years afterwards he
published "The Decameron," the title being derived from the
Greek words signifying "ten days." This collection of a
hundred stories is certainly one of the world's great books.
Many English writers of the first order have gone to it for
inspiration. Boccaccio's friend, Petrarch, was so delighted
with the tale of Griselda, with which the work concludes, that
he learnt it off by heart. Chaucer developed it into the
finest of all his stories. Dryden, Keats, and Tennyson have
also been inspired by Boccaccio; while Lessing has made the
Italian story-teller's allegory of "The Three Rings" the
jeweled point on which turns his masterly play. "Nathan the
Wise" (see Vol. XVII). Boccaccio, after filling many high
posts at Florence, retired to Certaldo, where he died on
December 21, 1375.

_The Seven Beautiful Maidens_

In the year of our Lord 1348 a terrible plague broke out in Florence,
which, from being the finest city in Italy, became the most desolate. It
was a strange malady that no drugs could cure; and it was communicated,
not merely by conversing with those strickened by the pestilence, but
even by touching their clothes, or anything they had worn. As soon as
the purple spots, which were the sign of the disease, appeared on the
body, death was certain to ensue within three days.

So great were the terror and disorder and distress, that all laws, human
and divine, were disregarded. Everybody in Florence did just as he
pleased. The wilder sort broke into the houses of rich persons, and gave
themselves over to riotous living, exclaiming that, since it was
impossible to avoid dying from the plague, they would at least die
merrily. Others shut themselves up from the rest of the world, and lived
on spare diet, and many thousands fled from their houses into the open
country, leaving behind them all their goods and wealth, and all their
relatives and friends. Brother fled from brother, wife from husband,
and, what was more cruel, even parents forsook their own children. It
was perilous to walk the streets, for they were strewn with the bodies
of plague-strickened wretches, and I have seen with my own eyes the very
dogs perish that touched their rags.

Between March and July a hundred thousand persons died in Florence,
though, before the calamity, the city was not supposed to have contained
so many inhabitants. But I am weary of reco