The Vicissitudes of Fortune

The Vicissitudes of Fortune names a recurring structure in the Decameron: gains can turn abruptly into losses, and apparent ruin can give way to renewed hope. Fortune is not a dependable moral judge. It acts through storms, accidents, reports, and unforeseen encounters, while human ingenuity, restraint, and choice shape what follows. The stories make reversals vivid by attaching them to concrete stakes—freedom, love, life, and public standing—and by showing how quickly an expected future can disappear.

Reversal and the precariousness of success

Cimon’s story gives Fortune its most dramatic image of sudden change. After overcoming the Rhodians, Cimon takes Iphigenia aboard his ship, releases his captives, and turns toward Crete, where he expects to find safety among friends and kin. His victory seems to have carried him from frustrated desire to possession of the woman he loves. Yet before four hours have passed, a tempest overtakes the ship. The night he had expected to be his happiest becomes a struggle against clouds, violent winds, and waves that make it impossible for the sailors to steer or even keep the deck.

The storm does more than threaten the travelers’ lives: it reverses the meaning of Cimon’s success. Iphigenia weeps and blames his presumption, interpreting the tempest as evidence that the gods oppose his effort to marry her against her will. Driven without control of their course, the ship returns to Rhodes, where Cimon and his companions are recognized and imprisoned. Iphigenia is taken back into the care of Rhodian ladies until her wedding day. Cimon’s triumph has lasted only a few hours, and he has gained little more than a kiss or two before losing her again.

That reversal does not settle his fate. The Rhodians spare Cimon and his men because he had released the young men he captured, although Pasimondas presses for their execution. Their lives are thus preserved by a choice made during the earlier victory. Meanwhile, Pasimondas arranges for his brother Ormisdas to marry Cassandra on the same day as his own wedding to Iphigenia. Lysimachus, who loves Cassandra, sees his hope closing. He considers carrying her off, recognizes the dishonor involved, and finally lets love overcome his scruples. The passage presents Fortune’s turns alongside decisions that remain the characters’ responsibility: the storm and the imprisonment are reversals, but mercy, ambition, and the planned abductions belong to human action.

Loss, news, and the return of hope

The story of Costanza and Martuccio Gomito shows how separation can make a person seem lost before fate has actually closed the story. Carapresa rescues Costanza and takes her to Susa, where an elderly Saracen woman receives her into a household of women who work at crafts. Costanza learns their language and skills; at home, meanwhile, she is mourned as dead. Her circumstances have changed so radically that reunion appears unlikely.

Martuccio’s own reversal begins in captivity. Hearing that Mariabdela, King of Tunis, is struggling to defend his kingdom, Martuccio asks to advise him. He proposes that the king’s archers use unusually thin bowstrings and arrows notched to fit them. Once both sides have spent their own arrows, the enemy cannot reuse arrows shot by the king’s forces, while the king’s archers can use the enemy’s wider-notched arrows. The stratagem helps win the war, and Martuccio rises to wealth and favor. His survival and advancement reach Costanza through a report: she had believed him dead, but now hears he is alive and prosperous. The news rekindles her love and revives the hope she had lost.

Costanza then chooses to act on what she has heard. With the old woman’s help, she travels to Tunis, and Carapresa confirms that Martuccio is alive. The old woman arranges their meeting by telling him that a servant from Lipari wishes to speak privately. When Costanza sees him, she runs into his arms and can only weep, joining grief for their past misfortunes with present joy. Fortune’s turn here is not a simple gift bestowed from above: Martuccio’s ingenuity changes his position, information crosses the distance separating the lovers, and Costanza decides to follow it.

Chance at the edge of catastrophe

In the episode at La Cuba, a fortunate reunion seems poised to become disaster. Gianni di Procida has entered the chamber where Restituta is waiting for him; she has left the window open and disclosed her wish to be carried away. The two fall asleep together. Frederick, King of Sicily, arrives before dawn and finds them naked in each other’s arms. He is furious, but chooses not to kill them in their sleep. Instead, he orders them bound, taken to Palermo, displayed at a stake, and burned at the hour of tierce.

The lovers’ private hope is transformed into a public sentence. They are awakened, bound, and brought before the townspeople while faggots and fire are prepared. The reversal depends on a chance discovery, but its immediate consequences are carried out through the king’s deliberate command. The scene therefore complicates any idea that Fortune automatically rewards love or corrects injustice: at this point in the account, the lovers’ fate appears to be moving toward execution, and no rescue is yet disclosed.

A different kind of reversal interrupts Teodoro’s execution. Led away under sentence of death, he is asked about his origins and says he was born in Armenia and is the son of Fineo. Fineo recognizes him as the son he lost, comes down from the place where he is watching, embraces him, and covers his shoulders with a rich silk mantle. The recognition changes the condemned man’s status at once: he is no longer treated simply as a slave, but is identified as Fineo’s free son. Fineo asks Messer Currado to defer the execution so the law can be observed if Teodoro is willing to marry Violante, and Messer Currado sends Teodoro home rather than carrying out the sentence.

Fortune and human choice

The danger has not ended when Fineo recognizes Teodoro. Messer Amerigo, believing his daughter Violante and grandson dead, has sent a servant to force her to choose between a poniard and poison. A second messenger arrives with Messer Amerigo’s order to stop, finding the servant still pressuring her. The timing preserves the possibility of reconciliation: Violante is left unharmed, and Messer Amerigo, learning what has happened, apologizes to Fineo and agrees to the marriage. Teodoro, who has found his father while still fearing death, accepts the prospect of marrying Violante; she too says that becoming his wife would be her greatest happiness, provided the others consent.

The Decameron’s framing of Fortune makes the principle explicit without reducing these episodes to a rule of reward and punishment. In introducing the story of Federigo degli Alberighi, the queen warns that Fortune does not always give wisely, but often gives beyond measure; she urges her listeners to become, when needed, the bestowers of their own rewards rather than always submitting to its direction. This framing brings human judgment into the pattern. A storm can undo a victory, a report can restore hope, and a recognition can interrupt an execution, but mercy, resourcefulness, and deliberate generosity also alter what becomes possible. Fortune supplies the instability; the characters’ responses determine how they meet it.