Marato

Marato is the younger brother of Pericone da Visalgo and a suitor who turns desire into abduction and murder. After arranging for Pericone to be killed in his sleep and taking Alatiel aboard a ship, he is himself cast into the sea by the ship’s Genoese masters, who want Alatiel for their own. His short arc makes him both an agent of violence and its immediate victim.

Identity and Introduction

Marato is introduced as a young man of five-and-twenty, fair and fresh as a rose. He sees Alatiel, who is then living with his brother Pericone, and becomes strongly attracted to her. Reading her gestures as signs that she favors him, he decides that Pericone’s vigilance is the only obstacle between him and the woman he desires. That interpretation is his own: the narrative does not establish that Alatiel has invited his advances.

The Abduction of Alatiel

Marato makes secret arrangements with two young Genoese shipmasters whose vessel, laden with merchandise, is bound for Chiarenza. He plans to leave with Alatiel on the following night. Once darkness falls, he brings trusted companions to Pericone’s house and conceals himself there until part of the night has passed. Then he admits his accomplices and leads them to the chamber where Pericone sleeps beside Alatiel.

The men kill Pericone in his sleep. They take Alatiel, now awake and weeping, threaten her into silence, and flee with a large part of Pericone’s most precious possessions. At the shore, Marato and Alatiel board the ship; his companions return to the house. The carefully arranged escape gives Marato what he sought, but it rests on the murder of his brother and on Alatiel’s forced removal.

Aboard the Ship

With a fair wind, the vessel sets out. Alatiel bitterly laments the new misfortune, while Marato comforts her; in time, she grows familiar with him and begins to feel at ease. This accommodation follows her capture and the loss of Pericone, not a freely described courtship. The ship’s masters, meanwhile, have also fallen in love with her. They conceal their desire from Marato and agree between themselves to take her in common, treating their plan as a contest over possession.

Marato’s control depends on keeping Alatiel guarded. One day, while he stands at the stern watching the sea, the two shipmasters seize him from behind and throw him overboard. The ship continues for more than a mile before anyone notices that he has fallen. Hearing what happened and seeing no way to recover him, Alatiel begins to lament again. The men who had helped Marato escape now remove him from the story by the same abrupt force with which he removed Pericone.

Reversal and Narrative Role

Marato’s rise and fall are compressed into a chain of desire, conspiracy, and betrayal. He interprets Alatiel’s gestures as permission, secretly coordinates a killing, and takes both her and Pericone’s valuables; yet the power he gains lasts only as long as the shipmasters tolerate it. Once they want Alatiel, they dispose of Marato without warning and continue their voyage before his disappearance is even noticed.

His death is not presented as a reconciliation or a return to the household he disrupted. He is drowned, while Alatiel remains aboard with the surviving shipmaster and faces the consequences of another forced transfer. Marato’s episode therefore marks a reversal of possession rather than an escape from it: the captor becomes the discarded captive, and the violence he set in motion carries on beyond him.