Il Filostrato by Giovanni Boccaccio--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Giovanni Boccaccio

Author:Giovanni Boccaccio [BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 8 of 12 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

THE SECOND BOOK.

IN THE PROEM to the Second Book, the poet hails the clear weather that enables him to sail out of those black waves in which his boat so laboured that he could scarcely steer — that is, “the tempestuous matter of despair, that Troilus was in; but now of hope the kalendes begin.” He invokes the aid of Clio; excuses himself to every lover for what may be found amiss in a book which he only translates; and, obviating any lover’s objection to the way in which Troilus obtained his lady’s grace - - through Pandarus’ mediation — says it seems to him no wonderful thing:

“For ev’ry wighte that to Rome went

Held not one path, nor alway one mannere;

Eke in some lands were all the game y-shent

If that men far’d in love as men do here,

As thus, in open dealing and in cheer,

In visiting, in form, or saying their saws;1 1speeches

For thus men say: Each country hath its laws.

“Eke scarcely be there in this place three

That have in love done or said 1like in all;”1 1alike in all respects1

And so that which the poem relates may not please the reader — but it actually was done, or it shall yet be done. The Book sets out with the visit of Pandarus to Cressida: —

In May, that mother is of monthes glade,1 1glad

When all the freshe flowers, green and red,

Be quick1 again, that winter deade made, 1alive

And full of balm is floating ev’ry mead;

When Phoebus doth his brighte beames spread

Right in the white Bull, so it betid1 1happened

As I shall sing, on Maye’s day the thrid,

That Pandarus, for all his wise speech,

Felt eke his part of Love’s shottes keen,

That, could he ne’er so well of Love preach,

It made yet his hue all day full green;1 1pale

So 1shope it,1 that him fell that day a teen1 1it happened1 1access

In love, for which full woe to bed he went,

And made ere it were day full many a went.1 1turning

The swallow Progne, with a sorrowful lay,

When morrow came, gan make her waimenting,1 1lamenting

Why she foshapen1 was; and ever lay 1transformed

Pandare a-bed, half in a slumbering,

Till she so nigh him made her chittering,

How Tereus gan forth her sister take,

That with the noise of her he did awake,

And gan to call, and dress1 him to arise, 1prepare

Rememb’ring him his errand was to do’n

From Troilus, and eke his great emprise;

And cast, and knew in 1good plight1 was the Moon 1favourable aspect1

To do voyage, and took his way full soon

Unto his niece’s palace there beside

Now Janus, god of entry, thou him guide!

Pandarus finds his niece, with two other ladies, in a paved parlour, listening to a maiden who reads aloud the story of the Siege of Thebes. Greeting the company, he is welcomed by Cressida, who tells him that for three nights she has dreamed of him. After some lively talk about the book they had been reading, Pandarus asks his niece to do away her hood, to show her face bare, to lay aside the book, to rise up and dance, “and let us do to May some observance.

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