Decameron
Subtitle: The John Payne Translation
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: November 16, 1983
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 444
ISBN-13: 9780520035577
Subjects: Novels, other prose & writers; Plague; Italian Prose; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Italian; Storytelling; European - General; Literary Criticism & Collections / General; Fiction; Europe; History
First sentence: Every time I stop to consider your natural inclination to pity, most gracious ladies, I recognize that you will find the opening of this present work abhorrent and distressing; for so is the painful recapitulation of the recent deadly plague, which occasioned hardship and grief to everyone who witnessed it or had some experience of it, and which marks the introduction of my work.