Literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages - Summary - 2019
Fyametta
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
This is a love story told by a heroine named Fyamett, addressed primarily to loving women, whose young lady is looking for sympathy and understanding.
The beautiful Fyametta, whose beauty captivated all, spent a life on a continuous holiday; loving wife, wealth, honor and respect - all this has been her fortune. One day, on the eve of a great celebration, Feyamette had a terrible dream that she was walking in a sunny day on a meadow, waving wreaths, and suddenly a poisonous snake screwed her under her left breast; then the light will dim, the thunder rages - and there comes an awakening. In horror, our heroine grabs a bitten place, but finding it unharmed, calms down. This day, in the temple during the holiday service of Feyamet, for the first time he truly falls in love, and her chosen Panfilo answers reciprocity to her suddenly fluttering feeling. The time is coming for bliss and pleasure. "Soon the whole world became me less, it seemed that I reached the heavens with my head", - says Feyamet.
The idyll is broken by the unexpected news received from his father Panfilo. The widow old man asks his son to come to Florence and become a support and consolation at the end of his life, since all the brothers of Panfilo died and the unfortunate father remained alone. Feyametta, unhappy in her grief, tries to keep her lover crying for his pity: "Would it really be, if you preferred pity to my old father to have legitimate pity for me, will you be the cause of my death?" But the young man does not want to bring in brutal reproaches and dishonor, therefore he goes on the path, promising to return three or four months later. In farewell to Feymetta, feelings are lost, and her half-life of grief tries to comfort the maid with her story of how Panfilo sobbed and kissed the face of the lady with tears and begged to help her lover.
Feyametta, the most faithful of women in love, awaits the return of her beloved with submissive faith, but at the same time jealousy burst in her heart. It is known that Florence is famous for lovely women who are able to lure in their networks. What if Panfilo had already fallen into them? Fyametta, suffering, persecutes these thoughts from himself. Every morning she rises to the top of the house and from there watches the sun, and the higher it is, the closer she feels to her the time for the return of Panfilo. Feyametta constantly mentally talks with her lover, reads his letters, picks up the belongings belonging to him, and sometimes calls the maid and talks to her about him. In place of daily comfort, the night comes. Who would have believed that love can teach astrology? By changing the position of the moon, Feametta could definitely say what part of the night passed, and it is not clear what was more pleasant: to watch how time passes, or, being engaged in another business, to see that it has already passed. When the date of the promised return of Panfil was approaching, the lover decided that she should have a little fun, so that some of the beauty that was destroyed by sorrow came back. Prepare luxurious outfits and precious jewelry - so the knight prepares his armor for the future battle.
But the beloved is not there. Feyametta comes up with excuses: maybe his father has begged him to stay longer. Or something happened in the way. But most of all Fiametto was tormented by jealousy. "No worldly phenomenon is everlasting. The new is always more like the one seen, and always a person is more willing than he does not have what he possesses. " So in the hope and in despair a month passed. One day, during a meeting with the nuns, Fyametta met the Florentine merchant. One of the nuns, young, beautiful, of noble origin, asked the merchant whether Panfilo knew. Having received the affirmative answer, she began to ask more in detail, and then Fiametta learned that Panfilo had married. Moreover, the nun blushed with this news, lowered her eyes, and it was evident that she barely held back tears. Shaky Feyametta still loses hope, she wants to believe that this father made Panfilo marry, but he continues to love her alone. But he does not want to look at the sky any more, since she is no longer sure of the return of her beloved. In the impulse of anger, letters are burned and many of his things are spoiled. Once the beautiful face of Fyametti became pale, the wonderful beauty was dying, and it caused dismay at the whole house, giving rise to various aspects.
The husband, watching with anxiety the changes taking place with Fyametta, offers her a trip to the water, healing from all kinds of ailments. In addition, those places are famous for fun time and sophisticated society. Fyametta is ready to fulfill the will of her spouse, and they set off on their way. But there is no salvation from love fever, especially since in these places Feyametta has repeatedly come from Panfilos, so the buried memories only take the wound. Feyametta takes part in various amusements, watching with false tenderness in love couples, but it serves only as a source of new torture. Doctors and the spouse, seeing her pallor, found the illness indescribable and recommended that she return to the city, which she did.
Our heroine happens to sit in a circle of women who are leading a conversation about love, and, eagerly listening to these stories, she realizes that there was not and there is not such a fiery, as secret, as painful love as her. She appeals to Fate with prayers and requests to help her, to protect her from blows: "To be cruel, to crush me; look, I have come to that, which became a parable in the pagan places where formerly glorified my beauty."
A year passed since Panfilo had left Fiummet. Surprisingly, a servant of Fyametti returns from Florence, who says that he did not marry Panfilo at all, and his father, Panfilo, fell in love with one of the Florentine beauties. Feyametta, being unable to tolerate betrayal, tries to commit suicide. Fortunately, the old nurse guesses the intention of his paternity and stops it in time when he tries to rush from the tower. From the desperate grief of Feyametta heavily ill. Her husband is explained that the despair of his wife is caused by the death of his beloved brother.
At some point, there is a glimpse of hope: the nurse reports that he met the Florentine young man on the waterfront, which Panfilo probably knows and assures that he should be about to return. Hope is resurrecting Fiametto, but joy is in vain. Soon it turns out that the information is false, the breadwinner was wrong. Fyametta falls into old longing. At times, she is trying to find comfort in comparing her love torment with the torture of the famous jealous of antiquity, such as Phaedra, Hecuba, Cleopatra, Yokast and others, but finds that her flour is a hundred times thinner.