y long and strait and with a face out of all measure broad; one
hath too long and another too short a nose and a third hath a chin
jutting out and turned upward and huge jawbones that show as they were
those of an ass, whilst some there be who have one eye bigger than the
other and other some who have one set lower than the other, like the
faces that children used to make, whenas they first begin to learn to
draw. Wherefore, as I have already said, it is abundantly apparent
that God the Lord made them, what time He was learning to draw; so
that they are more ancient and consequently nobler than the rest of
mankind.' At this, both Piero, who was the judge, and Neri, who had
wagered the supper, and all the rest, hearing Scalza's comical
argument and remembering themselves,[307] fell all a-laughing and
affirmed that he was in the right and had won the supper, for that the
Cadgers were assuredly the noblest and most ancient gentlemen that
were to be found not in Florence alone, but in the world or the
Maremma. Wherefore it was very justly said of Pamfilo, seeking to show
the foulness of Messer Forese's visnomy, that it would have showed
notably ugly on one of the Cadgers."

[Footnote 307: _i.e._ of the comical fashion of the Cadgers.]

THE SEVENTH STORY

[Day the Sixth]

MADAM FILIPPA, BEING FOUND BY HER HUSBAND WITH A LOVER OF
HERS AND BROUGHT TO JUSTICE, DELIVERETH HERSELF WITH A
PROMPT AND PLEASANT ANSWER AND CAUSETH MODIFY THE STATUTE

Fiammetta was now silent and all laughed yet at the novel argument
used by Scalza for the ennoblement over all of the Cadgers, when the
queen enjoined Filostrato to tell and he accordingly began to say, "It
is everywise a fine thing, noble ladies, to know how to speak well,
but I hold it yet goodlier to know how to do it whereas necessity
requireth it, even as a gentlewoman, of whom I purpose to entertain
you, knew well how to do on such wise that not only did she afford her
hearers matter for mirth and laughter, but did herself loose from the
toils of an ignominious death, as you shall presently hear.

There was, then, aforetime, in the city of Prato, a statute in truth
no less blameworthy than cruel, which, without making any distinction,
ordained that any woman found by her husband in adultery with any her
lover should be burnt, even as she who should be discovered to have
sold her favours for money. What while this statute was in force, it
befell that a n