The Decameron · Chapter
Proem explained
The author explains his purpose in writing the Decameron: to provide solace and entertainment for lovesick ladies who, unlike men, have few diversions from their melancholy.
What happens
The author explains his purpose in writing the Decameron: to provide solace and entertainment for lovesick ladies who, unlike men, have few diversions from their melancholy. He recounts how his own past love, though painful, was eased by a friend's consolations, and now he seeks to repay that kindness by offering these hundred stories told over ten days by seven ladies and three young men during the plague.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Desire
The author discusses his own past love and the torment of unfulfilled desire, and dedicates the work to lovesick ladies who suffer in silence.
Suffering and Redemption
The author describes his own affliction from love and how he was saved by a friend's consolations, framing the stories as a means to alleviate the suffering of others.
The Power of Storytelling
The Proem explicitly presents storytelling as a remedy for melancholy and a source of solace, establishing the narrative framework of the Decameron.
Characters to notice
- Pampinea
Mentioned as one of the seven ladies in the storytelling company.
- Fiammetta
Mentioned as one of the seven ladies in the storytelling company.
- Filostrato
Mentioned as one of the three young men in the storytelling company.
- Dioneo
Mentioned as one of the three young men in the storytelling company.
- Lauretta
Mentioned as one of the seven ladies in the storytelling company.
- Pamfilo
Mentioned as one of the three young men in the storytelling company.
Key passages
“A kindly thing it is to have compassion of the afflicted and albeit it well beseemeth everyone, yet of those is it more particularly required who have erst had need of comfort and have found it in any”
It is a kind act to pity those who suffer, and this is especially true for those who have themselves once needed and received comfort.
The author establishes his own experience of receiving comfort as the motivation for writing.
“I purpose, for the succour and solace of ladies in love (unto others the needle and the spindle and the reel suffice) to recount an hundred stories or fables or parables or histories or whatever you like to style them, in ten days’ time related by an honourable company of seven ladies and three young men made in the days of the late deadly pestilence”
I intend to tell one hundred stories, told over ten days by seven ladies and three young men during the recent deadly plague, for the comfort and entertainment of lovesick women (since sewing and spinning are enough for other women).
This sentence outlines the entire structure and purpose of the Decameron.
“In these stories will be found love-chances, both gladsome and grievous, and other accidents of fortune befallen as well in times present as in days of old, whereof the ladies aforesaid, who shall read them, may at once take solace from the delectable things therein shown forth and useful counsel”
These stories contain both happy and sad love affairs and other twists of fate from both modern and ancient times, so that women readers may find both pleasure and practical advice.
The author promises both entertainment and moral instruction.