Jan-Maat’s Reviews > The Decameron > Status Update

"Let me remind you, my lord, that you covered yourself with glory by conquering Manfred & defeating Conradin. But it is far more glorious to conquer oneself"

The Abbot of Cluny speaks up to the Pope on behalf of a nobleman bandit: "As to his wicked ways, I believe them to be more the fault of Fortune than his own; & if you will change his fortune by granting him the wherewithal to live in a style appropriate to his rank, I am convinced that within a short space of time, you will come to share my high opinion of him"

"I do declare, my friend, that the advice I had from Solomon may yet turn out to be sound & sensible. For it's perfectly plain to me now that I've never known how to beat my wife properly, & this muleteer has shown me what I must do"
-& having beaten his wife black & blue she makes him a nice breakfast - bear in mind the author's aim in these stories is to teach women about love & relationships...

"'Look here, Calandrino, speaking now as your friend, I'd say that the only thing wrong with you is that you are pregnant.'
When Calandrino heard this, he began to howl with dismay, & turning to his wife, he exclaimed:
'Ah, Tessa, this is your doing! You always insist on lying on top. I told you all along what would happen.'"

"Spinelloccio now emerged from the chest, & without making too much fuss, he said: 'Now we are quits, Zeppa. So let us remain friends, as you were saying just now to my wife. & since we have always shared everything in common except our wives, let us share them as well'"
& they all lived happily ever after...

"Nicostratus now felt that they must both be speaking the truth, & that they could never have brought themselves to do such a thing in his presence. So he ceased his shouting & raving, & began to talk about the strangeness of the thing, & about the miraculous way in which a man's eyesight could be affected by climbing a tree"

"I must tell you that all those who are marked with the sign of the cross by these coals may rest assured that for a whole year they will never be touched by fire without getting burnt"

"The nature of wit is such that its bite must be like that of a sheep rather than a dog, for if it were to bite the listener like a dog, it would no longer be wit but abuse"

which reminds me of Geoffrey Howe whose attacks were characterised by Denis Healey as being like those of a dead sheep, yet his resignation speech to parliament is said by some to have brought the downfall of Mrs Thatcher

"he was so enraged that he could scarcely forbear from drawing a dagger from his belt & killing them where they lay. But on reflecting it would be a most cowardly deed for any man, let alone a king, to kill two people lying naked & asleep, he held himself in check, & resolved instead to have them publicly burnt at the stake"

"Being a rouser of sleeping talents, Love had rescued those virtues from the darkness in which they had lain so cruelly hidden & forced them into the light, clearly displaying whence he draws, & whither he leads, those creatures who are subject to his rule & illumined by his radiance"

Love as an external motivating force, its not from God and sits alongside a Christian culture & in these stories trumps it.