Chapter V (2)

As a work of art the _Fiammetta_ is the best thing Boccaccio has yet achieved. The psychology is fine, subtle, and full of insight, but not so dramatic nor so simple and profound as that in the _Filostrato_. He shows again that he understands a woman's innermost nature, her continual doubts of herself, her gift of introspection. The torment of soul that a deserted woman suffers, the helpless fury of jealousy, are studied and explained with marvellous knowledge and coolness. The husband, who, ignorant of all, is so sorry for his wife's unhappiness, and seeks to console and comfort her, really lives and is the fine prototype of a lot of base work done later in which the cruel absurdity of the situation and the ridiculous figure he cuts who plays his part in it are insisted on. In fact, in the _Fiammetta_ we find many of the finest features of the _Decameron_. It is the first novel of psychology ever written in Europe.

The sources of the _Fiammetta_ are hard and perhaps impossible to trace. It seems to have no forbears.[295] One thinks of Ovid's _Heroides_, but that has little to do with it. Among the minor works of Boccaccio it is the one that has been most read. First published in Padova in 1472, it was translated into English in 1587 by B. Young.[296]

* * * * *

From this intense psychological novel Boccaccio seems to have turned away with a sort of relief, the relief the poet always finds in mere singing, to the _Ninfale Fiesolano_. Licentious, and yet full of a marvellous charm, full of that love of nature, too, which is by no means a mere convention, the _Ninfale Fiesolano_ is the most mature of his poems in the vulgar tongue.

"Basterebbe," says Carducci,[297] "Basterebbe, io credo, il _Ninfale Fiesolano_ perchè non fosse negato al Boccaccio l' onore di poeta anche in versi." It was probably begun about 1342 in Florence, and finished in Naples in 1346. The theme is still love:

"Amor mi fa parlar che m' è nel core
Gran tempo stato e fatto m' ha suo albergo,"

he tells us in the first lines. The story tells how the shepherd Affrico falls in love with Mensola, nymph of Diana,[298] and how the nymph, penitent for having broken her vow of chastity, abandons the poor shepherd.[299] In desperation, Affrico kills himself on the bank of the brook that has witnessed their happiness and that is now called Affrico after him;[300] and Mensola, after bearing a son, is changed too into the stream Mensola hard by.[301] Pruneo, their offspring, when he is eighteen years old, enters the service of Atlas, founder of Fiesole, who marries him to Tironea. She receives as _dote_ the country between the Mensola and the Mugnone.[302]

The sources he drew from for this beautiful poem, so full of learning, but fuller still of a genuine love of nature, prove to us that it was, in its completeness, a mature work. It is derived in part from the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, from the _Æneid_, and from Achilles Tatius, a Greek romancer of Alexandria who lived in the fifth century A.D.[303] Moreover, the _Ninfale_ is a pastoral poem that is in no way at all concerned with chivalry; it is wholly Latin, full of nature and the bright fields, expressed with a Latin rhetoric. Curiously enough it has never had much success, especially out of Italy; and though it be voluptuous, it is by no means the immoral book it has been called.

This, as we have seen, is the third poem which Boccaccio wrote in _ottave_, and it has been stated, not without insistence, that he was in fact the inventor, or at any rate the renewer, of that metre in Italian.[304]

The truth seems to lie with Baldelli. The Sicilians had written _ottave_, but they had but two _rime_, and were akin to those of the Provençals. What Boccaccio did was to take this somewhat arid scheme and give it life by reforming it out of all recognition. Moreover, if he was not actually the first poet to write _ottave_ in Italian, he was the first to put them to epic use. There are in fact, properly speaking, no Italian epics before the poems of Boccaccio.

As for the _Ninfale Fiesolano_, it was first published in Venice in 1477 by Bruno Valla and Tommaso d' Alessandria. It has only been translated once--into French--by Anton Guercin du Crest, who published it in Lyons in 1556 at the shop of Gabriel Cotier. This was apparently the last poem on which Boccaccio was engaged--though it may have been put aside for the sake of the _Fiammetta_, and taken up again--before, about 1344, it seems, he returned to Naples.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 254.

[213] Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 17. This letter seems to be a translation from the Latin.

[214] Possibly on the occasion of his father's second marriage (cf. _Fiammetta_, _infra_), which was probably made for purely financial reasons. The lady died possibly in the Black Death of 1348, certainly before 1349. See _infra_.

[215] I write _Filocolo_ rather than _Filocopo_: see A. GASPARY, _Filocolo oder Filocopo_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._, III, p. 395.

[216] See _supra_, p. 43, and Appendix I. The view that it was begun in 1336 is defended by RENIER, _La Vita Nuova e la Fiammetta_ (Torino, 1879), p. 238 _et seq._ That this was his first book we might assert from the evidence of its form and style. He himself, however, says in the Introduction: "E se le presenti cose a voi giovani e donzelle generano ne' vostri animi alcun frutto o dilletto, non siate ingrati di porgere divote laudi a Giove e al nuovo autore" (_Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Lib. I, p. 9).

[217] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, ii., Lib. V, p. 376.

[218] He takes the name of Filocolo because, as he tells us at the end of Book III, _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I, 354, "such a name it is certain suits me better than any other." He goes on to explain: "Filocolo è da due greci nomi composto, da _philos_ e da _colos_; _philos_ in greco tanto viene a dire in nostra lingua quanto amatore; e _colos_ in greco similmente tanto in nostra lingua resulta quanto fatica: onde congiunto insieme, si può dire trasponendo le parti, Fatica d' Amore: e in cui più che in me fatiche d' amore sieno state e siano al presente non so; voi l' avete potuto e potete conoscere quante e quali esse sieno state, sicchè chiamandomi questo nome l' effetto suo s' adempierà bene nella cosa chiamata, e la fama del mio nome cosi s' occulterà, nè alcuno per quello spaventerà: e se necessario forse in alcuna parte ci fia il nominarmi dirittamente, non c' è però tolto."

[219] Cf. VIRGIL. _Æneid_, VI, 232 _et seq._

"At pius Æneas ingenti mole sepulcrum
Inponit, suaque arma viro remumque tubamque
Monte sub aereo, qui nunc Misenus ab illo
Dicitur æternumque tenet per sæcula nomen."

[220] _Supra_, p. 6 _et seq._ See _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, Lib. V, 236 _et seq._

[221] In the French romance on which the _Filocolo_ is founded the hero on his return imposes Christianity on his people, and those who will not be converted he burns and massacres. Boccaccio has none of this barbarism. Italy has never understood religious persecution. It has always been imposed on her from outside--by Spain, for instance. I do not forget the rubrics _de hereticis_ in so many of the Statutes of the free Communes.

[222] _Floire et Blanceflor, poèmes du XIII. siècle, pub. d'après les MSS._, etc., par EDÉLESTAND DU MÉRIL (Paris, 1856). I say from whom he had the story, because it seems to me certain that in Naples he must have seen or heard these poems. The Provençal troubadours, especially Rambaldo di Vaqueiras, sang the loves of Florio and Biancofiore, and Boccaccio himself in the _Filocolo_ affirms that the legend was known and popular in Naples. It has been contended by CLERC, _Discours sur l'état des lettres au XIV. siècle_ in _Hist. Littér._, II, 97, that Boccaccio's work is only an imitation of the French poems. This cannot be upheld. The legend was everywhere in the Middle Age. It was derived from a Greek romance, and many of the happenings and descriptions used by Boccaccio are to be found in the Greek romances. Cf. ZUMBINI, _Il Filocolo_, in _Nuova Antologia_, December, 1879, and January, 1880.

[223] It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader that it is seven ladies and three gentlemen who tell the tales of the _Decameron_. Cf. RAJNA, _L' Episodio delle Questioni d' Amore nel "Filocolo" del B._ in _Romania_, XXXI (1902), pp. 28-81.

[224] BARTOLI, _I precursi del B._ (Firenze, 1876), p. 64.

[225] An English translation of these _Questioni_ appeared in 1567 and was reprinted in 1587. The title runs: "Thirteen | Most pleasaunt and | delecable Que | stions: entituled | a Disport of Diverse | noble Personages written in Itali | an by M. John Boccacce Flo | rentine and poet Laure | at, in his booke | named | Philocopo: | English by H. G[rantham] | Imprinted at Lon | don by A.J. and are | to be sold in Paules Church | yard, by Thomas | Woodcocke | 1587."

[226] The order of the production of these youthful works is extremely uncertain. I do not believe it possible to give their true order, because they were not necessarily begun and finished in the same sequence. We may be sure that the _Filocolo_ is the first work he began: it seems almost equally certain that the _Filostrato_ is the first of his long poems. That no work was completed in Naples I think equally certain; but it is possible that the _Ameto_, begun in Florence, was finished before any other book. The _Filostrato_ was begun in Naples, but it s so much finer than the _Filocolo_ or the _Ameto_, and is perhaps the finest work of his youth, that many critics have wished to place it later.

[227] He writes in the dedication: "Filostrato è il titolo di questo libro; e la cagione è, perchè ottimamente si confà cotal nome con l' effetto del libro. Filostrato tanto viene a dire, quanto uomo vinto ed abbattuto d' amore come vedere si può che fu Troilo, dell' amore del quale in questo libro si racconta: perciocchè egli fu da amore vinto si fortemente amando Griseida, e cotanto si afflisse nella sua partita, che poco mancò che morte non le sorprendesse."

[228] _Filostrato_ (ed. Moutier), parte i. ott. viii.-ix. p. 14.

[229] _Ibid._, p. i. ott. xi.

"Una sua figlia vedova, la quale
Sì bella e si angelica a vedere
Era, che non parea cosa mortale,
Griseida nomata, al mio parere
Accorta, savia, onesta e costumata
Quanto altra che in Troia fosse nata."

[230] So had Boccaccio seen Fiammetta in S. Lorenzo di Napoli. Criseyde was also "_in bruna vesta_," ott. xix.

[231] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, p. ii. ott. xix.-xx., pp. 37-8.

[232] _Ibid._, p. ii. ott. xxiii.-xxiv., p. 39.

[233] _Ibid._, p. ii. ott. lxiv.-lxvi., pp. 52-3.

[234] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, p. ii. ott. cxxxvi. _et seq._ Her protestations, too long to quote here, are exquisite. They might be Fiammetta's very words, or any woman's words.

[235] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, part iii. ott. xxvii-xxxii. pp. 88-90, and cf. CHAUCER, _Troilus and Criseyde_ (_Complete Works_, ed. SKEAT, Oxford, 1901), Bk. III, st. 169-189.

[236] _Filistrato_, _ed. cit._, part iv. ott. xiv.-xviii. pp. 117-18.

[237] _Ibid._, part iv. ott. xxx.-xxxii. pp. 122-3.

[238] _Ibid._, part iv. ott. xciii.-xcv. pp. 143-4.

[239] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, part iv. ott. lxix. p. 135.

[240] _Ibid._, part iv. clxii.-clxiii. pp. 166-7.

[241] _Ibid._, part v. liv. _et seq._ The same idea is to be found in the _Teseide_ and the _Fiammetta_. It is more than worth while comparing these passages.

[242] _Ibid._, part v. xxxiv.-xlii.

[243] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, part vii. ott. vi., xi., xvi., xxxii.-xxxiii. pp. 208, 210, 212, 217.

[244] SHAKESPEARE, _Troilus and Cressida_, V, 3.

[245] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, part viii. xii.-xvi. pp. 247-8.

[246] _Ibid._, part viii. xxvii.

[247] CHAUCER, _Troilus and Criseyde_, Book V, st. 258.

[248] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, part vi. ott. xxxiii. p. 205.

[249] _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, p. vi, ott. xxix. p. 204.

[250] Cf. e.g. _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, p. iii. ott. i. p. 80, with _Paradiso_, i. 13-27; or _Filostrato_, _ed. cit._, p. viii. ott. xvii. p. 249, with _Purgatorio_, vi. 118-20. There are, however, very many Dantesque passages. See _infra_, p. 253 _et seq._

[251] Cf. HORTIS, _Studi sulle op. Latine del B._ (Trieste, 1879), p. 595.

[252] See _supra_, p. 58.

[253] _Teseide_ (ed. Moutier), Lib. I, ott. 6, p. 11.

[254] _Ibid._, Lib. I, ott. 74-6, p. 34.

[255] _Ibid._, Lib. II, ott. 2, p. 57.

[256] _Teseide_, _ed. cit._, Lib. III, ott. 28-9, pp. 99-100.

[257] _Ibid._, Lib. IV, ott. 37, p. 131.

[258] _Ibid._, Lib. V, ott. 48, p. 166.

[259] _Teseide_, _ed. cit._, Lib. V, ott. 75, p. 175.

[260] _Ibid._, Lib. V, ott. 80, p. 177.

[261] _Ibid._, Lib. V, ott. 97, p. 182.

[262] _Ibid._, Lib. VI, ott. 11, p. 190.

[263] Cf. POLIZIANO, _Stanze_, Lib. I, st. 69-76.

[264] _Teseide_, _ed. cit._, Lib. IX, ott. 2-8, pp. 306-8.

[265] _Ibid._, Lib. IX, ott. 83, p. 333.

[266] _Ibid._, Lib. X, ott. 43, p. 348.

[267] _Ibid._, Lib. XII, ott. 69, p. 426.

[268] He says there: "E ch' ella da me per voi sia compilata, due cose fra le altre il manifestano. L' una si è, che ciò che sotto il nome dell' uno de' due amanti e della giovine amata si conta essere stato, ricordandovi bene, e io a voi di me, e voi a me di voi (se non mentiste) potrete conoscere essere stato fatto e detto in parte." And consider the closing words of the letter: "Io procederei a molti più preghi, se quella grazia, la quale io ebbi già in voi, non se ne fosse andata. Ma perocchè io del niego dubito con ragione, non volendo che a quell' uno che di sopra ho fatto, e che spero, siccome giusto, di ottenere, gli altri nocessero, e senza essermene niuno conceduto mi rimanessi, mi taccio; ultimamente pregando colui che mi vi diede, allorachè io primieramente vi vidi, che se in lui quelle forze sono che già furono, raccendendo in voi la spenta fiamma a me vi renda, la quale, non so per che cagione, inimica fortuna mi ha tolta."

[269] _Supra_, p. 58 _et seq._ Cf. the letter of 1338 or 1339 in which he asks for a codex of the Thebais with a gloss: P. SAVI-LOPEZ, _Sulle fonti delle Teseide_ in _Giornale Stor. della Lett. Ital._, An. XXIII, fasc. 106-7; and CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 220-47.

[270] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 234-5.

[271] In looking for the sources of the _Teseide_ one must not forget what Boccaccio himself writes in the letter dedicatory to Fiammetta: "E acciocchè l' opera sia verissimo testimonio alle parole, ricordandomi che già ne' dì più felici che lunghi io vi sentii vaga d' udire, e talvolta di leggere e una e altra storia, e massimamente le amorose, siccome quella che tutta ardeva nel fuoco nel quale io ardo (e questo forse faciavate, acciocchè i tediosi tempi con ozio non fossono cagione di pensieri più nocevoli); come volonteroso servidore, il quale non solamente il comandamento aspetta del suo maggiore, ma quello, operando quelle cose che piacciono, previene: trovata una antichissima storia, e al più delle genti non manifesta, bella sì per la materia della quale parla, che è d' amore, e sì per coloro de' quali dice che nobili giovani furono e di real sangue discesi, in latino volgare e in rima acciocchè più dilettasse, e massimamente a voi, che già con sommo titolo le mie rime esaltaste, con quella sollecitudine che conceduta mi fu dell' altre più gravi, desiderando di piacervi, ho ridotta."

[272] _Ameto_ (in _Opere Minori_, Milano, 1879), pp. 147-8.

[273] _Ibid._, pp. 246-7.

[274] See _supra_, p. 6.

[275] King Robert is always spoken of as living, so that one may suppose the _Ameto_ to have been finished before January, 1343, for the king died on the 19th. This, however, by no means certainly follows.

[276] See Appendix IV.

[277] _Amorosa Visione_ (Moutier), cap. v. pp. 21-5.

[278] _Ibid._, caps. vii.-xii.

[279] _Ibid._, cap. xiii. p. 53.

[280] _Ibid._, cap. xiv. p. 58.

[281] _Ibid._, cap. xiv. p. 57.

[282] _Amorosa Visione_, _ed. cit._, cap. xiv. p. 59.

[283] _Ibid._, cap. xxxiii. p. 135.

[284] _Ibid._, caps. xl-xliv. For an explanation consult CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 114-41.

[285] _Ibid._, cap. xlv. p. 151

[286] "Ecco dunque," says CRESCINI (_op. cit._, p. 136), "il fine della _mirabile visione_: mostrare che Madonna Maria è dal poeta ritenuta un essere celeste sceso dall' alto alla salute di lui, che errava perduto e sordo a' consigli delle ragione fra le mondane vanità. Per farsi degno dell' amore di lei e delle gioie di questo amore, egli ormai seguirà una virtù finora negletta, la fortezza resisterà, cioè alle passioni e alle vanità mondane; e così per l' influsso morale della sua donna procederà sulla strada faticosa, che mena l' uomo al cielo."

[287] He borrows from Brunetto Latini's _Tesoretto_ (_ca._ 1294) certain inventions and moral symbols. Cf. DOBELLI, _Il culto del B. per Dante_ (Venezia, 1897), pp. 51-9.

[288] But see LANDAU, _op. cit._ (Ital. Trans.), p. 155.

[289] Note the beautiful names Boccaccio always found; especially the beautiful women's names. We shall find this again in the _Decameron_.

[290] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 154.

[291] _e.g._ LANDAU (_op. cit._, pp. 346, 404) and KOERTING (_op. cit._, pp. 170-1, 568).

[292] BALDELLI (_op. cit._) thinks, however, that it was written 1344-5, after B.'s return to Naples, and RENIER (_La Vita Nuova e La Fiammetta_, Torino, 1879, pp. 245-6) agrees with him.

[293] "... Quantunque io scriva cose verissime sotto si fatto ordine l' ho disposte, che eccetto colui che così come io le sa, essendo di tutto cagione, niuno altro, per quantunque avesse acuto l' avvedimento, potrebbe chi io mi fossi conoscere" (cap. i.).

[294] "Pamphilius," writes Boccaccio, "græce, latine totus dicatur amor"; cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 269. Panfilo also appears, as does Fiammetta, in the _Decameron_, as we shall see; cf. GIGLI, _Il Disegno del Decamerone_ (Livorno, 1907), p. 24, note 4.

[295] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 155-6.

[296] "Amorous Fiammetta, where is sette doune a catalogue of all and singular passions of Love and Jealosie incident to an enamoured young gentlewoman" ... done into English by B. Giovano [_i.e._ B. Young]. London, 1587. The only example I can find of this translation is in the Bodleian Library; the British Museum has no copy.

[297] CARDUCCI, _Ai Parenteli di G. B._ in _Discorsi Letterari e Storici_ (Bologna, 1889), p. 275.

[298] _Ninfale Fiesolano_ (Moutier), p. 1. ott. xiv.-xxxiii.

[299] _Ibid._, p. vi. ott. i.-v.

[300] _Ninfale Fiesolano_, _ed. cit._, p. vi. ott. xxx.-xlv.

[301] _Ibid._, p. vii. ott. iii.-vi. and ix.-xiii. The Mensola and the Affrico are two small streams that descend from Monte Ceceri, one of the Fiesolan hills, and are lost in the Arno, one not far from the Barriera Settignanese, the other by Ponte a Mensola, near Settignano.

[302] _Ibid._, p. vii. ott. xxxiii.-xlix.

[303] See his romance, _Leucippe and Clectophon_, Lib. VIII, cap. 12.

[304] For the _ottava_ in Italy see RAJNA, _Le fonti dell' Orlando Furioso_ (Sansoni, Florence, 1900), pp. 18-19. BALDELLI, _op. cit._, p. 33, however, did not go so far as Trissino and Crescimbeni in such an assertion, contenting himself with assuring us that Boccaccio "colla Teseide aperse la nobile carriera de' romanzeschi poemi, degli epici, per cui posteriormente tanto sopravanzò l' Italiana ogni straniera letteratura. Il suo ingegno creatore correggendo, e migliorando l' ottava de' Siciliani, che non usavan comporla con più di due rime e una terza aggiungendone, per cui tanto leggiadramente si chiude e tanto vaga si rende, trovò quel metro su cui cantarono e gli Ariosti, e i Tassi vanamente sperando trovarne altro più adeguato agli altissimi e nobilissimi loro argomenti."