her husband were attending a wake with some neighbours of theirs, and concealed himself behind some sheets of canvas that were stretched across a corner of her bedroom. There he waited until they had returned home and retired to bed, and when he was sure that her husband was asleep, he crept over to that part of the room where he had seen Salvestra lying down, placed his hand on her bosom, and said: ‘Are you asleep already, my dearest?’ The girl, who was not asleep, was about to scream when the young man hastily added: ‘For pity’s sake, do not scream, for it is only your Girolamo.’ On hearing this, she trembled from head to toe, and said: ‘Oh, merciful heavens, do go away Girolamo. We are no longer children, and the time has passed for proclaiming our love from the house-tops. As you can see, I am married, and therefore it is no longer proper for me to care for any other man but my husband. Hence I beseech you in God’s name to get out of here. If my husband were to hear you, even supposing nothing more serious came of it, it would certainly follow that I could never live in peace with him again, whereas up to now he has loved me and we live calmly and contentedly together.’ To hear her talking like this, the young man was driven to the brink of despair. He reminded her of the times they had spent in each other’s company and of the fact that his love for her had never diminished despite their separation. He poured out a stream of entreaties and promised her the moon. But he was unable to make the slightest impression.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And I will tell you that just below her left breast, your wife Zinevra has a sizeable little mole surrounded by about half-a dozen fine golden hairs.’ When Bernabò heard this, he felt as though he had been stabbed through the heart, such was the pain that assailed him. His whole face changed, so that even if he had not uttered a word, it would have been quite obvious that what Ambrogiuolo had said was true. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘What Ambrogiuolo says is true, and therefore, since he has won the wager, he may come whenever he likes in order to collect his due.’ And the next day, Ambrogiuolo was paid in full. Bernabò left Paris, and came hurrying back to Genoa with murder in his heart. But as he was approaching his destination, he decided to go no further, halting instead at an estate of his some twenty miles from the city. He then sent a retainer of his whom he greatly trusted to Genoa, with two horses and a letter telling his wife he had returned, and asking her to come and join him under this man’s escort. And he secretly instructed the servant that on reaching the most suitable place, he was to kill her without showing any mercy and return to him alone. When the retainer reached Genoa, he handed over the letter and delivered his master’s message, being welcomed by the lady with great rejoicing; and next morning, they mounted their horses and set out for Bernabò’s estate in the country. As they were riding along together, conversing on various topics, they came to a very deep ravine, a lonely spot with precipitous crags and trees all round it, which seemed to the retainer the ideal place to carry out his master’s orders without any risk of detection. He therefore drew his dagger and seized the lady’s arm, saying: ‘Commend your soul to God, my lady, for this is the place where you must die.’ On seeing the dagger and hearing these words, the lady was completely terror-stricken. ‘For God’s sake, have mercy!’ she cried. ‘Before putting me to death, tell me what I ever did to you, that you should want to kill me.’ ‘My lady,’ he replied. ‘To me you have never done anything; but you must have done something or other to your husband, for he ordered me to kill you without mercy in the course of our journey. And if I fail to carry out his instructions, he has threatened to have me hanged by the neck. You know very well how much I depend upon him, and how impossible it would be for me to disobey him. God knows I feel sorry for you, but I have no alternative.’ The lady began to weep. ‘Oh, for the love of God, have mercy!’ she said. ‘Don’t allow yourself to murder someone who never did you any harm, just for the sake of obeying an order.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Forgive me for her sake, fetch me my clothes so that I may dress, and let me come down.’ Whereupon the scholar burst out laughing, and observing that it was already well past the hour of tierce, he replied: ‘Ah, how can I refuse your request, now that you have appealed to me in her name? Tell me where your clothes are, so that I can go and fetch them and arrange for you to descend.’ The lady took him seriously and, feeling somewhat reassured, described to him exactly where she had hidden her clothes, whereupon the scholar issued forth from the tower and ordered his servant not to move away from the spot, but to stay close to the tower and do his best to see that no one set foot inside it until he returned. And having given him these instructions, he made his way to his friend’s house, where in due course, after eating a most leisurely meal, he retired for a siesta. The lady continued to lie on the roof of the tower, foolishly entertaining some faint hope of a speedy end to her predicament, until, feeling exceedingly sore, she sat up and crawled over to that section of the parapet which afforded a little shade from the sun, where she settled down to wait with no other company than her own bitter thoughts. By turns brooding and weeping, now hoping and now despairing of the scholar’s return with her clothes, her mind flitting from one doleful reflection to the next, she eventually succumbed to her grief, and since she had been awake for the whole of the previous night, she fell into a deep slumber. The sun was positively blazing, and having reached its zenith, was beating freely down, with all its power, straight on to her soft and tender body and on to her unprotected head, so that not only did it scorch every part of her flesh that was exposed to its rays, but it caused her skin to split into countless tiny cracks and fissures. And so intense was the roasting she received that although she was soundly asleep, it forced her to wake up. On finding she was being burnt, she attempted to move, whereupon she felt as if the whole of her scorched skin was being rent asunder like a piece of flaming parchment being stretched from both ends. Moreover (and this was not in the least surprising), she had such an excruciating pain in her head that she thought it would burst. The floor of the tower-roof was so hot that she could find nowhere to stand or sit down, and so she kept shifting her position the whole time, weeping incessantly. But apart from all this, there being not a breath of wind, the air was literally teeming with flies and gadflies, which, settling in the fissures of her flesh, stung her so ferociously that every sting was like a spear being thrust into her body.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And so it came about that the hapless Cimon lost his beloved Iphigenia almost as soon as he had won her, with nothing to show for his pains except one or two kisses. As for Iphigenia, she was given hospitality by various noble ladies of Rhodes, who restored her spirits from the shock of her abduction and the fatigue she had suffered in the tempest; and she remained with them until the day appointed for her wedding. Pasimondas urged with all his eloquence that Cimon and his companions should be put to death, but their lives were spared on account of having set the young Rhodians at liberty on the previous day, and they were condemned to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And there, as may readily be imagined, they led a wretched existence, and despaired of ever knowing happiness again. It was whilst Pasimondas was pressing zealously ahead with the preparations for his forthcoming marriage that Fortune, as though to make amends for the sudden blow she had dealt to Cimon’s hopes, devised a novel way of procuring him his liberty. Pasimondas had a brother, younger but no less eligible than himself, whose name was Ormisdas, and who for some time had been seeking to marry a beautiful young noblewoman of the city called Cassandra, with whom Lysimachus, the chief magistrate, was very deeply in love. But the marriage had been several times postponed because of some unexpected turn of events. Now, seeing that he was about to hold a huge reception to celebrate his own wedding, Pasimondas thought it would be an excellent idea to arrange for Ormisdas to be married at the same time, thus avoiding a second round of spending and feasting. He therefore re-opened discussions with Cassandra’s kinsfolk and brought them to a successful conclusion, all the parties agreeing that on the day that Pasimondas married Iphigenia, Ormisdas should marry Cassandra. Lysimachus, having heard of this arrangement, was greatly distressed, for it now appeared that all his hopes of marrying Cassandra, provided that Ormisdas did not marry her first, had suddenly vanished. He was wise enough, however, to conceal the agony he was suffering, and began to study various ways and means of preventing the marriage from taking place, eventually concluding that the only possible solution was to abduct her. This seemed a feasible proposition because of the office he held, although if he had held no office at all he would have thought it a far less dishonourable course to take. But in short, after lengthy reflection his sense of honour gave way to his love, and he resolved, come what may, to carry Cassandra off.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But suddenly, a totally unexpected war broke out in England between the King and one of his sons, 2 splitting the whole of the island into two rival factions, as a result of which the castles of the barons were taken out of Alessandro’s control, and all his other assets were frozen. But he remained in the island in the hope that son and father would make peace at any moment, in which case he might recover not only all his capital, but the outstanding interest as well. Meanwhile, in Florence, the three brothers made no attempt whatever to curb their enormous expenditure, but borrowed more and more each day. But as the years went by one after another, and their expectations were seen to be bearing no fruit, the three brothers lost their sources of credit, and immediately afterwards, since their creditors were demanding payment, they were thrown into prison. Their assets were realized to meet their debts, but the amount they raised was insufficient, and so they remained in prison, leaving their wives and little children to wander off in rags, some taking to the country, some going to one place, some to another, with nothing but a lifetime of poverty ahead of them. Alessandro, after waiting several years in England for a peace that never came, thought it not only pointless but positively dangerous to stay there any longer, and decided to return to Italy. He set out all alone on his journey, but as he was leaving Bruges 3 he happened to see, also leaving the city, an abbot dressed in white, who was attended by many monks and preceded by a large number of retainers and a substantial baggage train. Bringing up the rear were two worthy knights, relatives of the King, with whom Alessandro was personally acquainted. And so, having made his presence known, they readily received him as one of their company. As he jogged along beside the two knights, Alessandro made polite inquiries concerning the identity of the monks who were riding ahead with this large retinue of servants, and asked where they were all going. ‘The person riding up front,’ replied one of the knights, ‘is a young relative of ours who has just been appointed Abbot of one of the largest abbeys in England. But because he is below the minimum age prescribed by law for this great office, we are going with him to Rome in order to ask the Holy Father to give him dispensation for his excessive youth and confirm him in office. But we wish to keep the matter a secret.’ The new abbot rode on, sometimes going ahead, sometimes falling back behind his retinue, in the style regularly to be observed in gentlemen of quality when they are travelling, until eventually he found himself level with Alessandro, who was very young, exceedingly good-looking and well-built, and the most well-mannered, agreeable and finely spoken person you can imagine.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You were just pretending to us that it had been stolen so that you wouldn’t have to buy us a few drinks out of the proceeds.’ Calandrino, who still had the bitter taste of the aloe in his mouth, swore to them that he had not taken the pig, but Buffalmacco said: ‘Own up, man, how much did it fetch? Six florins?’ Calandrino was by now on the brink of despair, but Bruno said: ‘You might as well know, Calandrino, that one of the fellows we were drinking and eating with this morning told me that you had a girl up here, that you kept her for your pleasure and gave her all the little titbits that came your way, and that he was quite certain you had sent her this pig of yours. You’ve become quite an expert at fooling people, haven’t you? Remember the time you took us along the Mugnone? 3 There we were, collecting those black stones, and as soon as you’d got us stranded up the creek without a paddle, you cleared off home, and then tried to make us believe that you’d found the thing. And now that you’ve given away the pig, or sold it rather, you think you can persuade us, by uttering a few oaths, that it’s been stolen. But you can’t fool us any more: we’ve cottoned on to these tricks of yours. As a matter of fact, that’s why we took so much trouble with the spell we cast on the sweets; and unless you give us two brace of capons for our pains, we intend to tell Monna Tessa the whole story.’ Seeing that they refused to believe him, and thinking that he had enough trouble on his hands without letting himself in for a diatribe from his wife, Calandrino gave them the two brace of capons. And after they had salted the pig, they carried their spoils back to Florence with them, leaving Calandrino to scratch his head and rue his losses.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  If you refuse to cooperate, I shall certainly catch him out sooner or later, and since I have no intention of allowing his offence to go unpunished, I shall deal with him in such a way as to make both of your lives a perpetual misery.’ Having listened to Zeppa’s story and questioned him closely about it, the woman was convinced that he was telling the truth, and she said: ‘My dear Zeppa, if I have to bear the brunt of your revenge, so be it; but only if you will see that your wife harbours no resentment against me over this deed we are obliged to perform, just as I myself, in spite of what she has done to me, intend to harbour none against her.’ To which Zeppa replied: ‘I shall certainly see to that; and what’s more, I shall present you with as fair and precious a jewel as any you possess.’ So saying, he took her in his arms and began to kiss her; and having laid her on the chest in which her husband was imprisoned, he sported with her upon it to his heart’s content, and she with him. Spinelloccio, who was inside the chest and had not only heard all that Zeppa had said but also his wife’s reply and the fandango that shortly thereafter took place directly above his head, was torn with anguish, and felt at any moment he would die. But for his fear of Zeppa, he would have given his wife a severe scolding, even though he was under lock and key. In the end, however, recalling that he himself was to blame in the first place, that Zeppa was justified in doing this to him and that he had chosen a civil and comradely way of taking his revenge, Spinelloccio vowed that, if Zeppa was agreeable, they

• From The Decameron (1353)

  By a stroke of ill-luck, the ship in which the wretched, destitute Landolfo was travelling was driven by the force of the gale on to the coast of the island of Cephalonia, where she ran aground with a tremendous crash, split wide open, and like a piece of glass being flung against a wall, was smashed to smithereens. As is usually the case when this happens, the sea was rapidly littered with an assortment of floating planks, chests and merchandise. And although it was pitch dark and there was a heavy swell, the poor wretches who had survived the wreck, or those of them who could swim, began to cling to whatever object happened to float across their path. One of their number was poor Landolfo, who had in fact been calling out all day for death to come and take him, for he felt he would rather die than return home poverty-stricken. But now that he was staring death in the face, he was frightened by the prospect, and like the others he too clung to the first spar that came within his reach, in the hope that by remaining afloat for a little longer, God might somehow come to his rescue. Settling himself astride the spar as best he could, he clung on till daybreak, meanwhile being tossed hither and thither by sea and wind. When dawn came, he cast his eyes around him, but all he could see was clouds and water, and a chest floating on the sea’s surface. To his great consternation, this chest floated every so often into his vicinity, causing him to fear lest it should collide into him and do him an injury. So whenever it came too near, he summoned up the meagre strength he still possessed, and pushed it away as best he could with his hands. But as luck would have it, the sea was struck by a sudden squall, which sent the chest hurtling into Landolfo’s spar, upending it and inevitably causing Landolfo to lose his grip and go under. When he re-surfaced, he found that he was some distance away from the spar, and was afraid that he would never reach it, for he was exhausted and only his panic was keeping him afloat. He therefore made for the chest, which was quite close at hand, and dragging himself up on its lid, he sprawled across it and held it steady with his arms. And in this fashion, buffeted this way and that by the sea, with nothing to eat and far more to drink than he would have wished, not knowing where he was and seeing nothing but water, he survived for the whole of that day and the following night. By the next day, Landolfo had almost turned into a sponge when, either through the will of God or the power of the wind, he arrived off the coast of the island of Corfu.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  would continue as the state Church, with a predominant role in education and state ceremonial. Even the National Assembly was not, initially, anti-clerical; it included only three Jansenists and fifteen Protestants. It was, rather, Erastian and Gallican, and regarded the Church as a necessary part of the nation’s moral machinery: otherwise, who would prevent the servants stealing the spoons? In November 1788, Louis XVI had discussed the possibility of an approaching crisis with his reforming minister, Malesherbes, and the relevancy of the English Civil War. Malesherbes remarked: ‘Fortunately, religious quarrels are not involved.’ The king agreed: ‘ L’atrocité ne sera pas la même. ’ In fact what happened was a combination of England’s experience in the 1530s and the 1640s, a revolution directed not only against the crown and the possessing classes, but against the clergy as a whole, and against Christianity as such. Thus the idea of the modern secular State came into existence, and the concept of Christendom as a total, international society, already damaged by schism, finally dissolved. The process had its roots deep in the Enlightenment which in France (as we have seen) developed outside, rather than within, a Christian framework, and portrayed reason and religion pulling in opposite directions rather than (as in England) in harness. But if the roots were deep the flowering of anti-clericalism and atheism was to some extent accidental, one of the great muddles of history. The result was a confrontation between ‘reason’ and ‘religion’ which revealed the limitations and weaknesses of both, and raised a number of fundamental issues which have not yet been solved. How did this happen? The cahiers of 1789 showed no general desire for fundamental changes in the Church; hardly one in fifty even wanted to end monastic vows. But the National Assembly was misled by two indicators. One was the popularity of the Paris anti-clerical theatre, which put on previously banned plays, including M-J. Chenier’s Charles IX, showing a cardinal blessing the daggers of St Bartholomew. The other was the ease with which the first batch of Church reforms went through. The cancellation of annates in 1789 raised no papal protest, though it clearly breached the concordat. Tithes were abolished at the suggestion of the Due de Chatelet (furious because the Bishop of Chartres had proposed to end hunting- rights). The appropriation and sale of Church lands was virtually unopposed. The bishops told the Pope: ‘Our silence demonstrated how we were inaccessible, personally, to all the temporal interests whose possession had drawn on us hatred and

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Japan open completely to the friars. This coincided with another blow the Jesuits had long feared but could not avert – the arrival of the Dutch Calvinists, with the English not far behind. By 1613 both Protestant groups were active in Japanese waters, making the annual great ship obsolete and the Jesuits no longer indispensible, or even necessary, as commercial brokers. The English promptly engaged in anti-Spanish propaganda, preying on the very insecurity the Japanese already nursed. Had they not heard of Jesuit subversive plans in England, concerted and timed to assist Spanish naval plans to invade? That, said the English captain Richard Cocks, was exactly why his government had expelled Catholic clerics from England: ‘Hath not the Emperor of Japan as much reason to put your Jesuits and friars out of Japan and to withstand the secret entrance of them, knowing them to be stirrers up of sedition, and turbulent people?’ It was the last straw. On 27 January 1614 the Japanese government published an edict which accused the Christians of coming ‘to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow true doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country and obtain possession of the land.’ The attachment of the Christians to the cross was explicitly cited as grounds for believing they approved of criminal acts. All European Christians were to leave, and Japanese Christians were to renounce their faith. The reaction to the expulsion order took the form of a tremendous outbreak of mass religious fervour in Nagasaki, with ritual flagellations and mutilations, several Japanese Christians dying of self-inflicted wounds. This disgusted and infuriated the Japanese authorities. The Jesuits later blamed the Franciscans for setting off this frenzy, and it is true that the Franciscans often encouraged flagellation while the Jesuits hated it. But the truth is that the Japanese converts, as Valignano had perceived, made Christians of unrivalled determination and courage. Had the mission been allowed to proceed under the right conditions, the Japanese would have changed the face of world religion. As it was, they became the victims of one of the most ruthless and prolonged persecutions in the long, bloody story of confessional cruelty. From 1614–43, up to 5,000 Japanese Christians were judicially murdered, nearly always in public. The exact total is not known, but 3,125 individual cases are recorded, 71 of them Europeans. About 46 Jesuits and friars contrived to ‘go underground’, but in the long run this merely served to prolong the agony, since the mission could not be effectively reinforced and fugitives were systematically and relentlessly hunted down. The most appalling tortures were inflicted on those,