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Day 4: 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 expresses relief that the terrible stories of star-crossed lovers have finally come to an end, since he has no desire to add to the collection. Instead, he promises a more agreeable theme. In Salerno, Doctor Mazzeo della Montagna marries a beautiful young woman in his old age. Because he’s rich, he keeps her in fine style, but Mazzeo’s Wife often feels chilly at night because he fails to keep her properly covered.
Dioneo’s tale begins with a familiar setup: the old husband who can’t satisfy his beautiful wife. While Dioneo’s tales usually provide a humorous end to the day, nowhere is it more necessary than at the end of Day 4’s collection of tragedies. The oddly circumspect language with which he cloaks his discussions of sex in this tale, beginning with the metaphor of Mazzeo’s insufficient sexual power as a too-small blanket, adds to the humor of one of his silliest tales.
Active
Themes
Like Ricciardo di Chinzica (from Dioneo’s story on the second day), who used a calendar of saint’s days to keep from having to bed his wife too often, Mazzeo della Montagna tells his wife that so many days are necessary to recover from making love to a woman. Frustrated, Mazzeo’s Wife decides to protect her husband’s family jewels by polishing someone else’s. She settles on Ruggieri d’Aieroli, a nobleman who has led such a disreputable life that all his friends and even his family have disowned him.
Dioneo’s explicit reference to his own earlier story emphasizes the tales’ interconnected nature; The Decameron is a carefully planned and arranged work. Unlike Ricciardo, however, Mazzeo relies on the authority of medicine, representing human ingenuity, rather than religion when he claims that a certain number of days are necessary to recover from sex. While this ties in with medieval medical ideas about the depletion of physical energies, it also points to Mazzeo’s age, implying that a certain number of recovery days are required for men who are old and not very powerful lovers. Mazzeo’s wife’s lack of concern for Ruggieri’s bad reputation since he has a good body is an exception to the book’s general preference for true character rather than appearances.
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Themes
After Mazzeo’s Wife and Ruggieri d’Aieroli have been lovers for a while, Mazzeo della Montagna happens to receive a patient who needs an amputation. He plans to perform the surgery in the evening and orders a bottle of anesthetizing potion, which he leaves sitting on a windowsill. Just as he’s getting ready to operate, he gets called away on a more urgent matter, allowing his wife to invite Ruggieri over.
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Themes
Arriving at the house quite thirsty, Ruggieri d’Aieroli spies the bottle of potion and drinks it all down, which puts him out cold. When Mazzeo’s Wife comes to the bedroom, she can’t wake him, and she becomes alarmed when he sleeps through a fall from the bed to the floor. Unlike her husband, she’s not a great physician, so she concludes that he’s dead, and after a few minutes of weeping, she begins to think about what’s necessary to protect her honor. She summons her Trusted Maid to help her.
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Themes
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Trying to settle on a place to leave Ruggieri d’Aieroli where his death won’t implicate them, the Trusted Maid suggests that they put him into a trunk that’s outside of a nearby carpenter’s shop, stab him a few times to make it look like someone else’s foul play, and leave him. Mazzeo’s Wife categorically refuses the stabbing but likes the trunk idea. They carry him out and stuff him into the trunk.
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Themes
But two Money-lenders, recently arrived in the neighborhood, decide to steal the trunk because they need furniture and they’re too cheap to buy it. Although it’s heavier than they expect, they carry it home under the cover of darkness. Ruggieri d’Aieroli eventually wakes up, although he’s still somewhat muddled. He can’t move or see, so he’s not sure if he is awake, asleep, or dead. He tries to roll over, overturning the trunk and tumbling out.
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The Money-lenders sleep through this commotion, but their ladies hear the crash and the sound of Ruggieri d’Aieroli stumbling through the dark. They wake the neighbors with their screams of “Burglar!” A confused and astonished Ruggieri is quickly arrested and taken to the magistrate, who tortures him into confessing that he intended to rob them.
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Themes
News of Ruggieri d’Aieroli’s arrest spreads quickly through Salerno, much to the astonishment of Mazzeo’s Wife and the Trusted Maid, who were sure that he was dead. They start to suspect that maybe the previous night’s events were a dream, until Mazzeo della Montagna returns home and demands to know who moved his sleeping potion. Suddenly understanding Ruggieri’s state the previous evening, Mazzeo’s Wife sends the Trusted Maid out for news. The Maid reports that the judge plans to execute him, and none of his friends or family show any intention of helping him out. She also discovers that the Money-lenders had taken the trunk into their home.
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Themes
Mazzeo’s Wife begs the Trusted Maid to help her save Ruggieri d’Aieroli without revealing the affair. The maid goes to Mazzeo della Montagna and tells him that she’s been having the affair with Ruggieri, to whom she gave the potion under the impression it was water. She’s very sorry and worried about the price Ruggieri is going to pay for her mistake. The doctor is angry to hear about the affair but can barely keep from laughing at the image of the maid being disappointed when her lusty lover turned into a drugged “slug-a-bed.” Warning her to keep Ruggieri away in future, he forgives her and sends her to the judge to finish straightening things out.
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The Trusted Maid wheedles her way into an interview with the judge, and because he thinks she’s a “tasty dish,” he asks for a nibble before hearing her case. Knowing this will incline him to generosity, she gives him a snack without any objections. Then she picks herself up and tells him the same story she gave the doctor. The judge summons Mazzeo della Montagna, the carpenter, the Money-lenders, and Ruggieri d’Aieroli for testimony, and after hearing all the evidence, he finds Ruggieri innocent. Ruggieri, the Maid, and Mazzeo’s Wife have many a laugh about the story, and their love continues to flourish.
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