Reason’s Debt to Passion: Day IV

Abstract

Day IV opens with a surprise. Temporarily dissolving the narrative frame, the author addresses his readers directly. He amiably defends his own Decameron against a host of literary maligners and detractors—shades of Lauretta’s second lover—and argues that his effort to court and amuse female readers makes him a true child of nature—the great engine that drew men to women in the first place. To illustrate the power exerted by nature, the author takes the unusual step of telling a story himself. He recounts the tale of Filippo Balducci, who travels to Florence with his adolescent son. Since age two, the boy has been sequestered in a hermit’s cell and deprived of worldly knowledge. After some reflection, Filippo decides to take the boy into the city, whose noble buildings thrill the lad’s untutored eyes. Then father and son run into a group of young women. Filippo’s son asks what they are, and Filippo replies,

“Figliuol mio, bassa gli occhi in terra, non le guatare, ch’elle son mala cosa.”

Disse allora il figliuolo: “O come si chiamano?”

Il padre, per non destare nel concupiscibile appetito del giovane alcuno inchinevole disiderio men che utile, non le volle nominare per lo proprio nome, cioè femine, ma disse: “Elle si chiamano papere.”

Maravigliosa cosa a udire! Colui che mai piú alcuna veduta non avea, non curatosi de’ palagi, non del bue, non del cavallo, non dell’asino, non de’ danari né d’altra cosa che veduta avesse, subitamente disse: “Padre mio, io vi priego che voi facciate che io abbia una di quelle papere.”

alle cui leggi, cioè della natura, voler contastare troppo gran forze bisognano, e spesse volte non solamente in vano ma con grandissimo danno del faticante s’adoperano.

[whose laws (that is, Nature’s) cannot be resisted without exceptional strength, and they are often resisted not only in vain but with very great damage to the strength of the one who attempts to do so.]