Giletta of Narbonne: Chastity and Matrimony on the Day of Sexual Excesses

Abstract

Pampinea, Filomena, and Neifile. Malgherida, Zinevra, and Giletta. Three queens, three female characters emblematic of the virtues that the brigata women attempt to uphold. The Monk, the Abbot, and the peasant girl, Bartolomea and Paganino, Alibech and Rustico: Dioneo’s subversive responses to the examples of integrity that the queens successively introduce. On Day III, the discourse about virtuous honesty that has been central to this analysis plays itself out, as the brigata tests, through its storytelling, the boundaries that circumscribe its “honest enjoyment.” The laughter that concludes Dioneo’s narration on the previous day portends to the explosion of sexual themes that makes Day III the most explicitly erotic in the Decameron, contributing to its century-long reputation as “a collection of dirty stories” (Bergin 304). Yet, before the boundaries of honorable propriety in the brigata’s narration are surpassed once and for all, Neifile, the third queen, attempts to stem the tide of the subversive sollazzo (fun times) that especially Dioneo, but the other men as well, have introduced in the narration to dissipate the brigata’s melancholy.