Decameron
by Boccaccio, Giovanni
Translated by J.G. Nichols
pub by Knopf. Borzoi Book. Everymans Library, London 2008 -       - isbn 978-0-307-27171-6 - LCCN 2008 -- Introdution p.ix - Bibliography p. xix - Authors Prologue p. 3-5 -- Authors Conclusion p. 651-655 -- Notes p.657-661 -- Total 673 pages.
This is a work of fiction. In fact in 1348 the plague was ravishing europe and was especially noted in Italy. In this book Boccacio introduces his characters, 7 young women and 3 young men in Florence. Times were terrible. People were dying. There was no cure for the plague and the corpses were in such abundance that proper burial was not possible. People who died alone in their houses were often not discovered until the smell of their bodies was noticed.
The characters in this book met in a church and decided to leave town and take refuge in an estate out of town.
They then set up rules for their lives and lived for some 10 days away from the horror and stench of Florence. To amuse themselves the 10 of them decided to tell stories to one another. Each to tell 1 story per day. Over 10 days one gets 100 stories, which is where the title Decameron comes from.
One of the group is chosen -king- (or queen when it falls on one of the young women) and that person rules, and sets out the general subject for the stories for the following day. The king/queen also decides the other activities of the day. At the end of the day the soverign of the day choses one of the others who has not had their turn and crowns them with a wreath to be king/queen for the following day, but their reign begins immediately upon being chosen.
The stories vary, but many are ribald, some involve offending clergy, almost all involve -love- and it seems that among these people that is the love which is described as Eros - very earthy stuff. Some tales glorify illegal or immoral deeds, though as the days go by the subjects become less so. At the end of the book Giovanni Boccacio, the author, explains himself and offers some sort of appologia for language and subject. It seems that he expects most of his readers to be female. It should be noted that this book was among those on the -Roman Catholic list of forbidden books- probably for many reasons. Among other things the clergy gets treated with suspcion and the shortcomings of many of them are laid bare. (This is the mid 1300s and may be fairly accurate!)
Honestly I plodded through this book. It is considered a great work of literature, and has survived the test of time. It was originally written in Italian, instead of Latin. It was the beginning of writing literature in the common languages of europe instead of the formal language, Latin or Greek, and is notable for that reason.
What I did find interesting is how people lived in the mid 1300s. In some ways their problems were not so much different from our own.

~2020_06_19~

to Books index page.

-