NOVEL VIII.
--
A husband grows jealous of his wife, and discovers that she has warning
of her lover's approach by a piece of pack-thread, which she ties to her
great toe a nights. While he is pursuing her lover, she puts another
woman in bed in her place. The husband, finding her there, beats her, and
cuts off her hair. He then goes and calls his wife's brothers, who,
holding his accusation to be false, give him a rating.
--
Rare indeed was deemed by common consent the subtlety shewn by Madonna
Beatrice in the beguilement of her husband, and all affirmed that the
terror of Anichino must have been prodigious, when, the lady still
keeping fast hold of him, he had heard her say that he had made suit of
love to her. However, Filomena being silent, the king turned to Neifile,
saying:--"'Tis now for you to tell." Whereupon Neifile, while a slight
smile died away upon her lips, thus began:--Fair ladies, to entertain you
with a goodly story, such as those which my predecessors have delighted
you withal, is indeed a heavy burden, but, God helping me, I trust fairly
well to acquit myself thereof.
You are to know, then, that there dwelt aforetime in our city a most
wealthy merchant, Arriguccio Berlinghieri by name, who foolishly, as we
wot by daily experience is the way of merchants, thinking to compass
gentility by matrimony, took to wife a young gentlewoman, by no means
suited to him, whose name was Monna Sismonda.
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