eme. You are to know
then, dainty ladies, that not far from Sicily there is an islet called
Lipari, in which, no great while ago, there dwelt a damsel, Gostanza by
name, fair as fair could be, and of one of the most honourable families
in the island. And one Martuccio Gomito, who was also of the island, a
young man most gallant and courteous, and worthy for his condition,
became enamoured of Gostanza; who in like manner grew so afire for him
that she was ever ill at ease, except she saw him. Martuccio, craving her
to wife, asked her of her father, who made answer that, Martuccio being
poor, he was not minded to give her to him. Mortified to be thus rejected
by reason of poverty, Martuccio took an oath in presence of some of his
friends and kinsfolk that Lipari should know him no more, until he was
wealthy. So away he sailed, and took to scouring the seas as a rover on
the coast of Barbary, preying upon all whose force matched not his own.
In which way of life he found Fortune favourable enough, had he but known
how to rest and be thankful: but 'twas not enough that he and his
comrades in no long time waxed very wealthy; their covetousness was
inordinate, and, while they sought to gratify it, they chanced in an
encounter with certain Saracen ships to be taken after a long defence,
and despoiled, and, most part of them, thrown into the sea by their
captors, who, after sinking his ship, took Martuccio with them to Tunis,
and clapped him in prison, and there kept him a long time in a very sad
plight.

Meanwhile, not by one or two, but by divers and not a few persons,
tidings reached Lipari that all that were with Martuccio aboard his bark
had perished in the sea. The damsel, whose grief on Martuccio's departure
had known no bounds, now hearing that he was dead with the rest, wept a
great while, and made up her mind to have done with life; but, lacking
the resolution to lay violent hands upon herself, she bethought her how
she might devote herself to death by some novel expedient. So one night
she stole out of her father's house, and hied her to the port, and there
by chance she found, lying a little apart from the other craft, a fishing
boat, which, as the owners had but just quitted her, was still equipped
with mast and sails and oars. Aboard which boat she forthwith got, and
being, like most of the women of the island, not altogether without
nautical skill, she rowed some distance out to sea, and then hoisted
sail, and ca