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Day 10: Conclusion
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Decameron, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sex
Men and Women
Moderation and Excess
Intelligence
Class and Character
Faith vs. Religion
Summary
Analysis
Boccaccio addresses the “noble young ladies” for whom he labored to write this book. With God’s help, he believes that he’s met his goal, and the time has come for him to rest his “pen and weary hand.” But before signing off, he will answer “certain trifling objections” that might be in his readers’ minds.
Boccaccio’s justifications and rebuttals for his work in the Epilogue parallel those he offered in the Introduction to Day 4.
Active
Themes
First, some might say that Boccaccio has made the company’s ladies hear and say less-than-virtuous things. However, he claims, nothing told in polite language can be improper. And, even if some stories were inappropriate, redacting them would have changed their character. But, back to language, he says that plain words like “hole, and rod, and mortar, and pestle, and crumpet, and stuffing” are used every day without anyone getting upset. Artists show saints’ swords and lances in action, and Christ is pierced by one nail—or two!—when he’s depicted on the cross. Nor were the stories told in a church, which would require chastity and purity (although there’s a lot of scandal in church chronicles, too!), or in a school. They were told by respectable and level-headed young people in gardens, places designed for pleasure.
Boccaccio’s basic argument is that his tales, meant to entertain as well as teach, haven’t exceeded the bounds of propriety. However, this depends on how one defines propriety, and so he accordingly takes the narrowest definition possible. He explores a string of double entendres to claim that all the words he’s used in the book are themselves polite and proper—never mind that they can all be used to suggest various impolite actions and unmentionable body parts. Boccaccio has a tongue-in-cheek attitude that borders on blasphemous when he describes the way Christ is pierced by nails in artwork. He references a shift in depictions of the crucified Christ that happened in the 13th century from one nail in each foot to both feet being pierced by one nail. More importantly, however, a dirty mind could read the nails as symbolic in their penis-like shape, and Boccaccio’s comments here are clearly meant to suggest such a blasphemous idea to his readers. As in the example of Christ’s nails, the meaning of the polite words he claims to have scrupulously used has always been clear from their context. Finally, Boccaccio invokes the gardens in which the tales were told. Throughout The Decameron (as in medieval literature generally), gardens are not just places where love is at home, but they are outside of the normal boundaries of society. They are thus fitting settings for tales that flirt with excess (although they always rebalance themselves) and push on the boundaries of social, religious, and political boundaries.
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Themes
The help or harm of stories, like everything else in the world, depends on the context. Wine is good for the healthy but harmful to the feverish; fire provides warmth, but sometimes destroys homes or cities. Corrupt minds will corrupt pure words, but unseemly language cannot contaminate a well-ordered mind. If even the Bible can be wrongly interpreted, anyone who wants to get “evil counsel” from Boccaccio’s tales will succeed—but only by twisting and distorting them. On the other hand, if read by the proper audience, they will render no evil. And anyway, the stories can’t force themselves on anyone; whoever reads them reads at his or her own risk.
Boccaccio answers those who think he should have omitted some of the stories with the conceit that he merely transcribed the company’s tales as they were told. And if they have imperfections, so does everything else, since no one but God can make things perfectly. Whenever many things are collected, their quality will vary, and his stories aren’t an exception. The reader can read what they like and skip the rest. Likewise, anyone who thinks tales are too long shouldn’t be wasting time reading tales at all. The collection was specifically designed for ladies with time on their hands; brevity may be good for students but not noble ladies.
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Themes
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Some people might think the tales too quippy and humorous. Maybe a man of “weight and gravity” should attend to more serious matters, but Boccaccio has no gravity. And when even priests add quips and jokes to their sermons, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in humorous stories. Speaking of the clergy, rather than having an “evil and venomous tongue,” Boccaccio notes that he’s only told “the truth about friars,” those decent fellows who forsake lives of “discomfort,” grind when the mill-pond is full, and maybe smell a bit like billy-goats.
Granting that things in this world are unstable and liable to change, Boccaccio affirms that he was recently told by a lady that he had the “finest and sweetest tongue in the world,” and since he was almost done with the tales at that point, he concludes that he must have written them quite well indeed. So, he will take her opinion and ignore those of people who want to spite him. Leaving each reader to believe about his skill what they please, Boccaccio offers humble thanks to God for the strength to complete his task and commends his readers to God.
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