The Fifth Day of the Decameron

The Fifth Day of the Decameron turns the collection toward lovers who find happiness after cruel and misfortunate adventures. Under Fiammetta’s governance, the day’s stories move through secrecy, threatened death, social inequality, and parental authority toward forms of union or renewed hope. Their endings do not all arrive by the same route: love may be sealed by a marriage promise, forced into recognition by a father, or restored when a supposed death sentence is interrupted.

Theme and Change of Tone

The Fifth Day follows an evening in which Filostrato’s song disclosed his state of mind, while the blush of a lady in the dance hinted at the feeling behind it. The next morning, Fiammetta sets a different emphasis: the company will hear of lovers who fare happily after cruel and unfortunate trials. The contrast gives the day a clear emotional direction without making its stories identical. Danger and suffering remain present, but the governing theme asks what follows them: a bond made secure, a lover recovered, or a long-held desire brought within reach.

Filostrato introduces his own story as a brief love tale meant to make the ladies laugh after his earlier contributions to woeful discourse. Its obstacles are comparatively slight: sighs, fear, and shame give way to a happy outcome. That framing establishes a flexible scale for the day. Some lovers face immediate peril or the prospect of death; others must cross the gap between private affection and the expectations of family or rank.

The Storytelling Day

The frame gives this theme a deliberate rhythm. With the eastern sky brightening and birds singing in the branches, Fiammetta rises and calls the other ladies and three young men. She leads them at an unhurried pace through the plain, walking over dew-covered grass and talking until the sun grows hot. The company then returns to its lodging, takes wine and confections, and spends time in the garden before the midday meal.

After dinner, songs and dances continue the gathering’s customary pleasures. When the queen dismisses the company for a period of rest, some sleep while others return to their diversions in the garden. A little after noon, everyone assembles again near the fountain. Fiammetta takes the chief seat and asks Pamfilo to begin the day’s fortunate stories. The repeated movement between open countryside, garden, meal, rest, and fountain makes the storytelling itself part of the day’s order: the tales of lovers’ reversals are heard within a community that repeatedly reunites to listen.

Love, Secrecy, and Marriage

One tale makes recognition intimate and sudden. Alessandro discovers that the person he has taken for an abbot is a woman: she reveals herself by placing his hand against her breast. She explains that she had left home a maiden and was traveling to the Pope to be married, but that seeing Alessandro had made her resolve to choose him instead. He agrees; she gives him a ring and solemnly pledges herself to him before an image of Christ. At daybreak he slips from her chamber without anyone knowing where he spent the night, then resumes the journey with her company. The private betrothal and concealed night together place the lovers’ choice ahead of any public settlement.

The story of Gillette de Narbonne tests that choice against rank and obligation. The King of France agrees that, if Gillette cures him, he will marry her well and honorably, while she reserves the right to choose her husband, excluding the king’s sons and the royal house. She restores the king’s health before the agreed eight days have passed and names Bertrand de Roussillon, whom she has loved since childhood. The king summons Bertrand and tells him to return to govern his county with Gillette as his wife. Bertrand objects that her lineage does not match his own and refuses the marriage, even though the king reminds him of the promise made in exchange for the cure. The episode turns a successful healing into a conflict over whether a woman’s chosen marriage can overcome a man’s judgment of social rank.

In Filostrato’s tale, affection that has remained secret becomes a marriage under the pressure of discovery. Ricciardo Manardi and Caterina have fallen in love while he is welcomed in the household of Messer Lizio da Valbona and Madam Giacomina, who treat him almost as a son. Their meetings are clandestine, and the nightingale becomes part of the lovers’ private language. When Messer Lizio finds Ricciardo with Caterina at daybreak, Ricciardo asks for mercy and admits his fault. Lizio offers him a stark choice: marry Caterina and be safe from death and public shame, or face the consequences. Caterina weeps and pleads with both her father and her lover; Ricciardo agrees. Lizio borrows Madam Giacomina’s ring, and the couple are married in their presence. A few days later, the union is solemnized again before friends and relatives, and Ricciardo brings Caterina to his house for a public wedding. Discovery thus changes a hidden affair into a recognized marriage, with the father’s intervention serving at once as threat and settlement.

Foreboding and Reversal

The day’s happy-fortune theme does not erase the force of misfortune. Andrevuola, the young daughter of Messer Negro da Ponte Carraro, secretly loves Gabriotto, a neighbor of lower condition whom she has married in secret. Before one of his visits, she dreams that, while the two are embracing in her father’s garden, a dark and frightening shape emerges from Gabriotto’s body, tears him from her arms, and carries him beneath the earth. She wakes in grief, relieved that the vision has not happened but afraid of what it may foretell. When Gabriotto seeks her out the following night, she tries to prevent his coming; eventually she receives him in the garden, gathers red and white roses, and tells him the dream beside a clear fountain. In this episode, love’s private refuge is shadowed by the possibility of separation, so the day’s promise of happiness is set against an image of loss.

A different reversal comes in the story of Teodoro and Violante. Messer Amerigo, believing his daughter and grandson dead, regrets what he has done and sends word to stop the execution of Fineo’s son. Fineo confirms that Teodoro is his son and declares that he intends him to marry Violante; Messer Amerigo, for his part, says he is willing to give his daughter to Teodoro. Teodoro, still afraid for his life, learns that the marriage is possible and welcomes it as a great happiness, provided Violante also consents. She has been waiting in despair for death, but, when she hears the news, admits that she could wish for no greater happiness than to become Teodoro’s wife, while leaving the final decision to her father. The prospect of execution gives way to recognition, reconciliation between the families, and the possibility of marriage.

The Day’s Pattern

Across these episodes, happiness is not simply the absence of hardship. It follows concealment exposed, a promise enforced, a secret union acknowledged, or a death sentence stayed. The means differ: Alessandro and his chosen bride make a private pledge; Gillette’s cure binds a king to a promise Bertrand resists; Ricciardo’s discovery leads to marriage in the very room where he has been caught; and Teodoro’s recognition transforms terror into a proposed family union. Andrevuola’s dream, meanwhile, keeps the cost of threatened separation in view. Fiammetta’s theme gathers these varied turns into a day about love surviving adversity, while the recurring assembly at the fountain gives the separate fortunes a common audience and shape.