What This Collection Is
This massive collection of verse tales draws heavily from Boccaccio and Ariosto, reimagining classic ribaldry through a sharp, rhythmic French lens. It avoids moralizing, preferring to catalog the various ways husbands are outwitted, wives are unfaithful, and lawyers are invited to tea. Readers will find stories like The Husband-Confessor, where jealousy leads a man into a clerical disguise, and The Pack-Saddle, featuring a husband who mistakenly trusts his own anatomical markings. The poems move between earthy rural trysts and the elaborate schemes of the bored nobility, maintaining a brisk pace that favors witty observation over tragedy. It is a cynical, funny, and relentlessly brisk survey of human appetite.
Figures & speakers
- Sir Arthur
A knight who tests his wife by posing as a confessor (in “The Husband-Confessor”)
- Alice
A merchant's wife who finds creative ways to handle a husband (in “The Pack-Saddle”)
- Alibech
A young girl who teaches a hermit about worldly desires (in “The Devil in Hell”)
- Pinucio
A persistent suitor who finds success at a country inn (in “The Cradle”)
What it's really about
- Ingenious Deception
- Commoners regularly outsmart their betters through sheer speed.
- Marital Absurdity
- Marriage is framed as a constant, losing game of strategy.
Why it's memorable
- A husband painting a small, tactical ass on his wife for security.
- A confessor unintentionally absolving his own wife for her infidelities.
Where it lands
These tales conclude with the pragmatic observation that if Fortune prefers a trade, one should simply be ready for the exchange.
For your book club
- Does the repetitive structure highlight the predictability of desire?
- How do the rural settings ground these otherwise farcical encounters?