in a way, this
work forms a fresh starting-point in the eternal controversy. Perhaps
we should not have had this curious collection of stories of women,
virtuous and vicious, mythological and historical--stories which are
certainly very inferior as art to those of the _Decameron_--had not a
crisis occurred in Boccaccio's life. One day a Carthusian monk came to
him with a warning message from the dead, and, much troubled in mind,
he resolved to try to begin life afresh. But he was a better
story-teller than a moraliser. He would fain save his soul, but he
liked and courted popularity, and knew well the deeper meaning of the
proverb, "A terreno dolce, vanga di legno." And so he mingles virtue
and vice, hoping, as he says, that "some utility and profit shall come
of the same." To us of to-day, the chief interest of this work is that
Boccaccio's fame perhaps gave a definite impetus to the discussion of
the sex, instead of wholesale assertion, and also that it probably
suggested to Chaucer the idea for his _Legend of Good Women_. How
refreshing to find ourselves in the atmosphere of the kindly Chaucer!
Let us pause for a moment, and recall what he says of women, he who
was not only a knightly Court-poet, but also a popular singer, well
versed in the practical wisdom of life. In the prologue we read, "Let
be the chaf, and wryt wel of the corn," and in allusion to his
library of sixty books, old and new, of history and love-stories, he
says that for every bad woman, mention was duly made of a hundred good
ones. Time and experience in no way dull this appreciation, for when,
later, _The Canterbury Tales_ appear, his estimate has risen ten-fold,
since in the prologue to "The Miller's Tale" we read, "and ever a
thousand gode ageyn one badde." From this time onwards, literature on
the subject increases almost _ad infinitum_. Treatises and imaginary
debates seem to vie with each other for popularity. All these make
intensely interesting reading, for these fanciful discussions, which
are supposed to take place, sometimes between a man and a woman,
sometimes between a mixed company in a garden or villa or some bath
resort where many are gathered together, are really a record of the
intellectual amusements of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
"Que devez-vous preferer, du plaisir qui va vous echapper bientot, ou
d'une esperance toujours vive, quoique toujours trompee?" "Which sex
loves the more easily or can do the better withou