OF SALERNO, SLAYETH HIS DAUGHTER'S LOVER AND
SENDETH HER HIS HEART IN A BOWL OF GOLD; WHEREUPON, POURING
POISONED WATER OVER IT, SHE DRINKETH THEREOF AND DIETH

"Our king hath this day appointed us a woeful subject of discourse,
considering that, whereas we came hither to make merry, needs must we
tell of others' tears, the which may not be recounted without moving
both those who tell and those who hearken to compassion thereof. He
hath mayhap done this somedele to temper the mirth of the foregoing
days; but, whatsoever may have moved him thereto, since it pertaineth
not to me to change his pleasure, I will relate a piteous chance, nay,
an ill-fortuned and a worthy of your tears.

Tancred, Lord of Salerno, was a humane prince and benign enough of
nature, (had he not in his old age imbrued his hands in lover's
blood,) who in all the course of his life had but one daughter, and
happier had he been if he had none. She was of him as tenderly loved
as ever daughter of father, and knowing not, by reason of this his
tender love for her, how to part with her, he married her not till she
had long overpassed the age when she should have had a husband. At
last, he gave her to wife to a son of the Duke of Capua, with whom
having abidden a little while, she was left a widow and returned to
her father. Now she was most fair of form and favour, as ever was
woman, and young and sprightly and learned perchance more than is
required of a lady. Abiding, then, with her father in all ease and
luxury, like a great lady as she was, and seeing that, for the love he
bore her, he recked little of marrying her again, nor did it seem to
her a seemly thing to require him thereof, she bethought herself to
seek, an it might be, to get her privily a worthy lover. She saw men
galore, gentle and simple, frequent her father's court, and
considering the manners and fashions of many, a young serving-man of
her father's, Guiscardo by name, a man of humble enough extraction,
but nobler of worth and manners than whatsoever other, pleased her
over all and of him, seeing him often, she became in secret ardently
enamoured, approving more and more his fashions every hour; whilst the
young man, who was no dullard, perceiving her liking for him, received
her into his heart, on such wise that his mind was thereby diverted
from well nigh everything other than the love of her.

Each, then, thus secretly tendering the other, the young lady, who
desired n