The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, by
Giovanni Boccaccio

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Title: The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio

Author: Giovanni Boccaccio

Translator: John Payne

Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23700]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DECAMERON ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Transcriber's Note: The original text does not observe the normal
convention of placing quotation marks at the beginnings of paragraphs
within a multiple-paragraph quotation. This idiosyncrasy has been
preserved in this e-text.

Archaic spellings have been preserved, but obvious printer errors have
been corrected.

In the untranslated Italian passage in Day 3, Story 10, the original
is missing the accents, which have been added using an Italian edition
of _Decameron_ (Milan: Mursia, 1977) as a guide.

John Payne's translation of _The Decameron_ was originally published
in a private printing for The Villon Society, London, 1886. The
American edition from which this e-text was prepared is undated.]

_The_

_Decameron_

_of_

_Giovanni Boccaccio_

_Translated by_

_John Payne_

[Illustration]

WALTER J. BLACK, INC.
171 Madison Avenue
NEW YORK, N.Y.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_Contents_

PROEM.

DAY THE FIRST 1

THE FIRST STORY. _Master Ciappelletto dupeth a holy friar with a false
confession and dieth; and having been in his lifetime the worst of
men, he is, after his death, reputed a saint and called Saint
Ciappelletto_ 16

THE SECOND STORY. _Abraham the Jew, at the instigation of Jehannot de
Chevigne, goeth to the Court of Rome and seeing the depravity of the
clergy, returneth to Paris and there becometh a Christian_ 25

THE THIRD STORY. _Melchizedek the Jew, with a story of three rings,
escapeth a parlous snare set for him by Saladin_ 28

THE FOURTH STORY. _A monk, having fallen into a sin deserving of very
grievous punishment, adroitly reproaching the same fault to his abbot,
quitteth himself of the penalty_ 30

THE FIFTH S