A smile in the pandemic

An implacable disease has broken out. A silent enemy, its stealthy advance appears inexorable, as it leaves a trail of victims behind it. At first, many sicken, and then with terrible finality, they begin to die.

Italy is one of the first places struck. In Florence, where the ravages are just starting, a group of young people decide they will be safer outside the city than inside. They make for a villa at Fiesole, in the hills nearby.

Fiesole. Not a bad place to be locked down

A breach of the lockdown rules? Perhaps there were none at that time. But in any case, they are in that place alone, and they have to find a way to pass the time.

Seven young women and three young men. They decide that each day they will elect one of their number to be King or Queen. The monarch for the day will choose a theme. Then everyone has to tell a story on that topic.

The themes range widely. Some are noble and elevating, like those of the day devoted to acts of great generosity. Some can be fearsome, such as Isabella and the Pot of Basil, one of the fiercest revenge stories written. The majority, however, are funny, concerned with the clever way people get out of scrapes, or trick each other to achieve their aims. Often, at the core is love, in the widest possible sense, from the purest of loves to something, shall we say, far earthier.

And what could be more appropriate? Love and laughter. What better way to tackle the fear and depression that accompany a terrible illness?

Some of you reading this post, especially if you’re Italian, may be saying “I recognise this story”. You’d be right. This isn’t a tale of Coronavirus in 2019. It’s a story set against the background of a far worse affliction, the Black Death, in 1348.

What’s more, the story’s a fiction. The seven women and three men, noble and virtuous even when they’re telling stories bordering on the erotic, emerged from the imagination of one of the world’s greatest storytellers, Giovanni Boccaccio.

Boccaccio's statue in the
Uffizi gallery in Florence

The book, the Decameron, is a monument to his skill. He had never previously published a short story. There was no tradition of writing such pieces anywhere in Europe. And here he produced a hundred of them.

Most of the stories were not invented by him. Indeed, many were old folk tales, or traditional stories from different countries. But he had to collect them and write them up himself.

What’s more, he wrote them in a strange language. In the fourteenth century, there was no such nation as Italy. The name applied only to a geographic entity, the peninsula where people spoke a variety of languages, related though often very different from each other, and none of them called ‘Italian’.

However, half a century earlier, the great poet Dante had written his extraordinary three-volume poem, The Divine Comedy, in his native language, Tuscan. Another great poet, Petrarch, a contemporary and friend of Boccaccio’s, had also written poems in that language.

Boccaccio, as a Florentine, was also a Tuscan speaker. The huge influence of these three writers, using that language, is one of the major influences that led to Tuscan becoming the basis of today’s Italian, when Italy appeared as a nation at last, over five centuries later. That’s why anyone who knows modern Italian reasonably well can still read Boccaccio with no great difficulty.

But writing prose fiction in Tuscan? In his day, this wasn’t viewed as an appropriate activity for a learned man. When his friend Petrarch called on him, he made that point forcefully. Only women read prose fiction in the vernacular language, the poet admonished him. Tuscan was a ‘vulgar’ language. Women were uneducated. Writing in that language for such an audience was simply undignified.

Men like them, when writing prose, wrote the great noble language of all the best thinkers. They wrote Latin.

That’s all very ironic, today. The Decameron is still read widely, and enjoyed by anyone who likes hilarious, serious, sad, noble, raunchy, astonishing stories. Boccaccio’s Latin works are read by a handful of Academics and no one else.

Amusingly, I think Boccaccio knew that might be the case. The best manuscript of the Decameron – and this was still before the start of printing in Europe, so all books were handwritten – is held in a Berlin museum and it’s in Boccaccio’s own hand.

He produced that copy just two years before his death. So clearly, despite Petrarch’s reproaches, Boccaccio loved this peculiar work of his enough to go to the extraordinary length of writing it all out once more, by hand, even as he approached the end of his life.

He loved his work, as his readers today still do. And the work is a wonderful roller coaster ride through love and fun and laughter and astonishment. It amazes and amuses us. Above all, it raises our spirits.

What better antidote to the pain that comes in the wake of an affliction?

Even if we can’t retreat to the hills above Florence to enjoy his stories.



Just for fun, here’s a retelling, rather than simply a translation, of one of my favourite stories in the collection.

Chichibio and the Crane, from the Decameron

Currado Gianfigliazzi was a nobleman of Florence, a man known for his generosity and style. He led the life of a knight, often taking time away from his duties to go hunting with hawk or hound.

One day, he brought down a fat young crane, and sent it to a good cook he had, a Venetian called Chichibio, to dress it and roast it well for dinner that evening.

Chichibio, who looked as naïve as he was, trussed and dressed the crane and started roasting it over ther, with all the skill he had. When it was nearly done and giving out a wonderful odour, Brunetta, a young woman of the neighbourhood who Chichibio longed to make his own, came into the kitchen and when she saw and smelled the crane, begged him to give her one of the thighs.

He replied emphatically, “you won’t be getting any part of that bird from me, Brunetta, not from me you won’t”.

Irritated, she answered, “Well, too bad for you, if you feel that way. Just remember that if you don’t give me a thigh, you’ll be getting nothing to satisfy your desires from me either.”

They argued heatedly but, in the end, to avoid falling out with her, Chichibio cut off a thigh from the crane and gave it to her.

That evening when the bird was served up to Messer Currado and some guests of his, Currado was astonished to see a leg missing. So he had Chichbio called from the kitchen and asked him what had happened to the missing thigh.

The Venetian, an expert liar, replied without hesitation, “Sir, cranes only have one thigh and one leg.”

“What on earth?” stormed Currado, furious. “Only one thigh and leg? Do you think I’ve never seen a crane before?”

“Sir,” replied Chichibio, “that’s just how it is, and I’ll show you as much whenever you have the time.”

Currado, out of respect for his guests, chose not to pursue the matter just then, but simply said, “If you claim you can show me that they only have one leg, something I’ve never seen or heard before, I want to see it tomorrow. And if it’s like you say, I’ll be fine. But if not, I give you my word that I’ll give you something to remember me by, with regret, till the day you die.”

That was as much as they said to each other that night. But at first light the next day, Currado whose anger had not dissipated at all while he slept, got up and called for horses. Then mounting Chichibio on a nag, he rode off to a river where cranes could often be seen at dawn.

“We’ll soon see whether it was you or I who lied last night.”

Chichibio, seeing that his master was as angry as ever, and that he had to find a way to make good his lie, which he had no idea how to do, rode along behind him. He was terrified and would have made off if he could see any way of getting away with it. But, seeing no way of escaping, all he could do was keep going, haunted by images of cranes on two legs, in front, behind or on either side of him.

But when they reached the river bank, he happened to catch sight, before Currado, of a dozen or more cranes all standing on one leg, as they do when sleeping. Immediately, he pointed them out to Currado.

“Now, sir, look at those cranes standing over there. You can see that I was telling you the truth last night – they each have just one thigh and one leg.”

Currado saw them and replied, “wait. I’ll show you that they have two.”

Moving closer, he shouted “Hey! Hey!” at the cranes. They immediately put their other legs down, took a few steps and flew off.

Currado turned to Chichibio, and said, “so what do you say now, you miserable liar? Do you see that they all have two legs?”

Chichibio, frightened and not knowing where to look, answered, “Yes, sir. But last night you didn’t shout ‘hey, hey’ at the crane. Had you shouted, it would have put down the other thigh and leg, just like these ones did.”

Currado found that answer so funny that his anger simply evaporated and he burst out laughing.

“Chichibio, you’re right. That’s what I should have done.”

So, thanks to his quick and clever answer, Chichibio dodged his bad luck and made his peace with his master.

Fake news and the MSM

Donald Tusk, President of the EU Council, wondered this week about the ‘special place in hell … for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”

In Dante’s Inferno the deepest circle in hell is reserved for traitors. Sounds about right for people who lure their nation down a road with no idea where it leads.

There was, inevitably, an outcry in response to Tusk’s comments. But an EU source confirmed that he stood by his words. “He remains of the view that while the truth may be more painful, it is always more useful.”

That’s not just true, it’s far more significant than the “special place in hell” remark it followed. The truth isn’t always comfortable. Indeed, it’s often challenging.

That’s something that needs to be said and repeated . Especially today. There is a spirit in the air that says “only what I want to hear is true”. The spirit is entirely non-partisan, embracing both left and right. Corbynistas in Britain or Trumpists in the US are as eager as each other to denounce the ‘MSM’ (mainstream media) for peddling ‘fake news’. But when you look more closely, you find that what they’re really objecting to is news that makes them uncomfortable.

There is, for instance, an inclination in certain circles of the left to feel that the government of Venezuela deserves unqualified backing because it proclaims itself to be Socialist, and in such circles, merely to make the claim is enough to win support. It isn’t true of everyone. Emily Thornberry, for instance, the Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokesman recently pointed out that, while calling himself a socialist, President Maduro has betrayed every principle of socialism.

Emily Thornberry gave a thoughtful and thought-provoking speech on Venezuela
and, remarkably, the Guardian reported on it fairly and extensively

It was interesting reading the report of her speech, in that MSM outlet the Guardian, which gave it balanced and extensive coverage. For instance, she argued, in my view courageously and convincingly that, for all Maduro’s failings, it was wrong to recognise the legitimacy of the self-proclamation as interim president of his opponent Juan Guaidó:

We need to give them time, and that offer has been made internally and externally. We need to ensure that happens – that is the best way to proceed, rather than to suddenly say: ‘That’s it, we’ve had enough. We recognise X. We do not recognise Y any more.’ It’s not the way to treat another country, even a country in as desperate a situation as Venezuela.

Such good sense and moderation isn’t universal in the Labour Party. Many in Labour still claim that the desperate state of Venezuela is all the fault of US sanctions. They refuse to accept that Venezuela is an oil economy and has faced sanctions for a far shorter time than Cuba, which does at least manage to feed its people and provide them with healthcare.

But these people don’t read MSM papers like the Guardian. Instead, they read outlets like vezenuelaanalysis.com which tell us that what is happening in Venezuela is an attempted coup against Maduro. And what is this source of information? It’s an online paper founded with money from the Venezuelan government and which claims to be supported today entirely by its readers – though we don’t know who those readers are. A recent reposting of a link to one of these stories included the comment “You won’t see this in Western media”. Well, that’s true. And I would hope not. Because the media I read – the Guardian, the Independent, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others who aspire to professional journalism – don’t take their information from sources whose background is unclear, whose standards are unknown, and whose bias is obvious.

But the beauty of this Venezuelan paper is that it tells its readers what they want to read. And to many people that’s what matters today: not to learn from what they read, as I did from Thornberry’s remarks, but to have their faith confirmed. Because they aren’t looking for evidence, they are driven by belief. And that seems to be a deeply ingrained need in many circles today.

Look at the anti-vaxxer movement. It is having some success, with vaccination rates too low in more and more countries. But somehow anti-vaxxers see no connection between those low rates and the rising numbers of infections, and even deaths, from entirely preventable diseases.

We even see believers in a flat Earth growing in numbers, even though in one instance at least, their very attempts to prove their faith depends on systems based on the Earth being round.

There’s a widespread thirst for belief, not knowledge. Independent of evidence.

The other end of the political spectrum is entirely symmetrical. In the US, the National Enquirer is trying to pressurise Jeff Bezos over some compromising texts and images a hacker has passed them. There can be differing views over whether or not Bezos should have sent those messages. What, however, seems clear is that he is being targeted because he’s the owner of the Washington Post or, as Trump calls it, the Amazon Washington Post (Bezos is also the founder of Amazon).

Here’s the Tweet in which Trump reacted to the first announcement of the revelations about Bezos:

So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!

What doesn’t Trump like about the Washington Post? In the same way as the Maduro fans who can’t cope with Guardian, he hates the fact that the Post sometimes publishes information that isn’t – how shall I put this? – entirely flattering about him.

Both the Maduro supporters and the Trump fans reject the ‘mainstream media’ that sometimes challenges their beliefs with evidence – because those pesky publications insist on standards which involve such boring things as confirmation of sources and careful editing of material for accuracy. That’s not to say they never make mistakes – they certainly do – but it does mean they don’t just spew out propaganda.

No good if you’re flat earther. And the anti-vaxxers, Trump worshippers and Corbyn cult adepts aren’t much different from the flat earthers. Belief trumps information. The truth, as Tusk made clear this week, can sometimes be more painful, and they don’t want that pain.

But the truth’s also much more useful. As I found from Thornbery, in the Guardian this week, when she opened my eyes to another way of seeing things.

A salutary experience which, sadly, the true believers deny themselves.

The best of company. In the finest surroundings

Anne Elliott, one of Jane Austen’s most endearing characters in one of her most enchanting novels, Persuasion, tells her cousin:

“My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“You are mistaken,” he gently replies, “that is not good company; that is the best.”

It was a privilege to enjoy just that kind of company this weekend, at the invitation of a good friend – not so much an old friend, though it was her birthday and a big one with a zero in it, but a longstanding and much loved one.

We were in Dorset, one of England’s finest counties and, as it happens, the setting for a key moment of Persuasion. It also happens to be next door to the county that includes Anne Elliott’s home. We were in a glorious rental cottage – a “cottage” in the sense that our own house is a shed – whose garden sloped down to the river Piddle. Since many of the villages around have the word “puddle” in their name, I can confirm that if the piddle’s big enough, it can form a few puddles.

The company, excellent as it was, did spend a few minutes exploring the punning possibilities of Piddle and puddle but, such was its good taste, swiftly moved on, as I now shall.

Among the many puddles is Tolpuddle, which gave its name to a group of martyrs. These were agricultural labourers who set up a friendly society with a view to improving their lot, and were transported to Australia for their pains. England is known for its respect for traditions, and this story illustrates one that is honoured to this day: while it isn’t a criminal offence to be poor, merely a badge of shame, trying to do something about is highly reprehensible and punishable by the awesome power of the law.

The only downside about Dorset is that getting there owes more to the horrors of Dante than to the elegance of Austen: Purgatory at best when it isn’t simply Hell. We decided to give up all hope before we even set out, and just gritted our teeth as we struggled through the traffic which bedevils this island of ours, tiny but gridlocked because so many people choose to travel, and to travel by car, just at the time that we need the roads.

You appreciate that, following David Cameron’s exhortation to promote them, I’m embracing a British value here: specifically, the one that sees our car as an entitlement, and all others as traffic.

A fine sight. But nothing like warm enough
for me to want to join the brave souls on the beach

On Sunday, we wandered along the cliff path above Lulworth Cove. Ever since the last time I bathed in the Channel, some forty years ago, I’ve felt that the top of a cliff is about the best place from which to enjoy any sea off the English coast. The walk was perfect, in part because it kept us a safe distance from any prospect of actual contact with the water.

Then came the plunge back into Purgatory or, as we like to call it, the British road system. We decided that we’d take advantage of the fact that we were going to spend four or five hours travelling under 150 miles, so we’d have a break along the way. We’d frequently driven through the New Forest but never stopped there, and decided on this occasion to have lunch at an inn followed by a walk.

New Forest ponies, where we stopped for lunch
Not, I hope, an ingredient in the horse radish

It all went smoothly.  The pub was surrounded by Forest ponies who wandered around hoping someone would give them something to eat. We had a traditional English Sunday lunch, roast beef and the trimmings, though in a gesture to the need to modernise traditions, the trimmings included mashed butternut squash. The horse radish was home-made and excellent, though it had unidentifiable lumps in it. I hope it wasn’t horse.

The walk went well too. We were able to coo sentimentally over a new-born calf in a byre we came past. The moment gave me great pleasure, not in the least diminished by the irony of having come there straight from a table where we’d been eating roast beef. You see, in my view Ralph Waldo Emerson got it absolutely right: “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” 

Aww. Just the sight to make us melt
After a roast beef lunch

Our minds had clearly been fully enlarged. No doubt by spending time in beautiful places. Above all, though, by the very best of company.