t needst have no fear to do
whatever thou hast a mind to." Much relieved, Calandrino got up, and
resumed his accustomed way of life, and, wherever he found any one to
talk to, was loud in praise of Master Simone for the excellent manner in
which he had cured him, causing him in three days without the least
suffering to be quit of his pregnancy. And Bruno and Buffalmacco and
Nello were not a little pleased with themselves that they had so cleverly
got the better of Calandrino's niggardliness, albeit Monna Tessa, who was
not deceived, murmured not a little against her husband.

(1) I.e. bolts of clay for the cross-bow.

(2) I.e. great ape: with a play on Simone.

NOVEL IV.

--
Cecco, son of Messer Fortarrigo, loses his all at play at Buonconvento,
besides the money of Cecco, son of Messer Angiulieri; whom, running after
him in his shirt and crying out that he has robbed him, he causes to be
taken by peasants: he then puts on his clothes, mounts his palfrey, and
leaves him to follow in his shirt.
--

All the company laughed beyond measure to hear what Calandrino said
touching his wife: but, when Filostrato had done, Neifile, being bidden
by the queen, thus began:--Noble ladies, were it not more difficult for
men to evince their good sense and virtue than their folly and their
vice, many would labour in vain to set bounds to their flow of words:
whereof you have had a most conspicuous example in poor blundering
Calandrino, who, for the better cure of that with which in his simplicity
he supposed himself to be afflicted, had no sort of need to discover in
public his wife's secret pleasures. Which affair has brought to my mind
one that fell out contrariwise, inasmuch as the guile of one discomfited
the good sense of another to the grievous loss and shame of the
discomfited: the manner whereof I am minded to relate to you.

'Tis not many years since there were in Siena two young men, both of age,
and both alike named Cecco, the one being son of Messer Angiulieri, the
other of Messer Fortarrigo. Who, albeit in many other respects their
dispositions accorded ill, agreed so well in one, to wit, that they both
hated their fathers, that they became friends, and kept much together.
Now Angiulieri, being a pretty fellow, and well-mannered, could not brook
to live at Siena on the allowance made him by his father, and learning
that there was come into the March of Ancona, as legate of the Pope, a
cardinal, to whom he was much