The luminary, before whose splendour the night takes
wing, had already changed the eighth heaven(1) from
azure to the lighter blue,(2) and in the meads the
flowerets were beginning to lift their heads, when
Emilia, being risen, roused her fair gossips, and,
likewise, the young men. And so the queen leading
the way at an easy pace, and the rest of the company
following, they hied them to a copse at no great distance
from the palace. Where, being entered, they saw
the goats and stags and other wild creatures, as if
witting that in this time of pestilence they had nought
to fear from the hunter, stand awaiting them with no
more sign of fear than if they had been tamed:
and so, making now towards this, now towards the other
of them as if to touch them, they diverted themselves
for a while by making them skip and run. But,
as soon as the sun was in the ascendant, by common
consent they turned back, and whoso met them, garlanded
as they were with oak-leaves, and carrying store of
fragrant herbs or flowers in their hands might well
have said:—“Either shall death not
vanquish these, or they will meet it with a light heart.”
So, slowly wended they their way, now singing, now
bandying quips and merry jests, to the palace, where
they found all things in order meet, and their servants
in blithe and merry cheer. A while they rested,
nor went they to table until six ditties, each gayer
than that which went before, had been sung by the
young men and the ladies; which done, they washed
their hands, and all by the queen’s command were
ranged by the seneschal at the table; and, the viands
being served, they cheerily took their meal:
wherefrom being risen, they trod some measures to the
accompaniment of music; and then, by the queen’s
command, whoso would betook him to rest. However,
the accustomed hour being come, they all gathered at
the wonted spot for their discoursing, and the queen,
bending her regard upon Filomena, bade her make a
beginning of the day’s story-telling, which she
with a smile did on this wise:—
(1) I.e. in the Ptolemaic system, the region
of the fixed stars.
(2) Cilestro: a word for which we have no exact
equivalent, the dominant note of the Italian sky,
when the sun is well up, being its intense luminosity.
NOVEL I.
— Madonna Francesca, having two lovers,
the one Rinuccio, the other Alessandro, by name, and
loving neither of them, induces the one to simulate
a corpse in a tomb, and the other to enter the tomb
to fetch him out: whereby, neither satisfying
her demands, she artfully rids herself of both. —
