Alibech and Rustico the Monk
Intro
- Storyteller: Dioneo
- Dioneo teases the ladies by wondering aloud if they've ever learned to put the devil back into Hell.
- If they learn, they might still be able to save the men's souls from damnation.
Story
- Alibech is the young daughter of a very wealthy merchant with many children. She's taken an interest in Christianity and wants to know how best to serve God.
- She learns that those who best serve God live far away in the Sahara. So she heads out to find these holy people.
- After several days, she stumbles into the hut of holy man, who sees that she's young and beautiful.
- Tempted, he knows immediately that he has to get rid of her, so he sends her on to the next hermit, called Rustico.
- She asks him what it means to serve God.
- Now Rustico wants to prove that he has strong willpower, so he doesn't send her away.
- But pretty soon, he finds that his willpower just can't cut it. He's just got to figure out how to have his way with Alibech without sounding like a pervert.
- Rustico tells her that the best way to serve God is to help him by putting the devil back in Hell.
- Alibech wants to know how to do that.
- So Rustico shows her the proper "praying" position: taking off all clothes and facing each other.
- Dioneo can hardly help himself here, quipping that Rustico experiences a "resurrection of the flesh."
- Alibech is a total innocent and asks what that bit of anatomy is.
- This, Rustico says, is the devil.
- Alibech thanks God that she has no such devil. But Rustico tells her that she has something he doesn't: Hell.
- Rustico explains that God has clearly sent her to him for his salvation. Would she help him?
- Since Alibech is a virgin, the process hurts her "like the devil."
- Dioneo keeps up the euphemistic language throughout the storytelling. You get the idea.
- As it turns out, Alibech really likes this service to God. She becomes very zealous in the practice.
- So much so that Rustico's devil is worn out.
- Meanwhile, Alibech's father and siblings are burned to death in a house fire. Alibech inherits his property.
- Rustico's relieved when a young, fortune-hunting man comes from the city to look for her.
- She doesn't really want to go—what if the men of her city don't know about this kind of holy life?
- Before her marriage to this young man, the women of the city ask her about her service to God.
- She explains everything she learned with Rustico and the women laugh.
- They reassure her that her husband-to-be understands everything about putting the devil back in hell.
- It soon becomes a joke among the ladies of her city and the saying crosses the ocean to Italy.
- Dioneo concludes by advising the ladies in the group that they should put the devil into Hell if they need God's grace.
- Fun fact: this story was considered so over-the-top obscene that many later versions of the book either deleted it or cleaned it up beyond recognition.