Costanza Is Cast Ashore and Reunites with Martuccio turns an attempted death at sea into a story of survival, recognition, and a marriage secured after separation. Costanza leaves Lipari convinced that Martuccio Gomito has drowned, but the wind carries her to Susa, where strangers shelter her. Meanwhile, Martuccio’s ingenuity wins him the favor of the king of Tunis. Their reunion brings the two strands together: what Costanza intended as an end becomes the beginning of a shared life back in Lipari.

Story and narrative setting

The episode is told by Emilia on the Fifth Day, whose stories take up love and its outcomes. Emilia introduces this tale through the idea that people naturally take pleasure in seeing affection rewarded, and that love deserves happiness rather than suffering. Costanza and Martuccio’s story tests that promise through a sequence of apparent losses: news of a death, a solitary voyage meant to end in death, and a long separation across the sea. Its eventual happy ending does not erase those ordeals; it makes survival and reunion the reward at the end of them.

The lovers’ fortunes change in separate places before their paths meet again. Costanza is carried from Lipari to the North African shore near Susa, while Martuccio, imprisoned in Tunis, earns a place at the king’s side through practical counsel. The episode’s movement between islands, ports, and courts makes the sea both a force of separation and the means by which Costanza is carried into a new life.

Costanza’s voyage and rescue

After several people bring word to Lipari that Martuccio and everyone aboard his vessel have drowned, Costanza grieves intensely and resolves not to live. Unable to kill herself by a direct act, she chooses a way of putting herself in the path of death. One night she slips out of her father’s house and finds a small fishing boat, equipped with mast, sail, and oars, near the harbor. She rows out, sets sail, casts away the oars and rudder, and leaves herself to the waves, expecting the unsteered boat either to capsize or to strike a rock. Wrapped in a mantle, she lies weeping in its bottom.

The voyage brings the opposite of what she intended. The wind is northerly and light, the sea almost calm, and the boat survives the night. By the following day, around vespers, it reaches a beach near Susa, roughly a hundred miles beyond Tunis. Costanza has been so absorbed in despair that she does not realize the boat has come ashore. A poor woman gathering her masters’ fishermen’s nets sees the vessel run onto land and approaches, expecting to find sleeping fishermen. Instead, she finds Costanza alone and asleep. Recognizing her Christian clothing, the woman speaks to her in Latin. Costanza initially wonders whether a change of wind has carried her back toward Lipari, but, seeing unfamiliar land, asks where she is. When she learns that she is near Susa in Barbary, her disappointment at having survived gives way to fear and tears.

Shelter and changing fortunes

The woman, Carapresa, responds with practical kindness. She leaves Costanza in her hut while she gathers her nets, then wraps her from head to foot in her own mantle and takes her into Susa. There she commends Costanza to an elderly Saracen woman, whom she serves and describes as compassionate. The older woman receives Costanza as a daughter. She and the other women of the household live without men and earn their living through handwork, making goods from silk, palm-fibre, and leather. Costanza learns some of these crafts, wins the favor of the women through her work, and, with their instruction, learns their language.

While Costanza is believed at home to be lost and dead, Martuccio’s circumstances also change. He is imprisoned when a young claimant from Granada challenges Mariabdela, king of Tunis. Hearing that the king is preparing to defend his rule, Martuccio offers to advise him. His stratagem depends on the different shapes of the archers’ arrows and bowstrings: after the armies have spent their own arrows, the enemy will be unable to use the arrows shot by Martuccio’s side because their narrow notches will not fit the enemy’s thicker strings, while Martuccio’s men will be able to use the enemy’s wider-notched arrows with their thinner strings. The king follows the advice and wins the war. Martuccio consequently rises from prison to the king’s favor and a rich, elevated position.

Recognition, marriage, and return

Word of Martuccio’s changed fortunes reaches Costanza. The love that had cooled during her belief in his death flares up again, and hope returns with the news that he is alive. She tells the elderly woman who sheltered her the full story of her adventures and asks to go to Tunis, so that she can see for herself the man whose survival she has heard about. The woman approves and travels with her, treating her like a daughter. Carapresa accompanies them, and they are honorably received in the home of one of the older woman’s kinswomen.

Carapresa goes to learn whether Martuccio is indeed alive and reports back that he is thriving. The older woman then arranges the meeting herself. She tells Martuccio that a servant from Lipari has come to her house and wants to speak privately. When he follows her there and sees Costanza, she runs to him with open arms. She cannot speak at first, but weeps as she embraces him, moved by both their past misfortunes and their present joy. Martuccio, astonished to find her alive after hearing that she was lost, embraces and kisses her, also weeping. Costanza recounts what has happened to her and the honorable treatment she received from the woman who sheltered her.

Martuccio then asks the king’s permission to marry Costanza according to their law. The king summons her, hears that her story confirms Martuccio’s account, and approves the match. He gives generous gifts to both of them and leaves them free to do as they wish together. Before departing, Martuccio thanks the woman who had sheltered Costanza and gives her gifts suited to her standing; Costanza takes leave of her with many tears. With the king’s leave, Martuccio and Costanza embark with Carapresa and sail back to Lipari in fair weather. There they marry amid great rejoicing and celebrate a splendid wedding. Their subsequent years together are described as peaceful and happy, completing the reversal from Costanza’s lonely voyage toward death to a life joined with Martuccio.