Boccaccio's Fiammetta and the Consolation of Literature
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Boccaccio’s Fiammetta and the Consolation of Literature
Gur Zak
MLN, Volume 131, Number 1, January 2016 (Italian Issue), pp. 1-19 (Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mln.2016.0005
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/616048
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]Boccaccio’s Fiammetta and the
Consolation of Literature
❦
Gur Zak
The belief in the power of literature to furnish consolation for hardship
constitutes a central feature of Boccaccio’s literary corpus. The most
famous example of this belief emerges in the Decameron, where the
author-narrator declares that his aim in writing is to offer “consola-
zion” to his female readers wounded by love.1 Yet similar statements
on the consolatory value of literature can be found in many other
of Boccaccio’s works, from the early Filocolo through the Comedia delle
ninfe fiorentine to the later Book 14 of the Genealogia deorum gentilium.2
When discussing Boccaccio’s view of literary consolation, scholars
have tended to identify his position with the “diversion” and “recrea-
tion” offered by reading, the simple enjoyment of the pleasure of the
text.3 Nonetheless, Boccaccio’s works exhibit a much more elaborate
1
“Nobilissime giovani, a consolazion delle quali io a cosí lunga fatica messo mi sono”
(Conclusione dell’autore 1). Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca, 2 vols.
(Torino: Einaudi, 1992).
2
See Giovanni Boccaccio, Filocolo, 1.2.1–2, ed. Antonio Enzo Quaglio, Tutte le opere di
Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. Vittore Branca, vol. 1 (Milano: Mondadori, 1967), and Giovanni
Boccaccio, Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine, 1.2–4, ed. Antonio Enzo Quaglio, Tutte le opere,
vol. 2 (Milano: Mondadori, 1964). In his defense of poetry in Book 14 of the Genealogia
deorum gentilium, Boccaccio alludes to the “solamen” which the maiden Charis received
from listening to the story of Cupid and Psyche, as described in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.
See Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogia deorum gentilium, 14.9, ed. Vittorio Zaccaria, Tutte le
opere, vols. 7–8 (Milano: Mondadori, 1998).
3
The scholarly tendency to associate Boccaccio’s view of consolation with the pleasure
of reading—and to concentrate almost exclusively on his view as it emerges from the
Decameron—goes back to Francesco De Sanctis, who described the stories of the Deca-
meron in the following manner: “[I] racconti non hanno altro fine che di far passare il
tempo piacevolmente, e sono veri mezzani di piacere e d’amore.” Francesco De Sanctis,
Storia della letteratura italiana, 1871, 2 vols. (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1956) 1:317. De Sanctis’
MLN 131 (2016): 1–19 © 2016 by Johns Hopkins University Press2 Gur Zak
and multi-faceted engagement with the issue. Near the beginning of
the Filocolo, for example, the narrator explains to the readers what
type of “consolazione” they may gain from their reading, alluding to
two types of solace which differ from pure aesthetic pleasure. As the
narrator declares, by reading about the tribulations of the protagonists
Florio and Biancifiore, readers will be able to realize that they are not
alone in suffering, a realization which is in itself comforting in his
view. Furthermore, the ultimate happy ending of the two lovers’ story
will also provide readers, according to the narrator, with a consolatory
hope, a “speranza” for a similar “guiderdone.”4
Boccaccio’s elaborate and often complex engagement with the
consolation of literature is evident not only in his narrators’ explicit
statements, but also in the intra-diegetic reflections on the conso-
position was reiterated by Charles Singleton, who argued that the art of the Decameron
is one which “can exist with no other raison d’être than that in itself it is a consolation
and a delight.” Charles Singleton, “On Meaning in the Decameron,” Italica 21.3 (1944):
117–24, 119. This view of the “ludico-consolatoria” nature of the Decameron is still do-
minant in Boccaccio scholarship, even if advanced through more sophisticated and
elaborate analyses. See, for example, Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Ragionare nel giardino: Boccac-
cio e i cicli pittorici del “trionfo della morte” (Roma: Salerno, 2000) 186–98; Pier Massimo
Forni, Adventures in Speech: Rhetoric and Narration in Boccaccio’s Decameron (Philadelphia:
U of Pennsylvania P, 1996) 29–39; Giuseppe Mazzotta, The World at Play in Boccaccio’s
Decameron (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986) 70–74; Glending Olson, Literature as Recre-
ation in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982) 164–215; Michelangelo Picone,
Boccaccio e la codificazione della novella: Letture del “Decameron” (Ravenna: Longo, 2008)
51–65; Marco Veglia, “La vita lieta:” Una lettura del Decameron (Ravenna: Longo, 2000)
esp. 57–94. Interesting reflections on the consolation of storytelling in the Decameron
are also included in Millicent Joy Marcus, An Allegory of Form: Literary Self-Consciousness in
the Decameron (Saratoga: ANMA Libri, 1979) 110–125, and Stephen J. Milner, “Coming
Together: Consolation and the Rhetoric of Insinuation in Boccaccio’s Decameron,” The
Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Catherine Léglu and
Stephen J. Milner (New York: Plagrave Macmillan, 2008) 95–113. Teodolinda Barolini
has offered an insightful analysis of Boccaccio’s “Philosophy of Consolation,” in which
she focuses on the social and inter-personal nature of Boccaccio’s vision of consolation,
again primarily in the Decameron. Teodolinda Barolini, “A Philosophy of Consolation:
The Place of the Other in Life’s Transactions (‘se Dio m’avesse dato fratello o non me
lo avesse dato’),” Boccaccio 1313–2013, ed. Francesco Ciabattoni, Elsa Filosa, and Kristina
Olson (Ravenna: Longo, 2015) 89–105. For an important study of Boccaccio’s two later
consolatory works, the Epistola consolatoria a Pino de’ Rossi and the eclogue Olympia, see
Giuseppe Chiecchi, La parola del dolore: Primi studi sulla letteratura consolatoria tra medioevo
e umanesimo (Padova: Antenore, 2005) 264–336.
4
The Filocolo’s narrator’s statement reads: “Adunque, o giovani . . . divotamente pre-
stiate alquanto alla presente opera lo ‘ntelletto, però che voi in essa troverete quanto
la mobile fortuna abbia negli antichi amori date varie permutazione e tempestose, alle
quali poi con tranquillo mare s’è lieta rivolta a’ sostenitori; onde per quanto potrete
vedere voi soli non essere sostenitori primi delle avverse cose, e fermamente credere di
non dovere essere gli ultimi. Di che prendere potrete consolazione se quello è vero, che
a’ miseri sia sollazo d’avere compagni nelle pene; e similemente ve ne seguirà speranza
di guiderdone, la quale non verrà sanza alleggiamento delle vostre pene” (1.2.1–2).M LN 3
latory value of literature that fill his narratives. One work in which
this meta-literary exploration is particularly at the forefront is the
Elegia di madonna Fiammetta, written probably in 1343–1344, following
Boccaccio’s return to Florence from Naples.5 Over the course of the
work, the narrator Fiammetta, who narrates her story of amorous
misfortunes from its happy beginning to its current sorrowful state,6
describes at length her attempts to gain consolation from reading and
storytelling—concentrating especially on the solace she attains from
reading about the tragic fate of others. Furthermore, in two crucial
points in the work (Chapter 1 and Chapter 6), Fiammetta portrays
her nurse’s efforts to console her—attempts that closely rely on Stoic
ethical positions. During these efforts, the nurse explains to Fiammetta
how she should use tragic narratives as a source of consolation—an
explanation which is markedly at odds, as we shall see, with Fiammet-
ta’s own use of such stories. The reflection on the way in which tragic
narratives can and should facilitate consolation thereby emerges as
one of the central themes of the Fiammetta as a whole.
Boccaccio scholarship of the past several decades has focused pri-
marily on the attitude to earthly love that emerges from the Fiammetta,
often arguing that Boccaccio’s main aim in the work is to underscore
the dangers of carnal love, the amore per diletto. Robert Hollander, for
example, has notoriously called Fiammetta a “fool” for her unwave-
ring dedication to her love and claimed that Boccaccio’s authorial
position should be identified with that of the nurse, who repeatedly
warns Fiammetta of the dangers of illicit carnal love.7 Janet Smarr
has further developed this perspective, elaborating on the rhetorical
strategies through which the author Boccaccio advances his moral
message on the dangers of earthly love.8 Francesco Bruni has reite-
5
See Carlo Delcorno’s Introduction in Boccaccio, Elegia di madonna Fiammetta, ed.
Carlo Delcorno, Tutte le opere, vol. 5 pt. 2 (Milano: Mondadori, 1994) 3. All quotations
from the Fiammetta are from this edition.
6
By depicting a story which begins joyfully and ends in agony, Fiammetta’s narrative
shares crucial features with the common medieval understanding of tragedy (comedy,
accordingly, is defined as a narrative which begins in sad matter and ends joyfully). See
Henry Ansgar Kelly, Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1993) 154–56. See also Michael Papio, “On Seneca, Mussato, Trevet, and
the Boethian ‘Tragedies’ of the De casibus,” Heliotropia 10.1–2 (2013): 47–63, 49–54.
The major impact of Ovid’s Heroides on Boccaccio’s adoption of the first person female
voice is often mentioned by scholars. See Boccaccio, Elegia di madonna Fiammetta, 8–9;
Francesco Bruni, Boccaccio: L’invenzione della letteratura mezzana (Bologna: Il Mulino,
1990) 219; Cesare Segre, “Strutture e registri nella Fiammetta,” Le strutture e il tempo
(Torino: Einaudi, 1974) 88–94; Luigi Surdich, Boccaccio (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008) 44.
7
Robert Hollander, Boccaccio’s Two Venuses (New York: Columbia UP, 1977) 42–49.
8
Janet Smarr, Boccaccio and Fiammetta: The Narrator as Lover (Urbana: U of Illinois
P, 1986) 129–48. Smarr’s analysis will be discussed in more detail later in this article.4 Gur Zak
rated a similar notion, claiming that Fiammetta represents a heroine
petrified in a “riprovevole” and illusory passion, in a manner which
recalls the sinful souls in Dante’s Inferno.9
Yet no less than a reflection on the consequences of carnal love, the
Elegia di madonna Fiammetta, this article will argue, offers an exploration
of the relationship between reading and consolation, probing the way
in which tragic narratives can and should serve as a source of solace.10
This exploration, as the first part of this article will show, is divided
between two central perspectives, which are encapsulated in the oppo-
sing views of Fiammetta and her nurse: whereas Fiammetta insists that
narratives of misfortunes can only serve as a means to attenuate grief
by allowing the reader to realize that she has companions in sorrow,
the nurse urges her to adopt a more detached approach and learn
from such stories about the dangers of the passions and the need to
disavow love altogether. This debate over reading and consolation in
the Fiammetta, the first part of this article will further show, is closely
related to Stoic discussions of consolation, particularly reflecting
Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations and Seneca’s tragedy Troades (Trojan
Women). Although scholars have long recognized the importance of
Seneca’s tragedies to Boccaccio’s Fiammetta,11 they have not discussed
his particular dialogue with Stoic views of consolation in the work.
The second part of this article will then turn to explore the nature
of the consolation that Boccaccio invites his readers to gain from
9
Bruni, Boccaccio 226. See also the recent analysis by Annelise Brody, who declares
that “[Boccaccio’s] ultimate goal lies in the ethical purpose of the book—to serve as
a warning to other women.” Annelise Brody, “An Experiment in the Healing Power
of Literature (Elegia di madonna Fiammetta),” Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete
Works, ed. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr (Chicago: U
of Chicago P, 2013) 172–82, 180–81. For an alternative view that points to Boccaccio’s
compassionate and understanding attitude towards Fiammetta’s amorous plight, see
Mariangela Causa-Steindler, Introduction, The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, by Giovanni
Boccaccio, ed. and trans. Mariangela Causa-Steindler and Thomas Mauch (Chicago: U
of Chicago P, 1990) xvii–xxii, and Suzanne C. Hagedorn, Abandoned Women: Rewriting
the Classics in Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004) 124–29.
10
My analysis of literary consolation in the work has some affinities with Brody’s
discussion in “An Experiment in the Healing Power of Literature.” Yet Brody focuses
mainly on the element of diversion that is inherent in the activity of storytelling in the
Fiammetta and does not discuss the debate between forms of consolation that is central,
as I shall argue, to the work as a whole.
11
See Vincenzo Crescini, “Il primo atto della ‘Phaedra’ di Seneca nel primo capi-
tolo della ‘Fiammetta’ del Boccaccio,” Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
70 (1920–1921): 455–66; Carlo Delcorno, “Note sui dantismi nell’Elegia di madonna
Fiammetta,” Studi sul Boccaccio 15 (1979): 251–94, 263–66; Mario Serafini, “Le tragedie
di Seneca nella ‘Fiammetta’ di Giovanni Boccaccio,” Giornale storico della letteratura
italiana 126 (1949): 95–105; Luigi Surdich, La cornice di amore. Studi sul Boccaccio (Pisa:
ETS, 1987) 174–77; Pamela Waley, “The Nurse in Boccaccio’s Fiammetta: Source and
Invention,” Neophilologus 56 (1972): 164–73.M LN 5
Fiammetta’s own narrative of misfortunes. In contrast to the scho-
larly tendency to identify Boccaccio’s ethical perspective with that of
the nurse, this section will show how the nurse’s central speech of
consolation in Chapter 6 is filled with ironies and glaring mistakes,
which turn it in effect into a parody of Stoic consolation. Through
this parody, the Fiammetta challenges the Stoic ideology of exempla-
rity, highlighting that literature does not have the power to uproot
passions altogether. At the same time, Fiammetta’s own therapeutic
use of stories of misery as a means to attenuate grief is problematized
over the course of Chapters 7 and 8 of the work by pointing to its
egotistic and compassion-less aspects. The fact that the consolatory
strategies of both Fiammetta and her nurse are presented in a critical
light may point in the final analysis to Boccaccio’s general mistrust of
the use of tragic narratives as a source of consolation, preparing the
way for the comic consolatory vision of the later Decameron.
The Consolations of Reading
In the Prologue to her narrative, Fiammetta addresses her readers
and clarifies her goals as a writer in the following manner:
Suole a’ miseri crescere di dolersi vaghezza, quando di sé discernono o
sentono compassione in alcuno. Adunque, acciò che in me, volonterosa
più che altra a dolermi, di ciò per lunga usanza non menomi la cagione,
ma s’avanzi, mi piace, o nobili donne, ne’ cuori delle quali amore più che
nel mio forse felicemente dimora, narrando i casi miei, di farvi, s’io posso,
pietose. (Prologo 1)
Addressing her work to “nobili donne,” Fiammetta states that her
aim is to elicit her readers’ pity and compassion, hoping by that to
further intensify her sorrow and desire. Fiammetta’s statements in
these opening lines, as Carlo Delcorno has suggested, are based on
Dante’s Vita nuova 35.3, in which Dante described how the donna
gentile’s expression of compassion for his sorrow for the death of Bea-
trice filled his eyes with tears.12 Yet we should note the considerable
difference between Boccaccio’s Fiammetta and the narrator of the Vita
nuova: whereas Dante stressed how tears and elegiac lamentations are
crucial as a means of gaining respite from sorrow,13 Fiammetta insists
12
Boccaccio, Elegia di madonna Fiammetta 224n1.
13
See, for example, the following lines from Dante’s third and final canzone in the Vita
nuova, Li occhi dolenti: “Ora, s’i’ voglio sfogar lo dolore, / che a poco a poco a la morte
mi mena / convenemi parlar traendo guai” (Vita nuova 31.8.4–6). Dante Alighieri, Vita
nuova, ed. Domenico de Robertis, Opere minori, vol. 1 pt. 1 (Milano: Ricciardi, 1964).
On the elegiac nature of the Vita nuova, see Stefano Carrai, Dante elegiaco: Una chiave
di lettura per la Vita nova (Firenze: Olschki, 2006).6 Gur Zak that her goal in writing is not to moderate her sorrow, but rather to nurture it, ensuring in this fashion the continuation of her desire. While writing thus serves as a means of intensifying sorrow and desire, it is in the act of reading that Fiammetta strives to lighten her burden and bear the sorrow over the course of her narrative. The the- rapeutic role of storytelling first comes to the fore in Chapter 3. At this point in the story, Fiammetta eagerly waits for the return of her lover Panfilo, who left her behind in Naples and promised to return within four months. Looking for ways to cope with her melancholy and pass the time until his return, Fiammetta listened to the fantastic stories told by her maids—stories which were mainly a source of diversion for her: “alcuna volta, se altro a fare non mi occorreva, ragunate le mie fanti con meco nella mia camera, e raccontava e faceva raccon- tare storie diverse, le quali quanto più erano di lungi dal vero, come il più così fatte genti le dicono, cotanto parea ch’avessono maggiore forza a cacciare i sospiri e a recare festa a me ascoltante” (3.11.1). Fiammetta’s emphasis on the power of stories to drive away grief of course foreshadows the similar use of stories as a source of merry forgetfulness within the Decameron. When this form of distraction was not available to her, Fiammetta adds, she pursued solace in reading about the misfortunes of others. In these stories, as she explains, she can see herself in others’ troubles and thus gain solace by realizing that she is not alone in suffering: “in libri diversi ricercando le altrui miserie, e quelle alle mie conformando, quasi accompagnata sentendomi, con meno noia il tempo passava” (3.11.2). The notion that reading about the suffering of others is in itself a source of comfort has been central to Boccaccio’s works from very early in his career, introduced, as we have seen, at the beginning of the Filocolo. In Chapter 8 of the work, Fiammetta returns to this consolatory strategy, describing at length her attempt to console herself by rea- ding about ancient exempla of misery. In this penultimate chapter, Fiammetta completes the account of her past misfortunes in love and arrives at the present moment of writing. Despite all the hardships she has endured on account of Panfilo’s failure to return as promised, she continues to cling to the hope of being reunited with him. She describes her plan to undertake a journey, dressed as a pilgrim, in order to see her beloved one more time. Until this future journey, Fiammetta declares that she will bear her grief by reading about the amorous torments of other women, specifying that her aim in such reading is to allow her to endure her grief, not eradicate—or even mitigate—it:
M LN 7
Ma avendo io ferma speranza posta di dovere, come già dissi, nel futuro
viaggio rivedere colui che di ciò m’è cagione, non di mitigarle m’ingegno,
ma più tosto di sostenerle. Alla qual cosa fare solo uno modo possibile ho
trovato intra gli altri, il quale è le mie pene con quelle di coloro che sono
dolorosi passati commensurare. (8.1.2)
Fiammetta’s extensive portrayal of her reading practice in Chapter
8 makes manifest a dual impact of stories of misery. When reading,
as she writes, she is at once filled with compassion for the suffering
protagonist and this also attenuates her own sorrows. Discussing for
example her reaction to the tragic story of Hero of Sestos, whose
beloved Leander would cross the ocean every night to be with her
until one night he drowned and his dead body was pushed ashore
by a dolphin, Fiammetta declares: “Ahi, con quanta compassione mi
strigne costei nel pensiero! In verità con molta più che nessuna delle
donne ancora dette, tanto che tale volta fu che, obliati li miei dolori,
delli suoi lagrimai” (8.6.2). Reading about the sorrows of another,
according to Fiammetta, thus establishes an empathic bond between
reader and protagonist, comforting the reader in the process.
While Fiammetta’s narration explicitly demonstrates how identifying
with a character’s sorrow might soothe the reader, over the course
of the work the figure of her nurse offers a completely different view
of how reading tragic narratives should facilitate consolation. Fiam-
metta’s nurse is clearly modeled on the various nurses in Seneca’s
tragedies, especially the nurse in Medea and Phaedra,14 and has clear
affinities with Boethius’ Lady Philosophy. From the beginning of the
work, the nurse acts as the voice of reason, a wise consoler who warns
Fiammetta of the dangers of passions—above all love—and the need
to curb them. In Chapter 1, after realizing that her married mistress
Fiammetta has been caught in the web of love, the nurse urges her
to nip it in the bud, closely echoing the admonitory words of the
nurse in Seneca’s Phaedra: “E ora è tempo da resistere con forza,
però che chi nel principio bene contrastette cacciò il villano amore,
e sicuro rimase e vincitore; ma chi con lunghi pensieri e lusinghe il
nutrica, tardi può poi recusare il suo giogo, al quale quasi voluntario
si sommise” (1.14.9).15
14
See Waley, “The Nurse in Boccaccio’s Fiammetta” 168–73.
15
Compare with the following lines from Seneca’s Phaedra: “Thesea coniunx, clara
progenies Iouis, / nefanda casto pectore exturba ocius, / extingue flammas, neue te
dirae spei / praebe obsequentem. quisquis in primo obstitit / pepulitque amorem,
tutus ac uictor fuit; / qui blandiendo dulce nutriuit malum, / sero recusat ferre quod
subiit iugum” (“Wife of Theseus, illustrious progeny of Jove: banish these unspeakable
thoughts at once from your chaste breast, extinguish the flames, do not make yourself
compliant to such an appalling hope. A person who resists and rejects love at the outset8 Gur Zak
Later in Chapter 6, when Fiammetta becomes filled with vindictive
rage after she hears a rumor that Panfilo has taken a new lover in
Florence, the nurse offers her another lengthy consolatory speech,
which she describes as “utile medicina” (6.15.4). In the course of her
speech, the nurse quotes directly the words of the Chorus in Seneca’s
Medea, 591–94, on the danger of the ire of love,16 and strives once
again to convince Fiammetta that loving is a matter of choice and that
she still has the power to renounce the love that is responsible for
her torments. In the course of this speech the nurse also emphasizes
the value of exempla and explicates to Fiammetta how she should
use them:
Amore, come io di sopra ti dissi, niuna ingiuria ti fa o t’ha fatta, più che
tu t’abbi voluta pigliare. Egli usa il suo arco e le sue saette sanza provedi-
mento alcuno, sì come noi tutto giorno veggiamo, e dé’ci per manifesti e
infiniti essempli la sua maniera essere chiara, che niuno meritamente di
cosa che li avvenga per lui, non si dovria di lui, ma di sé condolere. Egli,
fanciullo lascivo, ignudo e cieco, vola e gitta e non sa dove. (6.15.11–12)
Exempla of misery, according to the nurse, should serve above all
as a testimony to the perilous ways of love and provide a lesson on
the inescapable agonies that accompany one’s submission to it. In
opposition to Fiammetta’s empathic and identifying reading of such
exempla, the nurse therefore advocates for a detached reading that
is aimed at leading the reader to realize the dangers of passion and
to act accordingly.
The discrepancies between the nurse’s and Fiammetta’s ways of
reading become especially apparent from the nurse’s use of ancient
exempla over the course of her consolatory speech in Chapter 6.
Immediately before her statement quoted above, the nurse mentions a
list of ancient women who were abandoned by their lovers, like Fiam-
metta; yet she stresses how they managed to overcome the pain and
forget their lovers: “Egli [Panfilo] ancora non è il primo che questo
fa, né tu la prima a cui avviene. Iansone si partì di Lenno di Isifile, e
wins safety and victory; but one who nurtures the sweet evil by indulging it, protests
too late at wearing the yoke he has put on,” 129–35). Seneca, Tragedies, ed. and trans.
John G. Fitch, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002–2004).
16
“Bene conosco io che la rabbia dalla focosa ira stimolata è cieca, e non cura di
coprirsi, né freno alcuno sostiene, né teme morte, anzi essa medesima, da se stessa
sospinta, si fa incontro alle mortali punte delle agute spade” (6.15.3). Compare with
Seneca’s Medea: “caecus est ignis stimulatus ira / nec regi curat patiturve frenos /
aut timet mortem; cupit ire in ipsos / obvius enses” (“Blind is the fire whipped up
by anger, careless of control, impatient of curbs, fearless of death, longing to attack
straight against swords,” 591–94).M LN 9
tornò in Tesaglia di Medea; Parìs si partì di Oenone delle selve d’Ida,
e ritornò a Troia di Elena; Teseo si partì di Creti di Adriana, e giunse
ad Atene di Fedra; né però Isifile o Oenone o Adriana s’uccisero, ma
posponendo li vani pensieri, misero in oblio li falsi amanti” (6.15.9–10).
While underscoring that what has happened to Fiammetta was also
the lot of many ancient heroines before her, the nurse does not advise
her to find comfort in the fact that she has companions in grief, but
rather urges her to follow their example in overcoming love and
sorrow and forgetting the deceitful lover. Ancient exempla of misery
are therefore valuable, according to the nurse, not only because they
demonstrate the perils of love, but also in so far as they offer models
of steadfast confrontation with calamity.
In Chapter 8 of the work, Fiammetta refers to the exact same list of
examples mentioned in these lines by the nurse—Hypsipyle, Oenone,
and Ariadne—yet uses them in a completely different fashion. Similar
to the nurse, she points to the parallels between her suffering and
theirs: “Dopo tutti questi, quasi da se medesimi riserbati, come molto
gravi mi si fanno sentire li guai di Isifile, di Medea, d’Oenone, e d’A-
driana, le lagrime delle quali e i dolori assai con le mie simiglianti le
giudico; però che ciascuna di queste, dal suo amante ingannata, così
com’io” (8.17.1). Yet in contrast to her nurse’s advice, she does not
extract from their stories a cognitive lesson on the dangers of love
nor does she even mention their supposedly virtuous confrontation
with their calamity, but only seeks solace from the formation of a
sisterhood of grief.17
This debate over reading and consolation, which is embodied in
the opposing perspectives of Fiammetta and her nurse, has close affi-
nities with discussions of grief and consolation in Cicero’s Tusculan
Disputations and Seneca’s tragedy Troades (Trojan Women). In Book 3
of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero alludes to people’s tendency to
seek solace through the identification with the sorrows of others, yet
insists—like Fiammetta’s nurse—that examples of suffering are useful
only in so far as they encourage steadfast confrontation with sorrow:
“Ne illa quidem firmissima consolatio est, quamquam et usitata est et
saepe prodest: ‘non tibi hoc soli.’ Prodest haec quidem, ut dixi, sed
nec semper nec omnibus . . . . Ut enim tulerit quisque eorum qui
sapienter tulerunt, non quo quisque incommodo adfectus sit, praedi-
17
In addition, Fiammetta elaborates on how all these women were able to gain a
measure of comfort from seeing their duplicitous lovers suffer—a solace which was
denied to her thus far and hence her misery is much greater in her view. We shall
return to this aspect of her readings later in the article.10 Gur Zak
candum est” (“Not even the comforting effect of the phrase ‘You are
not the only one,’ in spite of its constant use and frequent benefit,
is perfectly reliable. It is beneficial, as I have said, but not always and
not in all cases . . . . For we have to point out how each of those who
bore his sufferings wisely, managed to bear them, and not point out
the inconvenience under which he labored,” 3.33.79).18
A similar view emerges in Seneca’s Troades, a tragedy which is
heavily concerned with the theme of consolation.19 In Act 4 of the
work, the figure of Helen of Troy laments the fact that unlike the
other mourning Trojan women, she does not have anyone to share
her grief with: “luget Andromacha Hectorem / et Hecuba Priamum:
solus occulte Paris / lugendus Helenae est” (“Andromache mourns
Hector, / Hecuba weeps for Priam – but for Helen / There is no friend
to share her grief for Paris, / No one must hear it; she must weep
alone,” 907–09).20 Having companions in suffering, Helen suggests,
has an important consolatory value. In the Chorus’ ode which ends
Act 4, Helen’s view of consolation is again voiced: “Dulce maerenti
populus dolentum, / dulce lamentis resonare gentes; / lenius luctus
lacrimaeque mordent, / turba quas fletu similis frequentat” (“Sorrow
finds comfort in companionship; / And in the lamentations of great
numbers / Is consolation; grief bites not so keenly / When many in
the same plight share the mourning,” 1009–12). Yet following this
opening statement, the Chorus goes on to criticize this consolatory
notion: “semper, a semper, dolor est malignus: / gaudet in multos
sua fata mitti / seque non solum placuisse poenae” (“Jealous, jealous
is grief; she likes to see / Many in her distress; she likes to know /
That she is not alone condemned to suffer,” 1013–15). The pursuit of
solace through the sufferings of others, the Chorus declares, is in fact
a dangerous and heartless pursuit, as it leads to the wish that others
will suffer too. The Chorus then continues to argue that misfortune is
only a matter of comparison and hence that sorrow is not inevitable:
“Nemo se credet miserum, licet sit; / tolle felices . . . / est miser nemo
18
See also 3.25.60: “et enumeratio exemplorum, non ut animum malevolorum oblectet,
adfertur, sed ut ille, qui maeret, ferendum sibi id censeat, quod videat multos moderate
et tranquille tulisse” (“the detailed examples cited are not given to delight the mind
of the ill-natured, but to lead the mourner to think that he must bear the burdens
which he sees many men have borne in a spirit of quiet restraint”). Cicero, Tusculan
Disputations, trans. J. E. King (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1927).
19
Boccaccio alludes directly to lines from the Troades in Chapter 5 of the Fiammetta,
in the course of Fiammetta’s outburst against Fortune (5.25.1–5). See Serafini, “Le
tragedie di Seneca,” 96.
20
Translations of the Troades are from: Seneca, Four Tragedies and Octavia, trans. E. F.
Watling (London: Penguin, 1966).M LN 11
nisi comparatus” (“If none were happy, none would believe himself
/ Unfortunate, however great his troubles . . . / What is misfortune
but comparison?” 1018–23).
In the Troades, this critique of the pursuit of consolation through
finding companions in sorrow is accompanied by a parade of examples
demonstrating steadfast confrontations with hardships. This aspect
becomes especially explicit in Act 5, in which the figure of the mes-
senger tells Hecuba and Andromache about the cruel execution of
their children (and grandchild) Polyxena and Astyanax by the Greeks.
The messenger emphasizes the heroic calm with which Astyanax and
Polyxena accepted their cruel misfortune (1085–103; 1148–167)—indi-
cating to the two lamenting mothers, and the audience in general,
the proper way to stoically cope with misfortunes.21 While critiquing
the consolatory notion that having companions in grief might serve
as a source of solace, Seneca’s play thus also stresses through the
messenger’s closing exemplary narrative that true consolation resides
in the cultivation of a virtuous steadfastness in the face of hardships.22
Both Fiammetta’s pursuit of consolation through the establishment
of an empathic bond with other sufferers and her nurse’s exhortations
to seek true solace in learning from exempla of women who curbed
their love and controlled their anger and grief thus share crucial
features with the discussions of grief and consolation in the works of
Cicero and Seneca. Yet, whereas in the works of Cicero and Seneca
the call to curb passion is clearly dominant, in the Fiammetta Fiam-
metta remains utterly defiant in her dedication to her love despite
all her torments, continuing till the very end of the work to reject
the admonitions of the nurse and to seek in exempla of misery only
some respite for her sorrows.
21
See also Alessandro Schiesaro, The Passions in Play: Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan
Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003) 235–43.
22
Martha Nussbaum has demonstrated how Stoic ethical-poetics were based on the
attempt to establish the reader or viewer as a “critical spectator” who would be able to
observe tragedy from a critical distance. This distance would ideally allow the viewer
to respond to the events rationally rather than emotionally, gaining from them a les-
son about the dangers of the passions: “the Stoics hope to construct a spectator who
is vigilant rather than impressionable, actively judging rather than immersed, critical
rather than trustful.” Martha Nussbaum, “Poetry and the Passions: Two Stoics Views,”
Passions and Perceptions. Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, ed. Jacques Brunschwig
and Martha Nussbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993) 97–149, 137. It is precisely
this type of critical and detached reader that the nurse in Boccaccio’s Fiammetta urges
Fiammetta to become. On the strategies through which Seneca’s tragedies alert the
reader to the dangers of passions, see also Martha Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul: A
Reading of Seneca’s Medea,” The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics
(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994) 439–84.12 Gur Zak
A central question that arises from the Fiammetta, as a result, is what
type of solace should readers gain from Fiammetta’s own narrative
of misfortunes. The Fiammetta, after all, in itself offers an exemplum
of misery that is modeled, at several crucial junctures, on Seneca’s
tragedies such as Medea and Phaedra—women who were led to commit
horrible acts due to love. These tragic similarities become particularly
acute in Chapter 6, in which Fiammetta describes her vengeful madness
and the failed suicide attempt which followed;23 here, she explicitly
compares herself to Medea, stating that she wished she could summon
“li carri di Medea” (6.12.15) so that she might reach her duplicitous
lover and take revenge “sanza alcuno freno o indugio” (6.12.17). Is
the reader therefore urged to learn from the example of Fiammetta
about the dangers of passions and the need to disavow them? Or is
he or she in fact invited to show compassion for Fiammetta (as she
repeatedly asks) and perhaps gain solace for his or her own sorrows
by identifying with her story? In other words, is the reader ultimately
invited to read the Fiammetta like Fiammetta or like her Stoic nurse?
Parodying Stoic Consolation
Much of the recent scholarship on the Fiammetta has emphasized, as
noted, the moralistic features of the work, claiming that Boccaccio’s
authorial position should be identified with that of the nurse. Janet
Smarr has offered an especially insightful analysis of Boccaccio’s criti-
cal commentary on his narrator Fiammetta, elaborating in particular
on the way in which Fiammetta’s failures as a reader turn her into
a negative exemplum. Fiammetta’s misreading, according to Smarr,
begins with her encounter with Venus in Chapter 1, in which the
goddess attempts to persuade her to pursue her love for Panfilo.
Demonstrating to Fiammetta the all-encompassing power of love, Venus
mentions examples such as Clytemnestra, Paris, Ariadne, Dido—all
in fact exempla of love which ended tragically. As Smarr notes, this
is hardly a proper list with which to convince one to remain devoted
to the fire of love. Fiammetta, however, fails to recognize the true
nature of Venus’ exempla and is naively persuaded by her arguments.24
This blindness, Smarr contends, recurs over the course of the work
and is evident also in Fiammetta’s readings in the penultimate Chapter
8. Although Fiammetta does recognize, as Smarr acknowledges, the
23
Fiammetta’s weighing of possible ways by which she might take her own life
(6.16.5–13) recalls a similar scene in Seneca’s Phaedra 258–61.
24
Smarr, Boccaccio and Fiammetta 144.M LN 13
tragic ending of the women she discusses, she still fails to apply the
message inherent in their story to her own condition. This ongoing
emphasis on Fiammetta’s misuse of rhetoric and failures as a reader,
Smarr concludes, is the means through which the author Boccaccio
alerts his readers to the correct way to read and use such examples,
including that of his narrator Fiammetta herself: “The proper use of
rhetoric is to teach and move toward moral truth, not self-delusion.
This proper rhetoric is the rhetoric of Boccaccio, who has Fiammetta
write her own history as a warning example to other women to avoid
her fate.”25 This view regarding Boccaccio’s critique of his narrator
through the focus on her hermeneutic failures was reiterated recen-
tly by Annelise Brody, who declares that “Unfortunately, for all her
charms, Fiammetta is not equally endowed with intelligence and wit.” 26
Yet it may be asked whether Fiammetta is indeed as blind as scholars
have made her out to be. While in her acceptance of the arguments
of Venus in Chapter 1 Fiammetta undoubtedly proved herself imper-
ceptive and credulous, over the course of the work her abilities as
a reader and interpreter of her situation gradually develop, as she
becomes more and more aware of her dire situation. In Chapter 6, for
example, when she reflects on Panfilo’s possible betrayal, Fiammetta
alludes to the signs of doom that she saw in a dream she had after
meeting Panfilo for the first time. She declares that now she finally
realizes their meaning: “Ma ora che da amare, perch’io voglia, non mi
posso partire, conosco qual fosse la serpe che me sotto il sinistro lato
trafisse, e piena si partì del mio sangue; e similemente veggo quello
che la corona caduta del tristo capo volle significare: ma tardi mi
giugne questo avvedimento” (6.8.8). While fully aware of her perilous
situation, Fiammetta maintains that understanding has simply come
too late in her case.
A similar awareness is evident in Chapter 8 as well, as Fiammetta
reflects on the similarity between her grievous fate and that of the
women she discusses. When describing the misfortunes of the wife of
Pompey, who followed her husband to Egypt and there saw his behea-
ded body floating amid the waves, Fiammetta refers to the consolation
25
Smarr, Boccaccio and Fiammetta 146.
26
Brody, “An Experiment in the Healing Power of Literature (Elegia di madonna Fiam-
metta)” 178. Suzanne Hagedorn argues that Fiammetta is a literal reader who uncritically
identifies with the Ovidian heroines of the Heroides and hence reenacts their mistakes in
her own life: “her intense psychological involvement in literature has arrested her own
emotional development” (Hagedorn, Abandoned Women 127). Hagedorn, however, also
claims, as noted, that Boccaccio’s attitude towards Fiammetta is not solely critical, but
is rather divided between empathy and criticism, thereby inviting the reader to reenact
Fiammetta’s conflict between reason and passion in her own interpretation (128–29).14 Gur Zak
that Pompey’s wife received from the very fact that she had no further
hope of her husband’s return. Fiammetta then contrasts Pompey’s
wife’s lack of hope with her own continuing hope, describing her
hope as “vain” and lamenting the fact that she has no power to drive
it away: “là dove io, vanamente sperando, né da me potendo questa
speranza cacciare, sanza alcuno consiglio o conforto . . . piagnendo
dimoro” (8.12.4). Once again, Fiammetta is clearly aware of her con-
dition, but she claims that she has no way out.
As these examples show, rather than blind and slow-witted, Fiam-
metta is wholly aware of her situation and the significance of the
examples she encounters. Her problem, as she herself insists time and
again, is not lack of knowledge and perception but rather weakness
of will. From this perspective, her failure to learn from the tragic
examples she encounters in her readings is not a manifestation of her
own failure as a reader, but rather a statement on the insurmounta-
ble power of love and the limits of the rhetoric of exemplarity—its
inability to alter one’s dedication to love. Although it may of course
be argued—as Hollander and Smarr indeed claim—that Fiammetta’s
emphasis on her weakness of will is only another indication of her
failure and a means through which the author alerts the reader to the
need to disavow love,27 Fiammetta’s insistence on the insurmountable
power of love and by extension on the limits of exemplary literature
cannot be dismissed lightly. This fact becomes especially apparent
when we turn to examine the nurse’s efforts to cure Fiammetta’s
love by means of examples—an attempt which paradoxically ends up
affirming Fiammetta’s own position.
Let us begin by looking at the passage from Chapter 6 quoted
above. In this passage, the nurse mentions the stories of several ancient
women who managed to overcome the departure of their lovers in
order to convince Fiammetta to do the same. In the course of her
statement, we should note, the nurse refers not only to Hypsipyle,
Oenone, and Ariadne, but also to several other women: “Iansone si
partì di Lenno di Isifile, e tornò in Tesaglia di Medea; Parìs si partì
27
In his Boccaccio’s Two Venuses, Hollander states: “The difference between Phaedra (or
Phèdre) and Fiammetta is the difference between classical (or neo-classical) dramatic
fatality and the Christian medieval ‘drama of choice’ in the sense that all medieval
moralizing literature . . . has as its central subject matter the direction of the (free)
will away from the sinful to the good. The ‘moral drama’ of the character Fiammetta
concerns her unwillingness to make the correct choice” (42). Yet even if Boccaccio
indeed adhered to the “medieval drama of choice,” he can still uphold that the power
of love is insurmountable, thereby turning the submission to love precisely into a
“classical dramatic fatality.” This, after all, is also Petrarch’s position vis-à-vis Augustine
in the Secretum.M LN 15
di Oenone delle selve d’Ida, e ritornò a Troia di Elena; Teseo si partì
di Creti di Adriana, e giunse ad Atene di Fedra; né però Isifile o
Oenone o Adriana s’uccisero, ma posponendo li vani pensieri, misero
in oblio li falsi amanti” (6.15.10). While the allusions to Hypsipyle,
Oenone, and Ariadne might support the nurse’s contention, the
other names she carelessly mentions in these lines—Medea, Helen,
and Phaedra—in fact undermine her claims, as all are ominous
examples of the insurmountable power of love. Medea and Phaedra,
moreover, are examples of particularly vindictive deserted lovers; the
first kills her own children to take revenge upon their father; the
latter falsely accuses Hippolytus, the object of her love and stepson,
of trying to rape her, and eventually commits suicide out of remorse.
Exactly as in the case of Venus in Chapter 1—who in her attempt to
persuade Fiammetta to pursue love used examples that highlighted its
destructive powers—so too the nurse’s efforts to convince Fiammetta
that one always has power to conquer love emerge as double-edged,
inadvertently demonstrating the exact opposite of what she intends.
The paradoxes that govern the nurse’s use of exempla become even
more acute in the following list of examples she provides. Striving, in
her lengthy consolatory speech, to convince Fiammetta to be patient
and to put a check on her ire and sorrow, the nurse mentions various
exempla of women who supposedly bore their miseries patiently:
“Dunque più pazientemente le tue pene sostieni, poiché meritamente
d’altrui che di te non t’hai a dolere, e a quelle truovansi molti modi
a lasciarle quando vorrai, considerando ancora che già ne furono
sostenute per altre delle sì gravi, e trapassate. Che dirai tu di Deia-
nira essere abandonata per Iole da Ercule, e Filìs da Demofonte, e
Penelope da Ulisse per Circe?” (6.15.18–19). While the mention of
Penelope in this context may be logical enough, the nurse’s choice of
Deianeira as a model of patience is awkward, if not utterly false, given
that she is famous for causing the death of Hercules out of jealousy
for his amorous betrayal. Moreover, she eventually commits suicide.28
Doubly paradoxical is the mention of Phyllis. This miserable lover is
an especially noteworthy exemplum of impatience and foolishness in
love, given that she committed suicide while waiting for her beloved to
arrive and thus missed his eventual return. Through the allusions to
Deianeira and Phyllis, the nurse thus demonstrates the exact opposite
28
In the Amorosa visione, 26.13–14, Boccaccio specifically stresses Deianeira’s “ira” and
“gelosia.” Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorosa visione, ed. Vittore Branca, Tutte le opere, vol. 3
(Milano: Mondadori, 1974).16 Gur Zak
of what she intended, affirming yet again the insurmountable power
of love.29
In fact, only a few paragraphs later, Fiammetta herself will refer
to the same exemplum of Phyllis, yet this time in the more common
fashion, as a model of impatience. Having second thoughts regarding
her intention to commit suicide, Fiammetta declares: “Che valse a Filìs
non paziente la tarda tornata di Demofonte? Essa, fiorendo, sanza
alcuno diletto sentì la venuta sua; la quale, se sostenere avesse potuto,
donna, non albero l’avria ricevuto” (6.17.2). Directly contradicting
the nurse’s mention of Phyllis as a model of patience, Fiammetta thus
underscores the awkwardness of the nurse’s use of exempla, under-
mining the authority of her entire consolatory efforts.
The nurse—the figure who is supposed to serve as the voice of
Stoic reason in the work—thus produces a long consolatory speech
which is self-contradictory and flawed. While striving to persuade
Fiammetta to curb her love and to control her sorrow and anger,
the nurse’s examples in fact point to the insurmountable grip of
passion, paradoxically affirming Fiammetta’s own contention that
she is unable to renounce her love. It is not surprising, then, that
following the nurse’s efforts to cure her charge, Fiammetta explicitly
dismisses these attempts, declaring that her words only worsen her
condition: “Non una sola volta, ma molte usò verso me la savia balia
cotali parole, credendosi da me potere cacciare gli dolori e l’ansietà
riserbate solamente a la morte; ma di quelle poche o nulla con frutto
toccava la occupata mente” (6.16.1).
Rather than serving as the voice of reason and a lesson to the
reader on the need to renounce love altogether, the figure of the
nurse emerges from the Fiammetta as a parody of Stoic consolation.
Her flawed efforts to cure love through examples not only confirm
Fiammetta’s perspective that love is insurmountable, but also challenge
and ridicule the entire Stoic ideology of exemplarity, suggesting that
literature does not have the power to offer complete solutions to the
agony of love. Whatever consolatory power literature might have, the
Fiammetta suggests, resides in its ability to lighten the reader’s grief
by allowing him or her to realize that he or she has companions in
grief. This challenge to the Stoic ethical-poetic perspective may also
be evident in the generic features of Boccaccio’s work: by embedding
the central characteristics of the Senecan drama within an Ovidian-like
29
The exempla of Phyllis and Penelope may be seen as double-edged also because
both essentially assert that one should remain steadfast in love as there is always a
chance that the lover may eventually come back.M LN 17 elegy—beginning and ending with the supplication of the deserted lover—the Fiammetta presents the Ovidian “lagrimevole stilo” (Prologo 6) as de-facto insurmountable. Fiammetta as a Compassion-less Reader While highlighting the futility of the nurse’s consolatory efforts, the alternative view that reading can provide companionship in suffering is not without its caveats in the Fiammetta. In the Chorus’ ode which ends Act 4 of Seneca’s Troades, as we have seen, this strategy of con- solation is criticized due to its egotistic nature; it may in fact lead the one in pain to wish that others will suffer too: “semper, a semper, dolor est malignus: / gaudet in multos sua fata mitti” (“Jealous, jealous is grief; she likes to see / Many in her distress,” 1013–14). It is precisely this problematic feature that is presented in Chapter 7 of the Fiammetta, when Fiammetta describes how she craved to see other women suffering so that she would be consoled by listening to their misfortunes: “Io era divenuta de l’altrui letizie invidiosa; e con sommo disiderio appetiva che ciascuna donna così fosse da Amore e dalla Fortuna trattata, come io era. Oimè! con quanta consolazione più volte già mi ricorda d’avere udite le miserie e le disaventure delli amanti nuovamente avvenute!” (7.1.11). Another problematic feature of this strategy of consolation emerges in Chapter 8. In the beginning of Chapter 8, as noted, Fiammetta states that until she will be able to go on a pilgrimage in pursuit of Panfilo, she intends to pass the time and bear her grief through rea- ding. While these readings are intended according to Fiammetta to ease her grief by providing her companions in suffering, she adds that they offer her comfort also by making her realize that her misery is “much greater” than that of other women (“li miei ogni altri trapassare di gran lunga,” 8.1.3), a fact which brings her in her view “no small glory” (“non piccola gloria,” 8.1.3). What is especially problematic about the misery contest that Fiam- metta holds in Chapter 8 is the way in which it turns her into a cruel and compassion-less reader, one who is insensitive to the extreme suffering of others. In this too she has a precedent in Seneca’s Troa- des. In the beginning of Act 4 of the Troades, in which the figure of Helen refers to the solace inherent in having companions in grief, she also goes on to stress that her own grief is much greater than that of the other suffering Trojan women. As Helen claims, while Hecuba and Andromache are able to share their grief for the deaths of their
18 Gur Zak
husbands Priam and Hector, she is hated by everyone and hence has
no one with which to share her loss of Paris (907–09). Furthermore,
while the Trojan women weep for their impending exile, she has been
in exile for ten years now. Therefore, in her view, her grief is much
greater (909–11). Helen’s attitude thus emerges as both prideful and
compassion-less; she downplays the great suffering endured by others
in order to assert her own. It is precisely this attitude that governs
Fiammetta’s readings in Chapter 8. In certain cases—especially near
the beginning of the chapter—Fiammetta stresses, as we have seen,
the mixture of compassion and solace that governed her readings,
for example in the case of Hero of Sestos (8.6.2). However, in most
of the chapter her readings emerge as markedly compassion-less (and
incredibly unconvincing).
For example, when discussing the sufferings of Jocasta, the mother
of Oedipus, who unknowingly married her son, the slayer of her
husband, and lived to see her two sons/grandsons kill each other and
her entire kingdom perish, Fiammetta acknowledges at first her “tanta
miseria” (8.9.7), yet argues that her own sorrow is even greater since
it was caused by love: “Niuna sarebbe che giudicasse la mia potere a
questa aggiugnere; e certo io direi che così fosse, se ella non fosse
amorosa” (8.9.8). The very fact that her pain is caused by love makes
her suffering greater, according to Fiammetta. A little later, Fiammetta
even refutes her own earlier statement regarding Jocasta’s “tanta mise-
ria,” declaring that the fact that Jocasta thought that she deserved her
grief might have mitigated her suffering: “E chi sé degno conosce del
male ch’egli sostiene, sanza noia o con poca il comporta” (8.9.9). It
is unclear what instigates Fiammetta’s assertion that Jocasta thought
she deserved her grief and hence bore her sorrow “sanza noia o con
poca.”30 In any case, the assertion that such great misery may cause
“no annoyance” proves Fiammetta’s response to be heartless and cruel.
Fiammetta’s sophistic and compassion-less readings are further
demonstrated in her discussion of the Trojan Queen Hecuba, who
witnessed the demise of her kingdom together with the death of her
husband and children. According to the myth, Hecuba’s sadness caused
her to lose her mind. In Fiammetta’s view, her insanity only served to
reduce her grief: “Ma brieve fu la sua doglia, ché la debole e vecchia
30
In Seneca’s account in his Oedipus, Jocasta first blames fate for her family’s tragedy
(1019), and then, unable to bear her sorrow and guilt for her part in the events, takes
her own life with Oedipus’ sword (1034–39). In Boccaccio’s later account of the life
of Jocasta in the De mulieribus claris, 25.5–6, he specifically mentions that Jocasta could
not endure her guilt and hence took her own life. Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women,
ed. and trans. Virginia Brown (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2001).M LN 19
mente, non potendo ciò sostenere, in lei smarritasi la rendé pazza, sì
come il suo latrare per li campi fe’ manifesto” (8.10.3).
Similar diminutions of the suffering of others also govern Fiam-
metta’s accounts of the miseries of figures such as Sophonisba, who,
according to Fiammetta, should be considered among “le poco
dolenti” (8.11.5), as well as Medea, Phaedra, and Tristan and Iseult. As
a result, although she herself repeatedly asks her readers to show her
compassion and pity, her own reader response ultimately emerges as
greatly lacking in empathy. This display, in Chapter 8, of Fiammetta’s
prideful and cruel readings further points to the possible dangers of
the pursuit of solace through the reading about the suffering of others:
not only does this practice lead one to wish that others will suffer too,
but it may also easily slip into a heartless misery-contest, in which the
sufferer only looks for reasons to wallow further in misery and self-pity.
The critique of Fiammetta’s pursuit of solace through reading tragic
narratives does not necessarily amount to a complete rejection of this
consolatory strategy, but may be seen simply as a warning on its possible
dangers. Indeed, the ridicule of the nurse’s consolatory efforts and
the fact that they prove futile suggest that Fiammetta’s identification
with the sorrow of others may be the only viable form of literary con-
solation in such circumstances according to the Fiammetta. And still,
the fact that both of the strategies that dominate the Fiammetta are
presented in a negative light is significant and may point to Boccaccio’s
reservations about the very pursuit of consolation through the reading
of tragic narratives. Deeply skeptical of the Stoic notion that tragic
literature may lead readers to reject passion and aware of the dangers
of the seeking of solace through the identification with the sorrow of
others, Boccaccio appears to question in the Fiammetta the very utility
of such narratives. This questioning in turn foreshadows—and perhaps
even explains—Boccaccio’s predominant reliance on comic narratives
as a means of consolation in his subsequent work—the Decameron.31
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
31
On Boccaccio’s comic vision of consolation in the Decameron, see Marcus, An Alle-
gory of Form, 110–25. In this post-plague masterpiece, Boccaccio repeatedly offers his
readers stories of protagonists whose misfortunes had a happy ending—from Beritola
and her family in story 2.6 to Giletta in 3.9 to Filippa in 6.7. Through these comic
tales, Boccaccio not only strives to provide his readers with a cheerful diversion from
the hardships of living, but also to instill in them speranza for future happiness and
furnish them with a sound advice on how they might obtain it.You can also read
