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About the Text

The Decameron was written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century in the vernacular Florentine language and later translated into English (the version shown on the right is from 1620).  It is a collection of 100 stories organized around the frame story of a group of 10 young people escaping plague-stricken Florence to the countryside, taking turns telling stories to entertain themselves.  It is considered a stylistic masterpiece of classical Italian literature and had a great influence on Renaissance literature, including Cymbeline and Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well (based on III.9).

Similarities

II.9 is largely similar to the plot of Iachimo, Posthumus and Imogen throughout the play.

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  • Starts with Italians comparing their wives' faithfulness while they're away

  • One doesn't think his wife would cheat

  • Another doesn't believe him because all women are too "various and mutable" to not be tempted by men's flirtations

  • So, he bets the first man that he can seduce his wife

  • Upon arriving in Genoa and failing to seduce her, he enlists an old woman to help him sneak into her bedroom in a trunk

  • He gets out when she's asleep and takes note of both the room's and her body's details and steals her ring

  • He uses all this evidence to falsely prove to the husband that his seduction was successful

  • The husband flies into a rage upon realizing his information is accurate, so he must have succeeded

  • He tells his servant to tell his wife to meet him in the countryside, but to actually take her to the woods and kill her

  • Instead, the servant tells her of the deception and swaps clothes with her so she can escape as a man

  • She discovers the bet upon recognizing her possessions among the other man's things and asking how he got them

  • Eventually, all involved parties end up in the same place again and all is explained

  • The wife forgives the husband after finding out

  • She returns home with him and lives happily ever after

Differences

While all the broad strokes are similar, there are a number of differences in the details of the two stories.

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  • While all the characters are Italian, they meet in Paris, instead of in Rome

  • The husband is named Bernardo, while the other man is named Ambroginolo, and the wife is named Genevra

  • Before betting money, Bernardo says that, if he can succeed, Ambroginolo can chop off his head

  • Instead, he bets 5,000 duckets against 1,000 of Ambroginolo's

  • In her room, Ambroginolo steals Genevra's robe and girdle as well as her ring

  • Genevra disguises herself as a sailor named Sicurano da Finale and works on a ship, then for the Sultan of Egypt in Alexandria, becoming very highly favored as a court lord and Captain of the Guard

  • She lives as Ambroginolo for six years before encountering Ambroginolo

  • She (as Sicurano) convinces her husband to come to Alexandria

  • Upon getting them in the same room, she convinces the Sultan to force Ambroginolo to tell the truth to Bernardo

  • She also convinces the Sultan to agree to fittingly punish Ambroginolo if she can provide Genevra

  • Since she can do so, Ambroginolo is impaled on a stake and covered in honey to be eaten bees and other insects

  • His carcass is left there as a warning against deception and disrespecting virtuous women

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