Allegories; Frame stories; Plague -- Europe -- History -- Fiction; Storytelling -- Fiction
A hundred thousand times he embraced and kissed her, as he
followed her upstairs: then without delay they hied them to bed, and knew
love's furthest bourne. And so far was the first time from being in this
case the last, that, while the knight was at Milan, and indeed after his
return, there were seasons not a few at which Zima resorted thither to the
immense delight of both parties.
(1) From the Low Latin aczima, explained by Du Cange as "tonture de draps,"
the process of dressing cloth so as to give it an even nap. Zima is thus
equivalent to "nitidus." Cf. Vocab. degli Accademici della Crusca,
"Azzimare."
NOVEL VI.
--
Ricciardo Minutolo loves the wife of Filippello Fighinolfi, and knowing her
to be jealous, makes her believe that his own wife is to meet Filippello at
a bagnio on the ensuing day; whereby she is induced to go thither, where,
thinking to have been with her husband, she discovers that she has tarried
with Ricciardo.
--
When Elisa had quite done, the queen, after some commendation of Zima's
sagacity, bade Fiammetta follow with a story. Whereto Fiammetta, all smiles,
responded:--"Madam, with all my heart;" and thus began:--
Richly though our city abounds, as in all things else, so also in instances
to suit every topic, yet I am minded to journey some distance thence, and,
like Elisa, to tell you something of what goes on in other parts of the
world: wherefore pass we to Naples, where you shall hear how one of these
sanctified that shew themselves so shy of love, was by the subtlety of her
lover brought to taste of the fruit before she had known the flowers of
love; whereby at one and the same time you may derive from the past counsel
of prudence for the future, and present delectation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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