59. Concerning Ghismonda, Daughter of the Prince of Salerno.

              “Boccaccio tells in his Decameron that there was a prince of Salerno, named Tancredi, who had the most beautiful daughter, well-bred, wise, and courteous, named Ghismonda. This father loved his daughter with such devotion that he could not live unless he saw her, and only with the greatest reluctance and under great pressure did he consent to have her married. Nevertheless, she was given in marriage to the count of Campania, but she did not remain married for long, for this count died shortly afterward, and her father took her back into his household, intending never to let her marry again. The lady, who was the complete joy of her father’s old age, was well aware of her own beauty, youth, and fine upbringing, and thought that it was not particularly pleasant to spend her youth without a husband, though she did not dare to contradict her father’s will. During the time which she spent in court at her father’s side, this lady happened to see a squire among the nobles at court who seemed to her more handsome than all the others – although there were a great many knights and noblemen there – and even better mannered and, in all, quite worthy of being loved. To put the matter briefly, she had studied his behavior so closely that she decided to take her pleasure in this squire in order to pass her youth more joyfully and to satisfy the gaiety of her pretty heart. Every day, even for a long time before she revealed her love, while she sat at the table she watched the behavior and deportment of this young man who was named Guiscardo. The more attention she paid to him, the more he seemed to her from day to day to be perfect in everything. For this reason, after having observed him a great deal, she summoned him one day and said to him: ‘Guiscardo, dear friend, my trust in your goodness and loyalty and integrity moves me and urges me to reveal myself to you regarding several extremely secret matters which concern me and which I would not tell any other. But before I tell you, I want your pledge that they will never be revealed or made known by you.’ Guiscardo replied, ‘My lady, you must not be afraid that I will ever reveal anything you tell me.’ Thereupon Ghismonda said to him, ‘Guiscardo, I want you to know that my pleasure lies in a noble man whom I love and wish to love. And because I cannot speak to him, nor do I have anyone who could convey my wishes, I want you to be the messenger for our love. You see, Guiscardo, I trust you so much more than any other that I wish to place my honor in your hands.’ Then he knelt down and said, ‘My lady, I know that you possess so much good sense and valiance that I thank you most humbly for having so much confidence in me, more than in anyone else, that you wish to reveal to me your secret thoughts. So, my dear lady, without having the slightest fear, you may command me to carry out all your good pleasures, as you would command someone who had offered body and soul to obey all your commands to the best of his ability. Moreover, I offer myself as the most humble servant to whomever is so lucky to possess the love of a lady so worthy as you, for truly, he has not been without a lofty and more noble love.’ When Ghismonda, who had wanted to test Guiscardo, heard him speak so wisely, she took him by the hand and said to him, ‘Guiscardo, my love, you are the one whom I wish to take all my pleasure, for it seems to me that the nobility of your heart and the good manners with which you are filled make you worthy of such a lofty love.’ The young man rejoiced at this and humbly thanked her. And, put briefly, their love flourished for a long time, unknown to all. But Fortune, jealous of their happiness, did not want the two lovers to live in joy and so changed their happiness into the most bitter sorrow. By extraordinary chance one summer day it happened that, while Ghismonda was relaxing in the garden with her maids, her father – whose only wealth was in seeing her – went all alone to her bedroom to chat with her and to relax in her company. But finding the windows closed, the bed-curtains drawn, and not a soul there, he thought she was taking a nap. Not wanting to awake her he lay down on a couch and fell sound asleep. Ghismonda, thinking she had been in the garden long enough, retired to her bedroom, lay down on her bed as if to sleep, and had her maids leave. She shut the door without noticing her sleeping father. When she saw she was alone, she got up and went to look for Guiscardo, who was hiding in one of her closets, and she led him to her bedroom. While they were speaking with one another behind the bed curtains like a couple who believed they were alone, the prince woke up and heard a man speaking with his daughter. He suffered such enormous grief over this that the consideration that he might be dishonoring his daughter barely prevented him from rushing upon the stranger. Nevertheless, he kept himself under control and listened carefully for who it was. Then he managed to slip out of the bedroom without being heard. After the two lovers had been together for a while, Guiscardo left. But the prince, who had prepared an ambush for him, had him captured and imprisoned immediately. He then went to his daughter and, speaking alone to her in her bedroom with a sad face and tear-filled eyes, he said:

“ ‘Ghismonda, I used to think that I had in you a daughter more beautiful, chaste, and wise than all other women, but now I am more convinced of the opposite in my anger than I would be if I had thought the contrary in spite of myself – for if I had not seen it with my own eyes, there would have been nothing that could make me believe that you could be seduced by the love of any man unless he were your husband. What aggravates my anger even more is that I believed you had the noblest heart of any women ever born. And I see that the contrary is true because you were taken with one of the lowliest members of my household. For, if you wanted to do such a thing, you could have found in my court an overabundance of nobler men, without having to be smitten with Guiscado, who, I think, will pay dearly for the grief which I have suffered on his account. I want you to know that I will put him to death and I would do the same to you if I could undo the foolish love I have for you in my heart, a far greater love than any other father ever had for his daughter, which keeps me from doing this.’

“No one need wonder whether Ghismonda was grief-stricken when she realized that her father knew about the one thing she had most wanted to hide, and yet, above all, the greatest grief wrung her heart because he threatened to kill the one man whom she loved so much. She wanted to die at that very moment, but with an unwavering heart and composed countenance and without shedding a tear – although she had prepared herself to die – she replied, ‘Father, since Fortune had consented that you discover what I had so wished to keep secret, I do not need to make any request of you, except that, if I intended to beg for your forgiveness and for the life of the man whom you threaten to kill by offering myself in his place, I would beg you to take my life and spare his. And as for my asking pardon from you, in case you do with him what you say, I will not ask for pardon, for I do not wish to live any longer; I assure you that with his death you end my life. And concerning that cause of your anger against us, you have only yourself to blame, for you are a creature of the flesh and did you ever stop to think that you fathered a daughter from the flesh and not from stone or iron? You should remember, even though you have grown old, what terrible ennui afflicts youth living in luxury and ease and what pricks of temptation must be overcome. Since I saw you had decided never to let me marry again, and feeling young and urged on by my own prettiness, I fell in love with this young man, and not without discussion or long deliberation I granted to my heart what it desired. First I observed his behavior – more perfect in every virtue that any other in your court. This you should realize yourself, for you brought him up. And what is nobility except virtue? It never comes from flesh or blood. Therefore you have no right to say that I was taken in by the least noble of your court, and you have no cause for the great anger which you have expressed against us, considering your own fault. But, most of all, if you wish to exact punishment for this deed, it is not right to take it out on his person, for that would be wrong and sinful. Rather, it would be more fitting that I be punished, for I urged him on to this deed which he himself did not think of at all. What was he supposed to do? Indeed, he would have had a base heart to refuse a lady of such high standing. So you must forgive him this misdeed but not me.’ The prince immediately took leave of Ghismonda but was not in the least pacified toward Guiscardo because of this, and on the following day had him killed and ordered his heart torn out of his body. The father placed Guiscardo’s heart in a gold goblet and had one of his secret messengers take it to his daughter and inform her that he was sending her this present to give her joy in the one thing which she loved most, just as she had made him joyful in the one thing he had held most dear. The messenger came to Ghismonda, presented his gift, and said what he had been charged. She took the goblet, opened it, and immediately realized what had been done. But in spite of the inestimable grief she felt, nothing could shake her lofty heart and she replied without any change of expression, ‘My friend, tell the prince that I perceive that he is wise in one matter, that is, he had given such a noble heart a fitting sepulcher, for it ought not to have any but of gold and precious stones.’ Then she leaned over the goblet and kissed the heart, saying piteously, ‘Oh most sweet heart, vessel of all my pleasure, cursed be the cruelty of him who had shown you to my eyes, you who were always visible to my mind’s eye. Now, through a bizarre turn of events, you have passed the course of your noble life. Yet in spite of such misfortune you have received from your own enemy a sepulcher worthy of your merit. Thus it is most fitting, my sweet heart, that for the last rites you be bathed and washed in the tears of her whom you loved so much, for you will never beat again. Besides, your soul will not be bereft of hers, since that would not be right, for she will shortly join you. And yet, in spite of this treacherous Fortune, which has harmed you so much, it has still turned out well for you, insofar as my cruel father sent you to me so that you could be honored all the more and so that I could speak to you before I leave this world and so that my soul could go with your whose company I desire, for I know that your spirit is asking and longing for mine.’ Ghismonda spoke these words and many others as well, so pitiful that no one who heard her could not collapse in tears. She wept so much that it seemed as if she had two fountains in her head which poured without stop into this goblet. She made no uproar or cry, but with a low voice kept kissing the heart. The ladies and maids who stood around her were quite amazed at this, for they knew nothing of what had happened nor the possible cause of her sorrow; they wept out of pity for their mistress and tried to comfort her, but nothing was of any use. Her intimates could only ask in vain about the cause of her sorrow. After Ghismonda, overcome with incredible grief, had wept for a long time, she said, ‘Oh most beloved heart, I have carried out my duties on your behalf, nothing remains but to send my soul to keep your soul company.’ Having said these words, she stood up, went to open a cupboard, and removed a small flask where she had placed poisonous herbs in water to dissolve to be ready should need ever arise. She poured this water into the goblet containing the heart and, without the slightest fear, drank it all. She lay down on her bed to wait for death, still clutching the goblet tightly in her arms. When her maids saw her body change with the signs of death, in their terrible grief they summoned the father, who had gone out to amuse himself in order to forget his melancholy. The poison had already spread through her veins by this time. Filled with grief for what had happened and remorse for what he had done, he began to speak sweetly, mourning greatly, and he thought he was comforting her. His daughter, speaking as best as she could, replied, ‘Tancredi, save your tears for something else, for they have no place here, nor do I desire or want them. You are like the serpent which kills a man and then weeps for him. Would it not have been better for your daughter to have lived as she pleased, secretly loving a good man, than to watch such a horrible death – to your own grief but caused by your own cruelty – a death which makes what had been secret public knowledge.’ With that she could speak no more; her heart burst as she held the goblet. And the poor man of a father died of grief. So died Ghismonda, daughter of the prince of Salerno.”