Filomena, teller of the confession-trick story

Filomena, teller of the confession-trick story, emerges as both a cautious participant in the women’s deliberations and a storyteller alert to the ways women can outmaneuver clerical authority. Her practical intervention in the company’s plans contrasts with the wit and sexual initiative she celebrates in the tale she tells on the Third Day.

A cautious voice in the company

When Pampinea proposes that the women leave the city and seek diversion elsewhere, Filomena agrees with the counsel but objects to acting in haste. She warns that a company of women may not manage itself well without guidance, describing women as fickle, wilful, suspicious, faint-hearted, and timid. Her words present the departure not simply as an escape from danger but as a problem of organizing and preserving the group.

Filomena’s argument reflects the conventions of her moment: she treats male guidance as a safeguard against the company’s breaking apart and losing its honour. Elisa responds by agreeing that men are customarily regarded as women’s heads, while pointing out that their male relatives have died or fled and that inviting strangers could bring scandal. The exchange gives Filomena a distinct role in the decision-making scene: she slows an impulsive plan and makes the company consider how it will remain together.

Storytelling on the Third Day

Later, after the queen turns to her following the preceding tale, Filomena introduces a story about a beautiful, high-born Florentine woman who is married to a wealthy wool merchant. The woman regards her husband’s craft and social standing as beneath her, and, unwilling to welcome his embraces except when she cannot refuse, falls passionately in love with a gentleman of good quality and middle age.

The lady does not dare approach the gentleman directly through a messenger or letter, fearing the risks such contact might bring. Instead, she notices that he often keeps company with a churchman reputed to be devout, although Filomena calls the friar dull. The story’s premise is that the woman uses the friar, without his suspecting her purpose, to make her desire possible. Filomena withholds the characters’ names, explaining that people connected with the affair may still be alive and could take offence at having it exposed.

Clerical satire and female ingenuity

Filomena frames the tale as evidence that friars, despite their claims to superiority and wisdom, can be cleverly deceived—not only by men but by women. Her opening turns the friar’s public reputation for devotion into part of the joke: apparent piety does not prevent him from becoming an instrument in a woman’s private scheme.

The tale’s anonymous heroine is neither free of social constraint nor simply passive within it. Her marriage, her judgment of her husband’s status, and the danger of communicating openly shape her choices; her response is to work through an existing connection rather than risk a direct declaration. In pairing this story with her earlier insistence on orderly guidance for the women’s company, Filomena appears as a narrator attentive to both the restrictions surrounding women and the practical intelligence they can exercise within them.