Well, this post would serve a sequel to our
last post on Camus!
However, here, it’s Milton’s delightful quote that steals the thunder! ;-)
Waxing with such eloquence on the
power contained within a book, Milton, John Milton says that, ‘A good book is the precious
life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life
beyond life’.
This sagely saying augurs well,
for each of those lovely-o-lovely books of ages past, written down by good ol’ sages
past for a life beyond life; books that
carry on them all along, the burden of the author’s culture, the impact of the
author’s milieu, and the aura of the author’s personality stamped on them!
In our last past post then,
we had discussed Albert Camus’ The Plague
and the conflicting dualities present in the thought processes of the main
characters.
Our next good book
that’s in store for today’s post also evidences such ‘conflicting
dualities’, and it is titled, The Decameron
written by Boccaccio, way back in the year 1353.
The Decameron,
has always been extolled, venerated and celebrated as the ultimate paradigm of Italian classical
prose, and has proved immensely impactful and influential on all of Renaissance
literature.
The backdrop to the Decameron is yet again - a plague!
In fact Boccaccio is said to have
lived through this plague, and hence has had a first-hand, eye-witness account
of the great plague that swept across and ravaged all of Florence in the
fourteenth century. It would also be meet here to bear in mind that by approximate
estimates, historians have attested to the deaths of two thirds to three fourths of the city’s 100,000 strong populace
in Florence, as a result of this devastating plague!
The Decameron hence starts
its narration with the fleeing of seven
women and three men, who – after having thus fled Florence because of the
plague – are now closeted and sheltered in a deserted yet sylvan, fertile
country villa, outside of the city of Florence for a period of fourteen days! [Hope the number ‘fourteen’ in the
context of the Corona virus, rings a bell on you!!!]
They now decide amongst themselves
on ways to spend their days, their fourteen
days in isolation, and hence resolve to host a number of events to keep
them occupied all of these fourteen days.
As such, they decide to have alternate
story-telling sessions, wherein stories are to be narrated by each of them in
turns, over a course of ten days – hence Decameron
– or Ten Day’s Work!
The remaining four days were set aside
for religious purposes like prayers and devotions! As such, in toto, there were
a hundred stories in all!
The Decameron has often
been nicknamed, The Human Comedy. And
much akin to Dante’s long narrative poem titled, Divine Comedy, [written by his own Florentine contemporary,] The Decameron also shows utmost respect
to the age-old parameters of a comedy which advocates ‘foul and horrible at the
beginning, in the end felicitous, desirable and pleasing!’
On a similar strand starts then, The Decameron!
Kinda foul and horrible at the beginning,
as it describes the plague in such horrific detail. But again, the gentleman in
Boccaccio so gently persuades his reader to withstand the horrific descriptions
that don the beginning, as they would soon proceed to more pleasing and more
entertaining descriptions too, quite too soon, during the course of the pages –
like hikers who are confronted by a steep and rugged hill are led from thence
on, and look beyond – to see a fair and beautiful plain ahead of them!
In like fashion, then, the book
begins with tales of vice at the very beginning, and ends with tales of virtues
towards the very end, forming thus, a perfect comedic closure of sorts!
Like Camus, Boccaccio too, in the
course of his descriptive takes on the pestilence,
takes an intense dig on the decay and the disintegration of revered traditions
and respected social institutions, which according to him were literally ‘powerless’
in the face of such a disastrous natural calamity as this!
Here’s bringing you the First Day’s Proceedings
from Boccaccio’s The Decameron, to
help us appreciate the book in all its grandeur, all by ourselves, on how this
14th century book proves so universal in its appeal, and so relevant to our present
times, especially in connect with the Corona pandemic that’s been raging across
nations these days.
So here goes excerpts, and just
excerpts, from Boccaccio’s opening pages to The
Decameron for us all…
FIRST DAY
Some say that the plague descended
upon the human race through the influence of the heavenly bodies, others that
it was a punishment signifying God’s righteous anger at our iniquitous way of
life.
But whatever its cause, it had
originated some years earlier in the East, where it had claimed countless lives
before it unhappily spread westward, growing in strength as it swept
relentlessly on from one place to the next.
In the face of its onrush, all the wisdom
and ingenuity of man were unavailing.
Large quantities of refuse were cleared
out of the city by officials specially appointed for the purpose, all sick
persons were forbidden entry, and numerous instructions were issued for
safeguarding the people’s health, but all to no avail.
Nor were the countless petitions
humbly directed to God by the pious, whether by means of formal processions or
in all other ways, any less ineffectual. For in the early spring of the year we
have mentioned, the plague began, in a terrifying and extraordinary manner, to
make its disastrous effects apparent.
Against these maladies, it seemed that
all the advice of physicians and all the power of medicine were profitless and
unavailing.
Perhaps the nature of the illness
was such that it allowed no remedy: or perhaps those people who were treating
the illness (whose numbers had increased enormously because the ranks of the
qualified were invaded by people, both men and women, who had never received
any training in medicine), being ignorant of its causes, were not prescribing
the appropriate cure.
At all events, few of those
who caught it ever recovered, and in most cases death occurred within three days
from the appearance of the symptoms we have described, some people dying more
rapidly than others, the majority without any fever or other complications.
But what made this pestilence
even more severe was that whenever those suffering from it mixed with people
who were still unaffected, it would rush upon these with the speed of a fire
racing through dry or oily substances that happened to come within its reach.
Nor was this the full extent
of its evil, for not only did it infect healthy persons who conversed or had
any dealings with the sick, making them ill or visiting an equally horrible
death upon them, but it also seemed to transfer the sickness to anyone touching
the clothes or other objects which had been handled or used by its victims.
The plague I have been describing was
of so contagious a nature that very often it visibly did more than simply pass
from one person to another.
In other words, whenever an animal
other than a human being touched anything belonging to a person who had been
stricken or exterminated by the disease, it not only caught the sickness, but
died from it almost at once.
To all of this, as I have just said, my own
eyes bore witness on more than one occasion.
These things, and many others of a
similar or even worse nature, caused various fears and fantasies to take root
in the minds of those who were still alive and well. And almost without
exception, they took a single and very inhuman precaution, namely to avoid or
run away from the sick and their belongings, by which means they all thought
that their own health would be preserved.
Some people were of the opinion that a
sober and abstemious mode of living considerably reduced the risk of infection.
They therefore formed themselves
into groups and lived in isolation from everyone else. Having withdrawn to a
comfortable abode where there were no sick persons, they locked themselves in
and settled down to a peaceable existence, consuming modest quantities of
delicate foods and precious wines and avoiding all excesses.
They refrained from speaking
to outsiders, refused to receive news of the dead or the sick, and entertained
themselves with music and whatever other amusements they were able to devise.
Others took the opposite view,
and maintained that an infallible way of warding off this appalling evil was to
drink heavily, enjoy life to the full, go round singing and merrymaking,
gratify all of one’s cravings whenever the opportunity offered, and shrug the
whole thing off as one enormous joke.
Some people, pursuing what was possibly
the safer alternative, callously maintained that there was no better or more
efficacious remedy against a plague than to run away from it.
Swayed by this argument, and sparing no
thought for anyone but themselves, large numbers of men and women abandoned
their city, their homes, their relatives, their estates and their belongings,
and headed for the countryside, either in Florentine territory or, better
still, abroad.
This scourge had implanted so great a terror
in the hearts of men and women that brothers abandoned brothers, uncles their
nephews, sisters their brothers, and in many cases wives deserted their
husbands.
But even worse, and almost incredible,
was the fact that fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their own
children, as though they did not belong to them.
Hence the countless numbers of
people who fell ill, both male and female, were entirely dependent upon either
the charity of friends (who were few and far between) or the greed of servants,
who remained in short supply despite the attraction of high wages out of all
proportion to the services they performed.
Furthermore, these latter were men and
women of coarse intellect and the majority were unused to such duties, and they
did little more than hand things to the invalid when asked to do so and watch
over him when he was dying. And in performing this kind of service, they
frequently lost their lives as well as their earnings.
Well, these are just excerpts
from such a highly original and such a highly impactful read, dear folks!
Do grab for yourself a copy
rightaway through the plethora of e-portals, and do spend some quality time
reading through this intense and impactful read of sorts!
So yup! here’s wishing you an amazing
time with books and books and books during these precious holidays, dear folks!
image: kobodotcom
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