Madam Adalieta

Madam Adalieta’s story turns on a promise made before a departure and a ring that makes recognition possible after a false report of death. As the young wife of Messer Torello d'Istria, she is separated from him by the crusade, bereavement, and her family’s insistence that she marry again. Her reunion with him arrives almost at the last moment: on the day she is to leave for a new marriage, the ring she entrusted to him reveals that her first husband is alive.

Marriage and the Parting Promise

Messer Torello d'Istria loves his wife above all, but, despite her tears and entreaties, resolves to join the crusade. Before leaving, he entrusts her with their affairs and honor and asks her to wait a year, a month, and a day before marrying again if she receives no certain news that he is alive. His request recognizes both the uncertainty of his return and the pressure that might be brought to bear on a young, beautiful woman of high family if he were believed dead.

Madam Adalieta answers that she does not know how she will bear the sorrow of his departure, but promises to live and die his wife and in memory of him if he dies. She also accepts the practical force of his request: if circumstances compel her to act otherwise, she will at least observe the waiting period he specified. Her answer binds personal fidelity to a term of time, a distinction that becomes crucial when rumor and family authority intervene.

As they part, she draws a ring from her finger and gives it to him, asking him to remember her if she dies before seeing him again. The ring is thus both a farewell token and a pledge attached to the possibility of death. It travels with Messer Torello d'Istria through his captivity and eventual return, eventually serving as proof that the apparent stranger at her wedding is the husband she had mourned.

Mourning and Pressure to Remarry

Messer Torello d'Istria is captured and carried to Alexandria, where he remains unknown to those who might report his survival. Meanwhile, a Provençal gentleman who shares his name has died and been buried. Reports that Messer Torello is dead consequently reach his wife and relatives, even though they concern the other man. The mistaken identity turns absence into apparent certainty: Madam Adalieta has no reliable news by which to distinguish her husband’s fate from the report.

She grieves for months, then is sought in marriage by leading men in Lombardy. Her brothers and other relatives repeatedly press her to marry again. She refuses with tears before eventually consenting under pressure, but makes her consent conditional: she will not go to a husband until the period promised to Messer Torello has run its course. Her decision does not erase her earlier vow; it shows how that vow is maintained within the limited choices left to her by her relatives’ demands and the accepted report of her husband’s death.

The timing makes her conditional agreement especially poignant. When the tale returns to her situation, perhaps eight days remain before the end of the appointed term, and the wedding feast has already been prepared. She is due to go to her new husband that very morning. The story brings the apparent fulfillment of her family’s plan and the final days of her promised wait into direct collision.

Recognition at the Wedding Feast

Returned to Pavia through Saladin’s aid, Messer Torello d'Istria arrives at the feast disguised by his long beard and Saracen clothing. No one recognizes him. The abbot tells the assembled company that he is a Saracen ambassador, and he is seated opposite the bride. Madam Adalieta looks at him without knowing who he is; the disguise and her firm belief that her husband is dead keep familiarity from becoming recognition.

Messer Torello d'Istria asks that a cup be sent to him according to a custom he presents as belonging to his country: a bride should welcome a stranger at the wedding feast by sending him the cup from which she has drunk. Madam Adalieta, believing him to be a distinguished guest, has a large gilded cup washed, filled, and carried across to him. Her courteous response to the request creates the occasion for the recognition, though she does not yet know its purpose.

As he drinks, Messer Torello d'Istria drops her ring into the cup unseen. Madam Adalieta takes it back, discovers the ring, and studies it in silence before recognizing the token she had given him at their parting. She overturns the table and cries out that the stranger is her husband. Then she runs to him and embraces him so fiercely that no one present can draw her away until he asks her to contain herself; there will be time enough for further embraces. The ring has converted a formal exchange at a wedding into undeniable proof of a marriage thought ended by death.

Reunion and Narrative Significance

The wedding is interrupted, but Messer Torello d'Istria asks the company to remain quiet while he recounts what has happened since his departure. He explains that, being alive, he means to take his wife back, and the bridegroom, though mortified, replies that Torello may do as he pleases. Madam Adalieta then removes the ring and crown given by her new husband and puts on the ring recovered from the cup and the crown sent by Saladin. Her changed ornaments make the reversal visible: the marriage prepared in the belief that Torello was dead gives way to the return of the husband whose life the ring confirms.

The reunited couple goes with the wedding party to Messer Torello d'Istria’s house. There they comfort the friends and relatives who had mourned him, while the townspeople celebrate what they regard as an almost miraculous return. The narrative closes with a restored household and the continuing friendship between Messer Torello d'Istria and Saladin, to whom Torello sends messages after reaching home.

Madam Adalieta’s role is concentrated in a sequence of promises, constrained decisions, and recognition. She cannot prevent the report of death or the pressure her relatives exert, but she holds to the agreed waiting period and responds decisively when the ring reveals the truth. The ending makes the token more than a sentimental keepsake: it links the parting vow to the reunion and turns a wedding staged around absence into a public acknowledgment of return.