Ferondo Feigns Death and Returns to Life

Ferondo Feigns Death and Returns to Life is the staged climax of Dioneo’s tale: after months in a drug-induced deathlike sleep, Ferondo emerges from his tomb convinced that prayer has brought him back from Purgatory. The abbot turns that conviction into public proof of a miracle, and Ferondo’s return settles the household in a way that allows the abbot’s relationship with Ferondo’s wife to continue.

The Secret Return

After Ferondo has spent nearly ten months in the tomb, the abbot gives him wine containing enough sleeping powder to make him sleep for about four hours. With a monk’s help, he dresses Ferondo in his own clothes and secretly puts him back in the tomb. The apparent resurrection is therefore prepared as part of a deception: Ferondo is not returning from the dead, but waking after being drugged and hidden away.

At daybreak Ferondo sees light through a crevice, something he has not seen for a very long time, and concludes that he is alive again. He cries out for the tomb to be opened and pushes at its lid with his head, moving it enough to begin forcing his way out. The monks have just finished Matins. Hearing his voice and seeing him emerge, they flee in alarm to the abbot.

A Manufactured Miracle

The abbot presents himself as if he has risen from prayer and directs the monks to take the cross and holy water and follow him. Ferondo comes out pale from his long confinement and throws himself at the abbot’s feet. He credits the abbot’s prayers, together with those of St. Benedict and his wife, with releasing him from the pains of Purgatory and restoring him to life. He also says that he intends to find and kiss his wife as soon as he can.

The abbot answers with public praise of God’s power and instructs Ferondo to comfort his wife, who, he claims, has remained in tears since Ferondo’s death. Once alone with the monks, he makes a show of wonder and has them sing the Miserere. The staged return thus acquires the outward forms of religious testimony and worship: Ferondo supplies an account of the afterlife, while the abbot’s performance tells the onlookers how to interpret it.

The Story That Ferondo Tells

Back in his village, Ferondo’s sudden appearance frightens those who see him, and they flee. He calls them back and declares that he has been raised from the dead. Once the villagers are reassured that he is alive, they question him about what he has seen. Ferondo responds as though he has returned wiser, inventing elaborate stories about the souls of their dead relatives and recounting a revelation he attributes to Angel Gabriel.

His tale gives the abbot’s fraud a second life. The villagers’ belief in Ferondo’s experience adds greatly to the abbot’s reputation for sanctity, although the supposed revelation is fabricated by Ferondo and the supposed resurrection was arranged by the abbot. The episode’s reversal is especially sharp because the account that seems to confirm the abbot’s holiness is produced by the very deception he has engineered.

Household Consequences

Ferondo resumes possession of his goods and, as he believes, gets his wife with child. In due time she gives birth to a boy called Benedict Ferondi. The timing of the birth is presented as fitting the belief that pregnancy lasts nine months, allowing the household’s concealed circumstances to pass as ordinary to those who accept that calculation.

The abbot’s arrangement also changes Ferondo’s conduct. The beatings he has received during his supposed stay in Purgatory seem to have cured his jealousy; he is no longer jealous, fulfilling the abbot’s promise to Ferondo’s wife. She is pleased and lives honestly with her husband in her usual manner, except that, when she can conveniently do so, she continues to meet the abbot. Ferondo’s return therefore ends neither the deception nor the affair: it restores a domestic peace founded on his false belief and the abbot’s calculated performance.