Cimon and Iphigenia
Intro
- Storyteller: Panfilo
- Panfilo wants to demonstrate the power of Love to convert those who have contempt for it.
- But he's pretty sure he's preaching to the choir, since all of his companions are in love.
Story
- The protagonist here is a young man called Galesus. But everybody calls him Cimon, which means "idiot."
- Cimon's father, Aristippus, is a nobleman of Cyprus and is so ashamed of his idiot son that he sends him to live in the country.
- Cimon isn't stupid. He's just a caveman: he won't wear fashionable clothes or be educated. He probably doesn't wash every week like his normal brothers.
- So off he goes to the country. On the way, he finds himself in a beautiful wood.
- And in that wood is a beautiful maiden asleep by a fountain. She's practically naked.
- Cimon thinks that she might be a goddess, so he's afraid to wake her. Instead, he just stares at her while she sleeps. Creepy.
- But when she wakes up, we find out that she's a mortal and her name is Iphigenia. She knows Cimon by his idiot reputation.
- He's handsome and rich, but he's also big and stupid, so she's a little worried when he follows her all the way to her door.
- But Iphigenia turns out to be Cimon's eureka moment. After he meets her, he starts behaving like a proper gentleman.
- He dresses well, begins to educate himself, maybe even bathes.
- Cimon not only becomes a proper gentleman, he becomes a real lover. He learns to sing and play instruments.
- Panfilo explains that all of these virtues must have been locked up in Cimon's heart and that Love released them.
- Cimon begs Iphigenia's father for her hand in marriage, but she's already promised to Pasimondas, a gentleman from Rhodes.
- Push finally comes to shove: Pasimondas sends for Iphigenia so they can get married.
- Cimon fits out a ship for war and ambushes the ship carrying Iphigenia to her fiancé.
- He explains himself and demands Iphigenia. Cimon has to rough them up a bit before they jump ship and flee for Crete.
- But, as Panfilo has told us in the story of Alatiel, Fortune is a fickle mistress. A storm blows their ship off course and they wind up in Rhodes.
- Iphigenia wants to kill Cimon. She's sure that the storm is a sign of the gods' displeasure at Cimon's actions. Come to think of it, Panfilo never tells us that Iphigenia cares for him at all...
- Cimon and Iphigenia try to escape into the woods off the coast of Rhodes, but the sailors capture them and bring them to the magistrate.
- So things stand like this: Cimon and crew land in the clink and Iphigenia stays with some ladies of Rhodes until her wedding day.
- Pasimondas has a brother called Ormisdas, who's sweet on a girl named Cassandra.
- But the magistrate (Lysimachus) aims to marry Cassandra, even though Pasimondas is pushing hard for a double wedding for himself and his bro.
- Lysimachus schemes to carry Cassandra himself. Sound familiar?
- He goes to Cimon with his plan and offers him a deal. A bride-snatching deal.
- Cimon and Lysimachus think it would be a great idea to abduct the women from their own wedding feasts. What could go wrong?
- So Cimon, Lysimachus and crew crash the wedding—quite literally.
- Cimon kills Pasimondas and then Ormisdas when he gets in the way of their retreat.
- They hop back on the ship and this time, they make it to Crete, where they marry their beloveds.
- Their respective families have to clean up the mess they left behind in Rhodes, but after a while (and probably a lot of cash), they work it out.
- The men return to their respective homelands with their brides, and they live happily ever after. At least, the men do. We hear nothing further about the opinions of Iphigenia and Cassandra.