The medieval love poem, usually sung to an accompaniment on the lyre or other musical instrument, was often, in spite of its superficially innocuous tone, full of amatory innuendoes and erotic provocations. The love song, in fact, was virtually an amatory philtre intended to set the listener afire, or to inspire the object of the implicit passion with an equal fervor, or to divert a passion in the direction of the songster. The concluding story of the fifth day, in Boccaccio’s Decameron, contains a song of this nature: O Love, the amorous light That beameth from yon fair one’s lovely eyes Hath made me thine and hers in servant-guise. The splendor of her lovely eyes, it wrought That first thy flames were kindled in my breast, Passing thereto through mine; Yea, and thy virtue first unto my thought Her visage fair it was made manifest, Which picturing, I twine And lay before her shrine All virtues, that to her I sacrifice, Become the new occasion of my sighs. Thus, dear my lord, thy vassal am I grown And of thy might obediently await Grace for my lowliness; Yet wot I not if wholly there be known The high desire that in my breast thou’st set And my sheer faith, no less, Of her who doth possess My heart so that from none beneath the skies, Save her alone, peace would I take or prize. Wherefore I pray thee, sweet my lord and sire, Discover it to her and cause her taste Some scantling of thy heat To-me-ward,—for thou seest that in the fire, Loving, I languish and for torment waste By inches at her feet,— And eke in season meet Commend me to her favor on such wise As I would plead for thee, should need arise. A similar song, from the maiden’s viewpoint, appears at the close of the last story on the sixth day: Then Pamfilo having, at his commandment, set up a dance, the king turned to Elisa and said courteously to her, “Fair damsel, thou hast today done me the honor of the crown and I purpose this evening to do thee that of the song; wherefore look thou sing such an one as most liketh thee.” Elisa answered, smiling, that she would well and with dulcet voice began on this wise: