# The Tenth Story explained — The Decameron

> Chapter companion for The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

## What happens

Queen Filomena concludes the first day with a story about Master Alberto of Bologna, an elderly physician who wisely and courteously responds to a lady's attempt to shame him for his love, turning the embarrassment back upon her. The day ends with dancing and a song by Emilia.

## Themes in this chapter

### Wit and Cunning

Master Alberto uses a clever analogy about leeks to turn the lady's mockery back on her, demonstrating the power of wit over youthful presumption.

### Love and Desire

The story explores the theme of love in old age, challenging the notion that passion belongs only to the young.

### Gender and Power

The queen's introduction critiques women's vanity and lack of conversational skill, while the tale itself shows a woman being outwitted by a man.

## Character check-ins

### Lauretta

Leads a dance and sings a ballad at the queen's request.

### Emilia

Sings a song about self-love accompanied by Dioneo's lute.

### Dioneo

Plays the lute to accompany Emilia's song.

### Pampinea

Former queen who crowns Filomena as the new queen for the next day.

### Filostrato

Present among the company during the storytelling and evening festivities.

### Fiammetta

Present among the company during the storytelling and evening festivities.

## Key lines

> I have been many a time where I have seen ladies lunch and eat lupins and leeks. Now, although in the leek no part is good, yet is the head thereof less hurtful and more agreeable to the taste; but you ladies, moved by a perverse appetite, commonly hold the head in your hand and munch the leaves, which are not only naught, but of an ill savour. How know I, madam, but you do the like in the election of your lovers? In which case, I should be the one chosen of you and the others would be turned away.

Master Alberto compares the lady's choice of lovers to eating leeks: most people prefer the head, but she foolishly chooses the leaves. He suggests she might similarly overlook worthy older suitors in favor of flashy young ones.

_This is the key witty retort that turns the tables on the lady._

> For that virtue, which was erst in the minds of the women of times past, those of our day have diverted to the adornment of the body, and she on whose back are to be seen the most motley garments and the most gaudily laced and garded and garnished with the greatest plenty of fringes and purflings and broidery deemeth herself worthy to be held of far more account than her fellows and to be honoured above them.

The queen laments that modern women focus on external decoration rather than inner virtue, believing that elaborate clothing makes them superior.

_This introduces the story's moral about vanity and wit._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters/the-tenth-story
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_decameron_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters