A Roland for an Oliver

A Roland for an Oliver names a reciprocal retort: one speaker answers another’s thrust with a forceful counterblow. In the Decameron, the phrase appears when Neifile answers Filostrato’s teasing, turning their exchange into a compact example of verbal give-and-take and introducing a larger pattern in which a well-timed reply can reverse who holds the advantage.

Meaning and Proverbial Use

The expression occurs in the narration as Filostrato, having been answered by Neifile, finds that he still “got a Roland for his Oliver.” The accompanying note explains that the Italian is a proverbial expression whose exact bearing is uncertain, while identifying its evident sense as an equivalent English idiom. The wording presents an exchange rather than a one-sided attack: the second speaker gives back an answer commensurate with the first.

The phrase’s force depends on the balance between the two sides. A reply does not merely end a conversation; it demonstrates that the person addressed can answer in kind. The idiom thus makes verbal retaliation legible as a small contest, where wit can secure a reversal without physical force.

The Exchange Between Neifile and Filostrato

At the end of Dioneo’s comic story of Rustico and Alibech, the queen passes her crown to Filostrato, joking that the wolf may govern the ewes better than the ewes governed the wolves. Filostrato extends the joke by suggesting that the men could teach the women what Rustico taught Alibech. Neifile counters by recalling Masetto of Lamporecchio: Filostrato, she implies, might learn sense himself if he tried to instruct women. The narrator’s idiom registers her retort as an answer returned in kind.

Filostrato recognizes that the teasing has turned against him and abandons the pleasantry. He then takes up the duties of his new rule and chooses unhappy love as the subject for the next day’s stories, explaining that it accords with his own experience and expectations. The expression therefore marks a precise transition: Neifile’s reply closes the joking exchange, and Filostrato’s response shifts the gathering from banter to the announced theme.

Wit as Counterblow

Elsewhere, the Decameron develops the same pattern of a verbal thrust answered by a counterthrust. In her discussion of witty sayings, Lauretta distinguishes a retort that bites like a sheep from one that bites like a dog: a sharp saying should correct or sting without becoming a mere affront. She also observes that a reply to an initial insult may be judged differently from an unsolicited attack. The principle helps clarify the idiom’s social force: the answer is retaliatory, but its success depends on proportion, timing, and the circumstances of the exchange.

Madam Nonna de' Pulci supplies a pointed example. On Saint John’s Day, Bishop Antonio d'Orso asks whether she could make a conquest of Messer Dego della Ratta, in the hearing of people gathered along the route where the mantle race is run. The marshal had previously paid Nonna’s husband with counterfeit florins for a night with the bishop’s niece, who had not consented. Nonna replies that even if the marshal could not make a conquest of her, she would at least want good money. Her answer touches both men: the marshal is implicated in the earlier deception, and the bishop is stung through his kinswoman. They leave in shame and silence. The scene makes a retort an act of public exposure as well as repayment.

Related Reversals in Conversation

Other exchanges show how little speech may be needed to change the balance between speakers. When Guglielmo Borsiere visits the miserly Ermino de' Grimaldi, Ermino asks what unseen thing he might have painted in his new house. Guglielmo answers that Ermino should have Liberality depicted there. Ermino is so ashamed that he changes his conduct and thereafter becomes notably liberal and hospitable. Here the verbal stroke does not simply silence its target; it prompts a lasting change.

Guido Cavalcanti’s encounter with Messer Betto Brunelleschi and his companions offers another form of reversal. Hemmed in among the tombs near San Giovanni, Guido answers their taunt with a remark about their being in their own house, then vaults over a tomb and escapes. The companions initially fail to understand the implication. Messer Betto interprets it: the tombs are houses of the dead, and Guido has compared them, as unlearned men, with the dead. Their mockery becomes a rebuke that leaves them abashed. Together, these episodes place A Roland for an Oliver within the Decameron’s recurrent interest in speech that returns pressure to its source, whether through a comic answer, an exposure, or a correction that alters the encounter’s outcome.