us that are yet to tell, there is, methinks, no room
left, unless we seek our topic there where matter of discourse germane to
every theme does most richly abound, to wit, in the affairs of love. For
which cause, as also for that our time of life cannot but make us
especially inclinable thereto, I am minded that my story shall be of a
feat of magnificence done by a lover: which, all things considered, will,
peradventure, seem to you inferior to none that have been shewn you; so
it be true that to possess the beloved one, men will part with their
treasures, forget their enmities, and jeopardize their own lives, their
honour and their reputation, in a thousand ways.

Know, then, that at Bologna, that most famous city of Lombardy, there
dwelt a knight, Messer Gentile Carisendi by name, worshipful alike for
his noble lineage and his native worth: who in his youth, being enamoured
of a young gentlewoman named Madonna Catalina, wife of one Niccoluccio
Caccianimico, and well-nigh despairing, for that the lady gave him but a
sorry requital of his love, betook him to Modena, being called thither as
Podesta. Now what time he was there, Niccoluccio being also away from
Bologna, and his lady gone, for that she was with child, to lie in at a
house she had some three miles or so from the city, it befell that she
was suddenly smitten with a sore malady of such and so virulent a quality
that it left no sign of life in her, so that the very physicians
pronounced her dead. And for that the women that were nearest of kin to
her professed to have been told by her, that she was not so far gone in
pregnancy that the child could be perfectly formed, they, without more
ado, laid her in a tomb in a neighbouring church, and after long
lamentation closed it upon her.

Whereof Messer Gentile being forthwith apprised by one of his friends,
did, for all she had been most niggardly to him of her favour, grieve not
a little, and at length fell a communing with himself on this wise:--So,
Madonna Catalina, thou art dead! While thou livedst, never a glance of
thine might I have; wherefore, now that thou art dead, 'tis but right
that I go take a kiss from thee. 'Twas night while he thus mused; and
forthwith, observing strict secrecy in his departure, he got him to horse
with a single servant, and halted not until he was come to the place
where the lady was interred; and having opened the tomb he cautiously
entered it. Then, having lain down beside her, h