Page 60 - THE DECAMERON: 100 Days on 100 Etchings by Petru Rusu

“Agilulf and the Groom“
King Agilulf of Lombardy marries Theodolinda, the beautiful
widow of the former king.But a lovely Queen doesn’t go
long without an admirer and Theodolinda’s no exception.
Her lover is of incredibly low social status, but also capable
and handsome. He’s also not stupid, so he keeps his love
to himself. Instead, he tries to do things for the Queen
that will attract her notice. The Queen shows him a small
bit of favor by always choosing the horse under his care
to ride. But that’s all the hope the groom gets, and pretty
soon, it just isn’t enough. His love burns even hotter and
he determines to die if he can’t have her. But he’s going
to do it in such a way that a) The Queen knows the reason
he died and b) he’ll be able to get what he wants from the
Queen just before he dies. The groom decides that the
best way to do this is to impersonate the King. They’re the
same height, after all. So the groom hides in the palace to
study what the King wears and how he behaves when he
approaches the Queen’s chamber for the night. The groom
finds a cloak similar to the King’s and chooses a stick so
that he can bang on her door the way the King does. Then
he takes a nice bath so that he doesn’t offend with his
odor. And guess what? His plan works. He manages to
“enjoy” the Queen multiple times in one night. After he
leaves, the Queen gets a surprise visit from the real King,
who is feeling very rested and ready to make a night of
DECAMERON 60
it. The Queen tells him that he should really take it easy;
he might hurt himself if he does too much “work” in the
evenings. Agilulf immediately understands what must have
happened, but keeps quiet. He can tell that the Queen has
no idea that she’d been duped. Later on, Agilulf makes his
way to the servants’ quarters so that he can check the
heart rate of the “sleeping” servants. Surely, the guilty
party would still be pumped up after that exertion? When
he reaches the groom, he knows he’s got his man. But
he’s still concerned for his wife’s (and his own) reputation,
so he doesn’t make a fuss. Instead, he grabs a pair of
shears and cuts off a lock of the groom’s hair so that he
can identify him in the morning. The groom, meanwhile,
is really awake but pretending not to see what the King’s
doing. After Agilulf leaves, the groom comes up with an
ingenious plan: he’ll just cut a lock of hair off of all the
sleeping servants. So when the King lines them up the next
morning, he finds that all the servants have the same lock
of hair cut off. He can’t identify the perp. Agilulf realizes
that his adversary is clever and - still concerned about
his reputation - issues a general warning and leaves it at
that. In doing this, King Agilulf scores a point: he doesn’t
distress his wife or reveal his shame but makes sure that
the groom knows his moves and won’t allow him to get
away with those shenanigans again.
“Agilulf and the Groom” Retrieved from publicly source: shmoop
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