I say, then, that the years [of the era]
of the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of God had attained to the number of one
thousand three hundred and forty-eight, when into the notable city of Florence,
fair over every other of Italy, there came the death-dealing pestilence, which,
through the operation of the heavenly bodies or of our own iniquitous dealings,
being sent down upon mankind for our correction by the just wrath of God, had
some years before appeared in the parts of the East and after having bereft
these latter of an innumerable number of inhabitants, extending without cease
from one place to another, had now unhappily spread towards the West. And
thereagainst no wisdom availing nor human foresight (whereby the city was
purged of many impurities by officers deputed to that end and it was forbidden
unto any sick person to enter therein and many were the counsels given for the preservation of health) nor yet
humble supplications, not once but many times both in ordered processions and
on other wise made unto God by devout persons,—about the coming in of the
Spring of the aforesaid year, it began on horrible and miraculous wise to show
forth its dolorous effects. Yet not as it had done in the East, where, if any
bled at the nose, it was a manifest sign of inevitable death; nay, but in men
and women alike there appeared, at the beginning of the malady, certain
swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits, whereof some waxed of the
bigness of a common apple, others like unto an egg, some more and some less,
and these the vulgar named plague-boils. From these two parts the aforesaid
death-bearing plague-boils proceeded, in brief space, to appear and come
indifferently in every part of the body; wherefrom, after awhile, the fashion
of the contagion began to change into black or livid blotches, which showed
themselves in many [first] on the arms and about the thighs and [after spread
to] every other part of the person, in some large and sparse and in others
small and thick-sown; and like as the plague-boils had been first (and yet
were) a very certain token of coming death, even so were these for every one to
whom they came.
To the cure of these maladies nor counsel of physician nor virtue of any medicine appeared
to avail or profit aught; on the contrary,—whether it was that the nature of
the infection suffered it not or that the ignorance of the physicians (of whom,
over and above the men of art, the number, both men and women, who had never
had any teaching of medicine, was become exceeding great,) availed not to know
whence it arose and consequently took not due measures thereagainst,—not only
did few recover thereof, but well nigh all died within the third day from the
appearance of the aforesaid signs, this sooner and that later, and for the most
part without fever or other accident. And this
pestilence was the more virulent for that, by communication with those who were
sick thereof, it gat hold upon the sound, no otherwise than fire upon things
dry or greasy, whenas they are brought very near thereunto. Nay, the mischief
was yet greater; for that not only did converse and consortion with the sick
give to the sound infection of cause of common death, but the mere touching of
the clothes or of whatsoever other thing had been touched or used of the sick
appeared of itself to communicate the malady to the toucher. A marvellous thing
to hear is that which I have to tell and one which, had it not been seen of
many men's eyes and of mine own, I had scarce dared credit, much less set down
in writing, though I had heard it from one worthy of belief. I say, then, that
of such efficience was the nature of the pestilence in question in
communicating itself from one to another, that, not only did it pass from man
to man, but this, which is much more, it many times visibly did;—to wit, a
thing which had pertained to a man sick or dead of the aforesaid sickness,
being touched by an animal foreign to the human species, not only infected
this latter with the plague, but in a very brief space of time killed it. Of
this mine own eyes (as hath a little before been said) had one day, among
others, experience on this wise; to wit, that the rags of a poor man, who had
died of the plague, being cast out into the public way, two hogs came up to
them and having first, after their wont, rooted amain among them with their
snouts, took them in their mouths and tossed them about their jaws; then, in a
little while, after turning round and round, they both, as if they had taken
poison, fell down dead upon the rags with which they had in an ill hour
intermeddled.
From these things and many others like
unto them or yet stranger divers fears and conceits were begotten in those who
abode alive, which well nigh all tended to a very barbarous conclusion, namely,
to shun and flee from the sick and all that pertained to them, and thus doing,
each thought to secure immunity for himself. Some there were who conceived that
to live moderately and keep oneself from all excess was the best defence
against such a danger; wherefore, making up their company, they lived removed
from every other and shut themselves up in those houses where none had been
sick and where living was best; and there, using very temperately of the most
delicate viands and the finest wines and eschewing all incontinence, they abode
with music and such other diversions as they might have, never suffering
themselves to speak with any nor choosing to hear any news from without of
death or sick folk. Others, inclining to the contrary opinion, maintained that
to carouse and make merry and go about singing and frolicking and satisfy the
appetite in everything possible and laugh and scoff at whatsoever befell was a
very certain remedy for such an ill. That which they said they put in practice
as best they might, going about day and night, now to this tavern, now to that,
drinking without stint or measure; and on this wise they did yet more freely in
other folk's houses, so but they scented there aught that liked or tempted
them, as they might lightly do, for that every one—as he were to live no
longer—had abandoned all care of his possessions, as of himself, wherefore the
most part of the houses were become common good and strangers used them, whenas
they happened upon them, like as the very owner might have done; and with all
this bestial preoccupation, they still shunned the sick to the best of their
power.
In this sore affliction and misery of our
city, the reverend authority of the laws, both human and divine, was all in a
manner dissolved and fallen into decay, for [lack of] the ministers and
executors thereof, who, like other men, were all either dead or sick or else
left so destitute of followers that they were unable to exercise any office,
wherefore every one had license to do whatsoever pleased him. Many others held
a middle course between the two aforesaid, not straitening themselves so
exactly in the matter of diet as the first neither allowing themselves such
license in drinking and other debauchery as the second, but using things in
sufficiency, according to their appetites; nor did they seclude themselves, but
went about, carrying in their hands, some flowers, some odoriferous herbs and
other some divers kinds of spiceries, which
they set often to their noses, accounting it an excellent thing to fortify the
brain with such odours, more by token that the air seemed all heavy and
attainted with the stench of the dead bodies and that of the sick and of the
remedies used.
Some were of a more barbarous, though,
peradventure, a surer way of thinking, avouching that there was no remedy against
pestilences better than—no, nor any so good as—to flee before them; wherefore,
moved by this reasoning and recking of nought but themselves, very many, both
men and women, abandoned their own city, their own houses and homes, their
kinsfolk and possessions, and sought the country seats of others, or, at the
least, their own, as if the wrath of God, being moved to punish the iniquity of
mankind, would not proceed to do so wheresoever they might be, but would
content itself with afflicting those only who were found within the walls of
their city, or as if they were persuaded that no person was to remain therein
and that its last hour was come. And albeit these, who opined thus variously,
died not all, yet neither did they all escape; nay, many of each way of
thinking and in every place sickened of the plague and languished on all sides,
well nigh abandoned, having themselves, what while they were whole, set the
example to those who abode in health.
Indeed, leaving be that townsman avoided
townsman and that well nigh no neighbour took thought unto other and that
kinsfolk seldom or never visited one another and held no converse together save
from afar, this tribulation had stricken such terror to the hearts of all, men
and women alike, that brother forsook brother, uncle nephew and sister brother
and oftentimes wife husband; nay (what is yet more extraordinary and well nigh
incredible) fathers and mothers refused to visit or tend their very children,
as they had not been theirs. By reason whereof there remained unto those (and
the number of them, both males and females, was incalculable) who fell sick,
none other succour than that which they owed either to the charity of friends
(and of these there were few) or the greed of servants, who tended them, allured
by high and extravagant wage; albeit, for all this, these latter were not grown
many, and those men and women of mean understanding and for the most part
unused to such offices, who served for well nigh nought but to reach things
called for by the sick or to note when they died; and in the doing of these
services many of them perished with their gain.
Of this abandonment of the sick by
neighbours, kinsfolk and friends and of the scarcity of servants arose an usage
before well nigh unheard, to wit, that no woman, how fair or lovesome or
well-born soever she might be, once fallen sick, recked aught of having a man
to tend her, whatever he might be, or young or old, and without any shame
discovered to him every part of her body, no otherwise than she would have done
to a woman, so but the necessity of her sickness required it; the which belike,
in those who recovered, was the occasion of lesser modesty in time to come.
Moreover, there ensued of this abandonment the death of many who peradventure, had they been succoured,
would have escaped alive; wherefore, as well for the lack of the opportune
services which the sick availed not to have as for the virulence of the plague,
such was the multitude of those who died in the city by day and by night that
it was an astonishment to hear tell thereof, much more to see it; and thence,
as it were of necessity, there sprang up among those who abode alive things
contrary to the pristine manners of the townsfolk.
It was then (even as we yet see it used) a
custom that the kinswomen and she-neighbours of the dead should assemble in his
house and there condole with those who more nearly pertained unto him, whilst
his neighbours and many other citizens foregathered with his next of kin before
his house, whither, according to the dead man's quality, came the clergy, and
he with funeral pomp of chants and candles was borne on the shoulders of his
peers to the church chosen by himself before his death; which usages, after the
virulence of the plague began to increase, were either altogether or for the
most part laid aside, and other and strange customs sprang up in their stead.
For that, not only did folk die without having a multitude of women about them,
but many there were who departed this life without witness and few indeed were
they to whom the pious plaints and bitter tears of their kinsfolk were
vouchsafed; nay, in lieu of these things there obtained, for the most part,
laughter and jests and gibes and feasting and merrymaking in company; which
usance women, laying aside womanly pitifulness, had right well learned for
their own safety.
Few, again, were they whose bodies were
accompanied to the church by more than half a score or a dozen of their
neighbours, and of these no worshipful and illustrious citizens, but a sort of
blood-suckers, sprung from the dregs of the people, who styled themselves pickmen
and did such offices for hire, shouldered the bier and bore it with hurried
steps, not to that church which the dead man had chosen before his death, but
most times to the nearest, behind five or six priests,
with little light and whiles none at all,
which latter, with the aid of the said pickmen, thrust him into what grave
soever they first found unoccupied, without troubling themselves with too long
or too formal a service.
Boccaccio, The Decameron (1353)
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, tr. John Payne (New York: Walter J. Black, nd). Project Gutenberg E-book. Excerpted from “Day the First”.
