GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
Author of the
“DECAMERONE, OR HUNDRED TALES”
(Commedia Umana)
STORIES
OF
BOCCACCIO
(The Decameron)
WITH ALL THE POEMS (MANY OF WHICH ARE OMITTED IN OTHER EDITIONS); AND WITH NOTES TO EACH STORY, GIVING VALUABLE HISTORICAL DATA AND SHOWING THE INFLUENCE OF THE DECAMERON ON THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES - FORMING, IN MANY INSTANCES, A KEY TO THE PERSONAGES OF THE STORY.
INCLUDING ALSO YE MERRY TALE
Now first done into English.
By
JOHN PAYNE
PRINTED FOR
THE BIBLIOPHILIST LIBRARY.Editor: Ramón Guimerá Lorente.
I will write EN, editor notation, when I add anything to Payne´s text.
Pdf source: https://archive.org/download/storiesboccacci00boccgoog
Ye merry tale does not appear in this pdf.
PREFACE.
For the first time the great work which produced so marked an effect on the
romantic literature of modern Europe, is laid before the reader in a garb which at
least does not misrepresent its original features.
"There are few works,"says Dunlop, in his history of Fiction,
"which have had an equal influence on literature with the Decameron of Boccaccio.
Even in England its effects were powerful. From it Chaucer adopted the notion of the frame
in which he has enclosed his tales, and the general manner of his stories, while in some instances,
as we have seen, he has merely versified the novels of the Italian.
In 1566, William Paynter printed many of Boccaccio's stories in English, in his work called the Palace of Pleasure.
This first translation contained sixty novels, and it was soon followed by another volume,
comprehending thirty-four additional tales. These are the pages of which Shakespeare made so much use.
From Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy we learn that one of the great amusements of our ancestors was reading
Boccaccio aloud, an entertainment of which the effects were speedily visible in the literature of the country.
The first English translation, however, of the whole Decameron, did not appear till 1620. In France, Boccaccio
found early and illustrious imitators. In his own country he brought his native language to
perfection, and gave stability to a mode of composition which before his time had only existed in a rude state in Italy;
he collected the current tales of the age, which he decorated with new circumstances, and delivered in a style which
has no parallel for elegance, naiveté, and grace. Hence his popularity was unbounded, and his imitators more numerous than those of any author recorded
in the annals of literature."
A translation of the Decameron which appeared in 1741, has been reproduced in all subsequent editions, with only a partial attempt at revision in 1804.
The task which was then but imperfectly, has now been most carefully, performed.
Every page, almost every line, has undergone considerable modifications: large omissions have been supplied; and brief critical and historical notices
have been appended to most of the novels. In many instances these will be found interesting to the English student, as indicating the parentage
of some of the choicest portions of our early literature.
