Lydia and Pyrrhus
Intro
- Storyteller: Panfilo
- Panfilo opens with a warning: don't try this at home, ladies. Not all men are as stupid as Nicostratus, and Fortune isn't always so kind.
- Love may give you the courage to try any fool thing, but that doesn't mean you should go through with it.
Story
- First, a shout-out: this story is an antecedent for Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale."
- Nicostratus lives in Greece with his beautiful wife Lydia. Do they make any other kind of wife in Boccaccio's world?
- Nicostratus is wealthy, old, and loves to hunt. He also has a beautiful young retainer named Pyrrhus, whom he loves and trusts.
- Lydia, of course, falls in love with Pyrrhus.
- But Pyrrhus is clueless.
- When Lydia sends a note to him by way of her maid Lusca, Pyrrhus is shocked and refuses her offers.
- Lydia swears she'll die if she can't have Pyrrhus. She sends Lusca to do her worst.
- Lusca bribes Pyrrhus with presents and tells him that he's an idiot if he doesn't take Lydia as a lover.
- Pyrrhus has already secretly decided to do Lydia's bidding, but he has to know if she's really serious and worth the risk.
- So he asks her for three tokens: 1) Lydia must kill Nicostratus' favorite sparrowhawk right in front of him; 2) She has to pull out a tuft of his beard and send it to Pyrrhus; 3) Lydia has to pull out one of Nicostratus' best teeth.
- Lydia isn't sure how she'll do all this, but her hormones are raging. She'll think of something.
- She also decides to up the ante. She tells Pyrrhus that they'll make love right in front of Nicostratus.
- Sure enough, Lydia knocks the brains out of Nicostratus' favorite hunting bird. Her excuse? He spends more time with the %@#$ bird than he does with her.
- Then she corners her husband in the bedroom. He tugs playfully on her hair; she rips out his beard.
- Finally, Lydia devises a scheme to make Nicostratus believe he has a rotten tooth that needs extracting.
- Moreover, she convinces him that she should take the tooth out, because she loves him so much and she'll be gentler than a surgeon.
- Now that she's fulfilled Pyrrhus' requests, she just has to figure out how to make good on her promise.
- So she fakes illness and asks the two men to lead her into the garden for some fresh air. Perhaps a pear would make her feel better?
- Pyrrhus, who's in on the scheme, offers to fetch one from the tree.
- When he gets there, he begins to yell at Nicostratus in disgust: Get a room!
- He pretends that he sees Nicostratus and Lydia doing the wild thing right before his eyes.
- Nicostratus is appalled and thinks that Pyrrhus has lost his mind.
- Pyrrhus convinces Nicostratus that the tree has some pervy power to make anyone in it think he sees people making love.
- Nicostratus has to try it out for himself.
- You guessed it.
- Pyrrhus denies any wrongdoing and the lovers separate before the old man can climb down.
- Pyrrhus convinces Nicostratus that he and Lydia are too virtuous for such hanky-panky. Lydia acts offended at the suggestion that she could do such a thing.
- Lydia demands that Pyrrhus chop down the offending tree (it also helps to keep Nico from finding out their prank).
- Nicostratus is on his knees begging Lydia for forgiveness. Fine, she says, just don't ever go thinking I'm a slut again.
- And so the lovers set themselves up pretty well to continue their love affair in total safety, without any interference from Nicostratus.