Page 70 - THE DECAMERON: 100 Days on 100 Etchings by Petru Rusu

“Tedaldo degli Elisei“
Tedaldo degli Elisei (a Florentine) has the bad luck to fall in love
with Monna Ermellina, who’s inconveniently married to another
man, Aldobrandino Palermini. For a while, it works out: Ermellina
gives him what he asks for and he’s very pleased.But suddenly,
she refuses to see him without giving a reason. Tedaldo’s
devastated, so he decides to slink away without telling anyone
except one friend. He arrives in Ancona and takes the name Filippo
di Sanlodecchio. This Filippo finds employment with a merchant
and he immediately ships off for Cyprus. He does so well in his
new position that he’s rewarded with a good salary and great
responsibility. Things stay like this for seven years. But one day,
Filippo hears someone singing a song that he’d composed about
his former lover, and all of his longing returns. He decides to return
home to catch a glimpse of her. When he arrives in Florence, he
walks to Ermellina’s house and finds that it’s been closed up.
Filippo then walks on to his former home and sees his brothers
standing around, all dressed in black. He asks around and finds
out that his own brothers are in mourning because their brother
Tedaldo (i.e. himself) had been murdered. Filippo/Tedaldo is even
more amazed to hear that Aldobrandino has been accused of his
murder. As he tries to sleep at his inn that night, Tedaldo sees
three men enter from the roof and confess to the murder of a
man they call Tedaldo. The real Tedaldo knows that he has to do
something to save Aldobrandino (even though he’s the husband of
his lady love), so he comes up with a plan. First, he visits Ermellina
to learn why she snubbed him so long ago. She doesn’t recognize
him and Tedaldo manages to impress her so much with his intimate
knowledge of her situation that Ermellina thinks he’s a prophet.
Tedaldo exploits that very nicely. He tells Ermellina that God’s angry
with her for one particular sin that she committed in her youth
(i.e. rejecting Tedaldo). Ermellina tells him that she cut off Tedaldo
because a friar told her she’d wind up in the deepest pit of Hell if
she continued her affair. Tedaldo tells her that he’s a friar himself
(FYI, a total lie) and he can say with total certainty that “modern”
friars are far from holy. In fact, they only want women and money,
so they torment lay people with stories of hell and punishments.
Tedaldo spends a long time on the wickedness of friars to say
one thing: friars denounce the sins of lay people so that they can
DECAMERON 70
clear the way to perpetrate those sins themselves. He convinces
Ermellina that she, in fact, had stolen from Tedaldo (because she
had given herself to him and then took herself away) and sent him
into exile and ultimately caused him to be murdered. Isn’t that
much worse, he says, than garden-variety adultery? To sum up:
Ermellina’s husband is about to die for murder and she herself is
in despair all because of her stupid need to follow the advice of
a “holy man.” The “friar” makes her promise that if Tedaldo should
return, she’ll give herself to him again. Ermellina thinks that this
is nuts she’s seen Tedaldo’s dead body but she promises. With
that, Tedaldo shows her a ring that she’d given to him on their last
night and reveals his identity. Ermellina’s mighty freaked out. She
thinks Tedaldo has come back from the grave. After a few kisses,
Tedaldo’s off to see Aldobrandino in jail. Still disguised, he asks
Aldo to do one thing if he’s freed: forgive Tedaldo’s brothers for
landing him in jail. Aldobrandino promises readily to do this and
Tedaldo is off again to see the judge. In the end Tedaldo manages
to convince the judge that the two innkeeper brothers were guilty
of the murder in question. The men are arrested and confess to
the murder of Tedaldo, but the reason they give is interesting: the
man had been pestering one of their wives and had tried to rape
her. So the thugs are summarily dispatched and Aldobrandino
is released. There’s much rejoicing in his house, but still no one
knows that Tedaldo’s really alive. Aldobrandino makes good on
his promise to reconcile with Tedaldo’s brothers and invites them
for a banquet, where he pardons them in public. Finally, Tedaldo
reveals himself to them. At first, they don’t believe he’s alive. He
has to convince them by relating things only the real Tedaldo
would know. After the partying dies down (a few days, give or
take), Tedaldo settles back into his life. The people of Florence still
weren’t 100% convinced that he was the real Tedaldo. Then they
learn, by accident, who the real dead man was. One day, a group
of soldiers passes through town and greets Tedaldo by the name
Faziulo. As soon as Tedaldo speaks, they realize their mistake, but
the description they give of their missing friend and his clothing fit
the murdered man to a tee. Now that the question of his identity is
cleared up, Tedaldo lives happily ever after. And no Ermellina never
refuses him again.
“Tedaldo degli Elisei” Retrieved from publicly source: shmoop
<https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/decameron/summary/third-day-seventh-story>