Tedaldo degli Elisei
- Storyteller: Emilia
- Tedaldo degli Elisei (a Florentine) has the bad luck to fall in love with Monna Ermellina, who's inconveniently married to another man, Aldobrandino Palermini.
- For a while, it works out: Ermellina gives him, um, what he asks for and he's very pleased.
- But suddenly, she refuses to see him without giving a reason.
- Tedaldo's devastated, so he decides to slink away without telling anyone except one friend.
- He arrives in Ancona and takes the name Filippo di Sanlodecchio.
- This Filippo finds employment with a merchant and he immediately ships off for Cyprus.
- He does so well in his new position that he's rewarded with a good salary and great responsibility. Things stay like this for seven years.
- But one day, Filippo hears someone singing a song that he'd composed about his former lover, and all of his longing returns. He decides to return home to catch a glimpse of her.
- When he arrives in Florence, he walks to Ermellina's house and finds that it's been closed up.
- Filippo then walks on to his former home and sees his brothers standing around, all dressed in black.
- He asks around and finds out that his own brothers are in mourning because their brother Tedaldo (i.e. himself) had been murdered.
- Filippo/Tedaldo is even more amazed to hear that Aldobrandino has been accused of his murder.
- As he tries to sleep at his inn that night, Tedaldo sees three men enter from the roof and confess to the murder of a man they call Tedaldo.
- The real Tedaldo knows that he has to do something to save Aldobrandino (even though he's the husband of his lady love), so he comes up with a plan.
- First, he visits Ermellina to learn why she snubbed him so long ago.
- She doesn't recognize him and Tedaldo manages to impress her so much with his intimate knowledge of her situation that Ermellina thinks he's a prophet.
- Tedaldo exploits that very nicely. He tells Ermellina that God's angry with her for one particular sin that she committed in her youth (i.e. rejecting Tedaldo).
- Ermellina tells him that she cut off Tedaldo because a friar told her she'd wind up in the deepest pit of Hell if she continued her affair.
- Tedaldo tells her that he's a friar himself (FYI, a total lie) and he can say with total certainty that "modern" friars are far from holy.
- In fact, they only want women and money, so they torment lay people with stories of hell and punishments.
- Tedaldo spends a long time on the wickedness of friars to say one thing: friars denounce the sins of lay people so that they can clear the way to perpetrate those sins themselves.
- He convinces Ermellina that she, in fact, had stolen from Tedaldo (because she had given herself to him and then took herself away) and sent him into exile and ultimately caused him to be murdered.
- Isn't that much worse, he says, than garden-variety adultery?
- To sum up: Ermellina's husband is about to die for murder and she herself is in despair all because of her stupid need to follow the advice of a "holy man."
- The "friar" makes her promise that if Tedaldo should return, she'll give herself to him again.
- Ermellina thinks that this is nuts—she's seen Tedaldo's dead body—but she promises.
- With that, Tedaldo shows her a ring that she'd given to him on their last night and reveals his identity.
- Ermellina's mighty freaked out. She thinks Tedaldo has come back from the grave.
- After a few kisses, Tedaldo's off to see Aldobrandino in jail. Still disguised, he asks Aldo to do one thing if he's freed: forgive Tedaldo's brothers for landing him in jail.
- Aldobrandino promises readily to do this—and Tedaldo is off again to see the judge.
- In the end, Tedaldo manages to convince the judge that the two innkeeper brothers were guilty of the murder in question.
- The men are arrested and confess to the murder of Tedaldo, but the reason they give is interesting: the man had been pestering one of their wives and had tried to rape her.
- So the thugs are summarily dispatched and Aldobrandino is released. There's much rejoicing in his house, but still no one knows that Tedaldo's really alive.
- Aldobrandino makes good on his promise to reconcile with Tedaldo's brothers and invites them for a banquet, where he pardons them in public.
- Finally, Tedaldo reveals himself to them. At first, they don't believe he's alive. He has to convince them by relating things only the real Tedaldo would know.
- After the partying dies down (a few days, give or take), Tedaldo settles back into his life.
- The people of Florence still weren't 100% convinced that he was the real Tedaldo. Then they learn, by accident, who the real dead man was.
- One day, a group of soldiers passes through town and greets Tedaldo by the name Faziulo. As soon as Tedaldo speaks, they realize their mistake, but the description they give of their missing friend and his clothing fit the murdered man to a tee.
- Now that the question of his identity is cleared up, Tedaldo lives happily ever after.
- And no—Ermellina never refuses him again.