HKB
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Often appears with: widowhood avoidance · palace access restrictions · moral lesson on cruelty · marriage proposal · marriage and betrothal · justice as a virtue · hypocrisy and the appearance of virtue · honor, shame, and reputation · duchess demands purchase · diamond casket pledge · corruption, patronage, and bribery · conversion of love to affection
Usually: narrative (2) · detachment (2) · reconciliation (1) · temptation (1) · the test or trial (1) · exhortation (1)
“Tis now for me to take up my parable; which, dearest ladies, I will do with a story like in some degree to the foregoing, and that, not only that you may know how potent are your charms to sway the gentle heart, but that you may also learn how upon fitting occasions to make bestowal of your guerdons of your own accord, instead of always waiting for the guidance of Fortune, which most times, not wisely, but without rule or measure, scatters her gifts.” Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, Volume II · insight
After further threats and an honor vow involving a diamond casket, Cellini lowers the pearls’ value, the Duchess presses the Duke to buy them, and guards are instructed to admit or expel Cellini from the palace depending on the Duke’s presence.
LXXXIV THE DUKE was now aware that all my previous speeches had been, as it were, forced out of me. So he rejoined: “If you have confidence in me, you need not stand in fear of anything whatever.” I recommenced: “Alas! my lord, what can prevent this coming to the ears of the Duchess?” The Duke lifted his hand in sign of troth-pledge, [1] and exclaimed: “Be assured that what you say will be buried in a diamond casket…
After the staged Friday execution disappears, the cruel damsel fears the fate repeating and changes from hatred to affection, secretly inviting Nastagio, agreeing to marriage, and then living happily.
of whom were of kin to the suffering damsel and to the knight, and called to mind his love and death, wept as bitterly as if 'twere their own case. When 'twas all over, and the lady and the knight had disappeared, the strange scene set those that witnessed it pondering many and divers matters: but among them all none was so appalled as the cruel damsel that Nastagio loved, who, having clearly seen and heard all that…