Nastagio degli Oneste
Intro
- Storyteller: Filomena
- Filomena follows up on Lauretta's story by philosophizing a bit. Cruelty, she says, is punished by divine justice.
- She'll tell a story that will help her audience to stop being so darn cruel—but also will entertain them.
Story
- Nastagio, a nobleman, falls in love with the daughter of Paolo Traversari. She's way out of his league.
- She's also a bit of a shrew and very unfriendly to him (makes you wonder how he fell in love with her).
- Nastagio's a mess. Sometimes he feels like killing himself. Sometimes he feels like trying harder to win her.
- But his attempts aren't working and he's spending all his money. His friends advise him to leave Ravenna before it's too late.
- So he takes his belongings and sets up camp about three miles outside of Ravenna. He does okay out there and his friends come to visit.
- And then something really strange happens. As he's walking through the forest, he sees a naked woman running towards him, being chased by dogs.
- She's a total mess, with bad hair and bloody wounds on her body from running naked through the forest and being bitten by angry pooches.
- Also, there's a very angry knight pursuing her. He threatens the naked woman with a knife (read into that what you will).
- Nastagio takes up a branch to defend her, but the knight tells him to keep out of it.
- Nastagio says he won't stand by while a woman is torn to pieces, and shame on him. A big scary knight acting so ungallantly.
- Then the knight reveals something unexpected: both he and the woman are already dead.
- Nastagio was witnessing the eternal punishment of two tormented souls.
- The knight (called Guido) had killed himself in despair when the lady showed him extreme cruelty.
- And the lady was thrilled that he'd died but then died herself immediately after.
- So Guido has to chase her and kill her with the same knife that he used to kill himself and then rip her cold, cold heart from her body to feed to the dogs. Then the lady gets up and they do it all over again.
- It happens every Friday at the same time.
- Guido does his thing, and Nastagio's completely and utterly freaked out.
- But not so freaked out that he can't see that he could make this experience work in his favor.
- Nastagio gets some help from his friends and family to bring Paolo Traversari and his stuck-up daughter out to this supernatural part of the woods.
- He has a banquet prepared and tables set up so they can see the drama playing out. Kind of like dinner theater with those murder mysteries.
- Boy, does this tactic work. Nastagio's cruel beloved gets the message and quickly succumbs to his attentions and marries him right away.
- Even better, all the ladies of Ravenna are so frightened by this spectacle that they become, according to Filomena, "more tractable to men's pleasures" than ever before.
- Listen and learn, ladies.