Page 228 - THE DECAMERON: 100 Days on 100 Etchings by Petru Rusu

“Saladin and Messer Torello“
Panfilo sets his story during the Third Crusade (about 1189, led by
Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa). Saladin, the legendary Sultan of
Babylon, disguises himself as a merchant and tours Europe to scout
out the countries of the Christian crusaders coming to destroy him.
On their way to Pavia, he and his companions run into a gentleman
called Torello. Torello is so impressed by the merchants that he
arranges, with a little deception, for them to stay at his country
home. Saladin and Torello admire each other. Saladin speaks Italian,
so he’s able to converse freely with Torello. Torello thinks Saladin
is the finest guy ever and wants to impress the “merchant” even
more, so he sends a message to his wife in the city of Pavia asking
her to prepare a little something for his guests. Torello pretends to
bring them to the finest inn in Pavia, but really he’s bringing them
to his own mansion. Saladin doesn’t know what to make of this
guy. He’s so generous that he can’t be for real. When they get to
town, his wife has set up a feast with lots of VIPs to entertain the
merchants. Saladin’s kind of exasperated. He’s trying to be under
the radar and Torello isn’t having it. Torello’s wife gives Saladin
and his companions’ two sumptuous robes apiece as parting
gifts. Torello himself replaces their old, tired horses with new ones.
Saladin suspects that Torello sees through his disguise. Otherwise,
why would an ordinary citizen go through the trouble of entertaining
merchants as if they were emperors? He tells his companions that
he’s never met anyone like Torello before. As they’re saying their
goodbyes, Torello tells Saladin that he can’t believe his new friends
are merchants. Saladin replies that one day, he’ll prove the “quality
of his merchandise” to Torello. What could that mean? Saladin also
promises himself that he’ll repay Torello’s kindness if he survives
the coming wars. He returns home and makes plans to fight the
Crusaders. Torello makes plans to join the Crusade. His wife is not
happy. He tells her that if he doesn’t return in a year, a month, and
a day, and if she doesn’t have proof that he’s alive, she should
re-marry. She gives him a ring so that in case she should die, it
would remind him of her. Torello makes it as far as Acre, but the
crusading troops are afflicted with an epidemic of fever and Saladin
captures everyone else. Torello hides his identity to protect himself,
and gets a job training hawks. He’s so good at it that Saladin makes
him his personal falconer. So here’s the problem with disguises:
you don’t recognize a good friend when you see him. Saladin never
learns Torello’s name. He calls him “the Christian.” Torello tries
without luck to escape. He manages to get a letter off to his wife
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by way of some Italian emissaries. Eventually, Saladin recognizes a
certain expression on Torello’s face. But Torello insists that he’s just
a poor man. Saladin devises a test: he lays out all of his robes and
asks Torello if he recognizes any of them. Torello says that two of
them remind him of robes his wife once gave to some merchants.
Saladin hugs him and tells him that now “he will prove the quality
of his merchandise.” Saladin entertains Torello as his equal and
Torello kind of likes it. He totally forgets about his wife and his
promise to her. Otoh, he believes that his letter has been delivered.
It hasn’t. Also, another Torello, a Provençal nobody who was with
the Crusaders, had died. Everybody thought it our Torello.Word
gets back to his wife that Torello’s dead. Her family pressures her
to re-marry. Torello finally gets word that the ship carrying his letter
sank. The deadline he’d given his wife is fast approaching. Now he
wants to die for reals. But Saladin tells him to cheer up. He’s got
an ace up his sleeve. He gets his conjurer to make an enchanted
bed that will fly Torello home in an instant. Saladin wants Torello
to stay and rule with him a political version of bromance. He’s
also bummed that he can’t send Torello back to Pavia in style. So
he decks out the bed as much as he can (read that however you
like) and dresses Torello in funky, expensive eastern clothes. At
departure time, Saladin is grieved that he can’t go with his friend
and begs Torello to come back to him or at least to write. Then
he “enfolds [Torello] tenderly in his arms.” Torello’s given a sleeping
potion to make the transport smooth, kind of like Ripley and
crew in “Alien.” Saladin places a crown with a gift tag to Torello’s
wife on it, a ring on Torello’s finger, a sword by his side and other
precious things around him. Torello zips away and wakes up in the
church near his home, where his uncle’s the abbot. He scares the
bejeebers out of the clergy, who are under the impression that he’s
dead. Now he has to crash his wife’s wedding, which is taking place
that day. No one recognizes him. Torello decides to reveal himself
to his wife at her wedding feast. He pretends that it’s a custom of
his country for the bride to ask a valued guest to drink wine from
her cup and for the guest to send it back so she can drink the last
drops. So he gets the cup from her and slips her ring into the dregs.
When she recognizes it, she knocks over the table and claims him
as her true husband. Torello reclaims her from her new bridegroom.
She takes off her crown and new wedding ring and replaces them
with the ring and the crown from Saladin. And of course, they live
happily ever after. Nothing further is said about Saladin, however.
“Saladin and Messer Torello” retrieved from publicly source: shmoop
<https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/decameron/summary/tenth-day-ninth-story>