The Three Young Men & Three Sisters
Intro
- Storyteller: Lauretta
- Since Filostrato is in Goth mode, he's not amused by Pampinea's jokiness. He begs Lauretta to stick to the theme and be as miserable as possible in her story.
- Lauretta tells Filostrato that he's being unkind to lovers, since all he cares about is killing them off in his stories.
- But since Lauretta has a little bit of a wicked streak, she promises to obey.
- Lauretta begins with a discussion on vices in general and anger in particular.
- Anger's bad in a man, she says, but worse in a woman. Because, you know, women have very little intellect to counteract passionate impulses.
- The laws of thermodynamics are also involved: fire catches quicker on things that are lightweight and soft. So there you go.
- Lauretta will therefore tell this next story to prove that a woman who's mild and pleasing makes everything better than a woman who's willful and passionate.
Story
- This one takes place in Marseilles and involves the three eldest daughters of a rich merchant. The first two are 15-year-old twins, Ninetta and Maddalena, and the third is 14-year-old Bertella.
- There were marriages arranged for all three girls, but they managed to fall in love with a whole other set of young men.
- Bertella hooks up with a man called Restagnone, while a fellow called Folco falls hard for Maddalena. Ninetta catches the eye of Ughetto.
- Ninetta's lover, Restagnone, convinces the other two gentlemen to share their wealth with him if he can convince the girls to run away with them to some secluded spot in the world and set up house.
- So the men choose Crete as their new residence, sell off their goods and purchase a small ship as their getaway vehicle.
- Meanwhile, Ninetta convinces her twin sisters that this scheme is a good idea. They steal some of their father's fortune as their dowries and set out to sea with their lovers.
- They arrive in Crete as happy as can be, build grand estates for themselves and party like they're royalty.
- But all good things must come to an end, especially when you're a 14-year-old married to an older gentleman with time on his hands.
- Restagnone gets a wandering eye and acquires a taste for a lovely gentlewoman in his new neighborhood.
- Ninetta learns that Restagnone's actually hooked up with her rival and she's furious.
- She finds an old Greek woman who knows a thing or two about poisons. You can guess the rest.
- And Ninetta would have gotten away with it, but the old Greek woman gets hauled in by the cops. Under torture, she confesses to making the poison that killed Restagnone.
- Her sisters are greatly distressed when the Duke of Crete makes it known that he intends to burn Ninetta at the stake.
- Maddalena realizes that she has the key to saving her, since the Duke has a major thing for her. She sends word to the Duke that she's ready to do whatever he wants in exchange for Ninetta's life.
- He agrees and brings Ninetta along, trussed up in a sack, to his tryst with Maddalena. When it's over, he tells her to send Ninetta far away so that he's not tempted to burn her anyway.
- Meanwhile, Folco and Ughetto believe that Ninetta's been dumped into the sea by the Duke. When Folco returns to Maddalena and sees that Ninetta's still alive, he immediately becomes suspicious.
- Folco understands how things went between Maddalena and the Duke and in his fury, he kills his wife.
- He then assures Ninetta that he'll take her to safety, and the two disappear into the blue with a sack of money and a boat.
- Meanwhile, Ughetto and Bertella are completely clueless as to the fates of the other lovers. They are totally shocked when the Duke arrests them both for the murder of Maddalena.
- They know they're in a precarious situation, so they bribe their guards and escape to Rhodes, where they die in poverty and misery.