the king was
pleased to order, betook them to rest. With the first light of the new
day they rose, and, the seneschal having already conveyed thence all
their chattels, they, following the lead of their discreet king, hied
them back to Florence; and in Santa Maria Novella, whence they had set
forth, the three young men took leave of the seven ladies, and departed
to find other diversions elsewhere, while the ladies in due time repaired
to their homes.

THE AUTHOR'S EPILOGUE.

Most noble damsels, for whose solace I addressed me to this long and
toilsome task, meseems that, aided by the Divine grace, the bestowal
whereof I impute to the efficacy of your pious prayers, and in no wise to
merits of mine, I have now brought this work to the full and perfect
consummation which in the outset thereof I promised you. Wherefore, it
but remains for me to render, first to God, and then to you, my thanks,
and so to give a rest to my pen and weary hand. But this I purpose not to
allow them, until, briefly, as to questions tacitly mooted--for well
assured I am that these stories have no especial privilege above any
others, nay, I forget not that at the beginning of the Fourth Day I have
made the same plain--I shall have answered certain trifling objections
that one of you, maybe, or some other, might advance. Peradventure, then,
some of you will be found to say that I have used excessive license in
the writing of these stories, in that I have caused ladies at times to
tell, and oftentimes to list, matters that, whether to tell or to list,
do not well beseem virtuous women. The which I deny, for that there is
none of these stories so unseemly, but that it may without offence be
told by any one, if but seemly words be used; which rule, methinks, has
here been very well observed. But assume we that 'tis even so (for with
you I am not minded to engage in argument, witting that you would
vanquish me), then, I say that for answer why I have so done, reasons
many come very readily to hand. In the first place, if aught of the kind
in any of these stories there be, 'twas but such as was demanded by the
character of the stories, which let but any person of sound judgment scan
with the eye of reason, and 'twill be abundantly manifest that, unless I
had been minded to deform them, they could not have been otherwise
recounted. And if, perchance, they do, after all, contain here and there
a trifling indiscretion of speech, such as might ill sort