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Later came the Teseide, or romance of Palamon and Arcite, the first extant rendering of the story, in twelve books, and the Filostrato, nine books of the loves and woes of Troilus and Cressida. Both these poems are in ottava rima, a metre which, if Boccaccio did not invent it, he was the first to apply to such a purpose. Both works were dedicated to Fiammetta.
A worthy man by an apt saying puts to shame the wicked hypocrisy of the religious. When all had commended the virtue of the Marchioness and the spirited reproof which she administered to the King of France, Emilia, who sate next to Fiammetta, obeyed the queen's behest, and with a good courage thus began:
It had been crocheted by Fiammetta for her marriage, the only portion the poor child could bring to that sacrament. Alas! the wedding was never to be; and the rich work, into which her delicate fingers had knit so many maiden dreams and hopes and fears, was offered for sale in the resort of strangers.
Now this was strange counsel, yet it had so great weight with me that I was persuaded by it, and after lying a night at the Swan-and-Quiver Tavern I went back to London, and never again had a desire to visit Lincolnshire. But Fiammetta is still a pleasing memory ay, and more than a memory to me, for whenever I take down that precious book and open it, what a host of friends do troop forth!
Three years is a longtime; and though he had no doubt of the pretty Fiammetta, yet women are women, said the shrewd fellow to himself, and who knows what might happen, if a gallant came along who could read and write, as Fiammetta could, and, besides, could play the guitar?
So thus they made love she bending down toward him, he clutching with toes and hands at the wall, her whispers making him dizzier than his perilous posture, her tears falling upon his lips through a space so little, yet greater than the distance between two stars. "But almost everything is discovered. Antonio's meetings with Fiammetta became known to his elder brother.
Emilia, who sat next after Fiammetta, the courage of the marchioness and the quaint rebuke administered by her to the King of France having been commended of all the ladies, began, by the queen's pleasure, boldly to speak as follows: "I also, I will not keep silence of a biting reproof given by an honest layman to a covetous monk with a speech no less laughable than commendable.
The Amorosa Visione, written about the same time, is not only an allegory but an acrostic, the initial letters of its fifteen hundred triplets composing two sonnets and a ballade in honour of Fiammetta, whom he here for once ventures to call by her true name.
As we rowed close to the precipice in returning, I saw many similar openings, not so deep, and perhaps only sham openings; and the water-line was fretted to honeycomb by the eating waves. Beneath the water-line, and revealed here and there when the waves receded, was a line of bright red coral. At vespers on the fete of St. Antonino, and in his church, I saw the Signorina Fiammetta.
"At least," Antonio besought me, "when in doubt, remain silent." We entered the hall. Under a wooden gallery adorned with carved and tinted shields the supper-table was laid. They awaited us, shimmering in their fantastic finery the ladies Laura and Lina, my old friends Leonardo and Leonello, and the ineffable Fiammetta di Foscone.
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