Guido Cavalcanti
Intro
- Storyteller: Elissa
- Elissa tells everyone that two of the stories she had in mind for the day have already been told, so she has to go with her third choice.
- She's going to take them back to the good old days of Florence, when gentlepeople would throw fabulous dinner parties to amuse their friends.
Story
- One of these party-goers is Messer Betto Brunelleschi, who was trying to recruit the poet Guido Cavalcanti into the ranks of wealthy party-givers. But Guido really wants nothing to do with them.
- There's some speculation about why Guido won't bite—he's a loner, an atheist, etc.—so Betto and friends decide to taunt him a bit about it.
- One morning, they find Guido on his favorite walk through the tombs near the center of Florence.
- Betto asks Guido what good it does to spend all his time in deep thoughts if it means avoiding their splendid company.
- Guido enigmatically says that while they're in their own house, they can say anything to him that they want. Then he jumps over a headstone and walks away.
- Betto's friends have no idea what Guido means, but Betto gets it.
- He's realized that Guido has just dissed them by saying that the graveyard was their house.
- In other words, since they're so much less educated than he, they're worse off than the dead.
- Betto and friends have been shamed, and they decide not to tease the intellectual Guido again.
- Hahahahahaha.
- Wait, what?
- Don't worry; Shmoop doesn't get this one, either.