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Day 10: Ninth Tale
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
Dioneo, noting that Adalieta’s almost-second husband wouldn’t agree with the company’s praise of Torello, prepares to finish the day’s storytelling with a marquis whose actions were remarkably cruel, not generous.
Dioneo doesn’t just get the last tale of the day, but he gets to tell the last tale of the collection. And in his usual fashion, he deviates from the day’s theme. Instead of a tale of great generosity, he proposes a tale of great cruelty. Rather than balancing out the excessive generosity in the previous tales, his tale of excessive cruelty throws them into even greater relief.
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In Saluzzo, Marquis Gualtieri is a childless bachelor. His citizens, concerned by his lack of heirs, offer to find him a noble wife who will make him happy. Gualtieri has always been disinclined to marry, because it’s so hard to find a wife who will adapt to a man’s way of life. His citizens can’t just investigate a woman’s heart well enough to know if she would make him happy or not. He agrees to marry but insists on choosing the woman. His citizens will either love her or learn how badly they’ve erred in “urg[ing him] to marry against [his] will.”
Gualtieri approaches marriage as his personal prerogative, but his subjects worry that he won’t have an heir to lead them because, for the ruling class, personal and political priorities intersect. Gualtieri’s response to his citizens’ reasonable request, however, is to antagonize them by picking a questionable wife. He has avoided marriage because it’s hard to find an obedient woman, and his subjects’ uppity demands mirror the things he fears in a wife. His attitude towards them foreshadows the adversarial and demeaning role he will assume in his marriage.
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Gualtieri already has his eye on a very beautiful but very poor girl in the local village. After making arrangements with her father, he gathers his friends and citizens and says that he’s ready to marry a local “girl after [his] own heart” in order to gratify their wishes. While they make wedding preparations, he orders rich robes, rings, ornamental belts, crowns, and everything else his bride could need. On the appointed day, Gualtieri takes his company to the village, where they find Griselda returning from the well. In the presence of her father, Giannùcole, Griselda promises to always try to please and obey Gualtieri and to never be upset by anything he says or does.
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Gualtieri leads Griselda outside, where he has her stripped naked in front of everyone. Dressing her in rich robes and placing a crown on her disheveled hair, he marries her immediately, then takes her home, where their wedding is celebrated as grandly as if she were a French princess. In her marriage, Griselda blooms: a graceful and noble manner add to her natural beauty, and no one would guess that she came from a humble background. She so perfectly obeys and complies with Gualtieri that he considers himself the happiest man on earth. People who thought the marriage ill-advised change their minds. And in due time, Griselda gives birth to a daughter.
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Themes
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After the birth of their daughter, a “strange desire to test Griselda’s patience” seizes Gualtieri. At first, he subjects her to extensive verbal abuse, claiming that his citizens are unhappy about his lowly wife and daughter. Griselda answers that she understands her inferiority and wants him to do what’s best for himself and his reputation; she will acquiesce to his wishes. Her humble attitude pleases Gualtieri, but he continues to suggest that his subjects dislike the baby. When he sends a servant to take the baby away, Griselda understands that he wants it murdered. Still, she hands her over her daughter “without any trace of emotion” even though “she felt that her heart was about to break.” The only thing she asks for is a proper burial, and only if Gualtieri will allow it. Her obedience amazes Gualtieri, who sends the baby to Bologna to be raised by his relative.
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Griselda becomes pregnant again and gives birth to a boy. Again, despite his pleasure, Gualtieri cannot stop abusing her. Now, he claims, the people grumble that Giannùcole’s grandson will one day rule them. To avoid being deposed, Gualtieri says he will have to dispose of this child, too, and then marry someone else. Griselda tells him to “look to [his] own comfort” and not worry about her since “nothing brings [her] pleasure unless it pleases [him].” When he has their son taken away (and secretly sends him to Bologna), Griselda is as patient as before. Her judicious actions stun Gualtieri, who would think her heartless if he didn’t know how much she loved her children. Although his subjects think him cruel and heartless, Griselda never complains about him or his wishes.
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Many years later, Gualtieri decides “to put Griselda’s patience to the final test.” Telling everyone that his marriage was a youthful error, he pretends to ask the pope for dispensation to divorce her and remarry. While his men chide him, Griselda is “secretly filled with despair,” but she prepares to “endure this final blow as stoically as she had borne fortune’s earlier assaults.” After leading everyone to believe he’s received dispensation, Gualtieri publicly renounces Griselda, since his ancestors were “great noblemen” and hers were “peasants.” She will return to her father’s house with her dowry and he will marry someone “far better suited.”
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With superhuman effort, Griselda holds back her tears as she tells Gualtieri how aware she is that her wealth and status were gifts from him. She cherishes them, but since she does not own them, she will return them “with good grace.” Remembering how he took her from her father’s house “naked as on the day [she] was born,” she offers to return her dowry (just herself), if he thinks it’s appropriate for his subjects to see the body that bore his children. But she asks for a shift to cover herself, in exchange for the virginity she gave him and which he cannot return. Restraining his own tears and ignoring his subjects’ request to give his wife of thirteen years a dress, Gualtieri holds firm and offers her a shift. She leaves his house a pauper.
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Griselda returns to Giannùcole, puts on peasant clothes, and “bravely endur[es] the cruel assault of hostile fortune.” Gualtieri gives the impression he’s betrothed to a nobleman’s daughter, and as the wedding preparations commence, asks Griselda to come back and host his second wedding, since she alone understands perfectly how he likes things. Unable to lay aside her love as easily as her wealth and status, this request strikes Griselda to the quick. But she obeys. In coarse clothing, as if she were a “petty serving wench,” Griselda prepares for her replacement’s wedding.
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Meanwhile, Gualtieri retrieves his children (now twelve and six years old) from Bologna as if the girl is his fiancée. When the girl arrives, Griselda graciously welcomes her, despite the pleas of Gualtieri’s subjects that Griselda be excused from this duty. Gualtieri, convinced that nothing will shake Griselda’s obedient demeanor (even though he knows she has feelings), tries to provoke the anger he thinks must be simmering inside her. He asks what she thinks about his new bride. Griselda thinks well of her and hopes she will make Gualtieri happy. But she asks that he treat her more kindly, since her tender age and refined upbringing can’t have prepared her to endure hardship as gracefully as Griselda herself.
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When he realizes that Griselda truly believes his ruse and still betrays no sign of resentment, Gualtieri tells her that she is about to reap the reward of her patience. He says that he tested her to show her how to be a good wife, to teach his subjects how to choose and keep their wives, and to ensure that he himself would live with his wife peacefully and quietly forever. Her refusal to oppose his wishes, no matter what, has persuaded him that she can provide this peace and happiness. So, in an instant, he will restore what he took: their daughter, their son, and her husband who “loves [her] above all else.”
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Gualtieri embraces and kisses Griselda, who is weeping for joy, and then they embrace the children. Gualtieri unravels the mystery to everyone. In an echo of her wedding, the ladies take Griselda to a room where they undress her and clothe her in a fine dress, even though she acted as graciously as their mistress in rags as in robes. Returning to the hall, Griselda celebrates with the guests, who condemn Gualtieri’s “harsh and intolerable” tests, although they acknowledge his wisdom. Still, the obedient Griselda is considered “the wisest of all.” Gualtieri also welcomes Giannùcole as an honored father-in-law. Gualtieri and Griselda live out their lives contentedly, and he never fails to honor her to the best of his ability.
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There’s nothing else for Dioneo to say, except that sometimes “celestial spirits” inhabit the poor, while the most royal men might make better swineherds than rulers. He also acknowledges that no one but Griselda could have endured these “cruel and unheard of trials” so cheerfully. And it would have served Gualtieri right to have married a wife who, after being turned out in her shift, found someone else to “shake her skin-coat for her.”
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