Decameron Third Day, Conclusion Summary

  • The ladies may be virtuous, but they find Dioneo's outrageous story absolutely hilarious and can't stop shaking with laughter.
  • After they pull themselves together, Neifile hands off the crown to Filostrato, the first King of the bunch.
  • Neifile remarks that they'll now be able to see if the wolf can lead the sheep any better than the sheep have led the wolves.
  • Filostrato has a vulgar reply (i.e. apt after the final story), and Neifile pluckily tells him that the women could teach him a thing or two.
  • Filostrato gives instructions to his steward for the next day and then declares his miserable theme: loves that end unhappily.
  • He explains that, as his name suggests ("the one shot down by love"), he constantly gets his heart trampled on by Love. Dioneo's going to have his hands full with this Debby Downer.
  • They all stick around the miraculous garden to play a bit longer, and then Filostrato asks Lauretta to dance and sing.
  • Lauretta says she only knows songs that she composes herself. Filostrato is okay with that and asks her to proceed.
  • She sings a lamentation of a widow who loses her perfect love and then decides to marry again (hint: mistake). Her friends spend time interpreting the lyrics in their own ways and singing some more.