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Day 2: 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
Everyone praises Filomena’s tale, especially Dioneo, who nevertheless contends that it’s foolish to think that women will forego sex, which his tale will prove while also showing how foolish it is for a man to marry out of his league.
Although Filomena’s tale had a happy ending, Dioneo disagrees with its thesis that women are virtuous—he holds that Bernabò is lucky to have won his bet, not wise. His tale will pick up on the theme of mismatched spouses (Zinerva’s fidelity and intelligence contrasted with her husband’s wrath and gullibility) and also Alatiel’s hyper sex drive.
Active
Themes
In Pisa, a wealthy judge named Ricciardo di Chinzica wants a young, beautiful wife, even though he’s brainy, not brawny. His wife, Bartolomea, is pretty and charming—at least by Pisan standards. But just consummating the marriage nearly kills him. Realizing the limits of his sexual capacity, he tries to hide them by adopting a pious observance of sexual abstinence on saint’s days, church holidays, the eves of important saints’ days, Lent, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and certain phases of the moon. They have sex once a month at best. And Ricciardo constantly keeps Bartolomea away from other men.
The mismatched couple at the heart of Dioneo’s tale—an old husband and a young and attractive wife—is a classic setup for a fabliau (a tale of sexual tricks). According to medieval understandings of human physiology—a theory called the “humoral system”— the older a person got, the colder and drier their body became, while sex requires the heat and moisture that characterize the young. The pious observance behind which Ricciardo attempts to hide his sexual inadequacy has some grounding in medieval canon law (church law), which did indeed encourage married couples to abstain from sex during periods of the church year, such as Lent, or on specific holy days and weekdays. Dioneo pokes fun at this calendar, suggesting how infrequently medieval churchgoers probably took it seriously—and he increases the humorous setup by adding extra days (certain moon phases) of abstinence. While excessive sexual desire could be problematic, excessive abstinence is bad in its own way. Old husbands were often satirized in medieval literature for their excessive jealousy (since they didn’t have the sexual capacity to satisfy their wives, they feared rivals), and Ricciardo fulfils this stereotype too, with the close watch and strict rules under which he forces his pretty wife to live.
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Themes
One hot day, Ricciardo takes Bartolomea and some of her lady-friends on a fishing expedition. They are surprised by Paganino de Mare, a famous pirate, who captures Bartolomea’s boat while Ricciardo makes it safely back to shore. All Ricciardo can think to do is wander through the streets bemoaning the wickedness of piracy.
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Paganino, unable to comfort Bartolomea with words, eventually turns to comforting her with deeds—since he’s not the kind of man who follows the church calendar. Bartolomea enjoys his effective (and continual!) consolations, and Paganino treats her like his wife. When Ricciardo discovers they’re living together in Monaco, he goes there to pay whatever ransom is necessary to get Bartolomea back.
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Themes
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Paganino and Ricciardo agree that if Paganino’s lover recognizes Ricciardo, Paganino will hand her over. Ricciardo, confident that Bartolomea will of course recognize her beloved husband, is surprised when she ignores him completely. Assuming that his sufferings have made him unrecognizable to her, he reminds her of their fishing expedition and asks why she doesn’t recognize him or the expense of retrieving her.
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Themes
Thinking Bartolomea may be afraid of Paganino, Ricciardo asks to speak to her alone. Bartolomea finally admits that she knows Ricciardo but accuses him of failing to recognize her existence as his wife. He should have known that a young woman has needs more than just clothes and food, even if her modesty won’t let her say so. Her husband shirked his duty to tend her “field” with his excessive calendar. She considers herself blessed to have been given to a man who cares more about hard work than abstaining.
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Themes
Ricciardo can’t understand why Bartolomea would rather live as Paganino’s whore than as his wife, casting away her honor and living in mortal sin because of her immoderate sexual appetite. He promises to do better if she comes home. Bartolomea thinks that her parents neglected her honor when they gave her to a man who couldn’t satisfy her needs. As for living in “mortar sin, it can be pestle sin too!” And anyway, he’s clearly so sickly and dried up that he won’t be able to do any better than he did before.
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Themes
Realizing the foolishness of an impotent man taking a young wife, Ricciardo returns to Pisa, goes mad, and wanders the streets saying, “there’s no rest for the bar.” After his death, Paganino and Bartolomea marry and labor daily, regardless of holidays. Based on this example, Dioneo concludes, Bernabò’s faith in his wife may have been rewarded, but he was taking a great risk by believing in her.
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