The Crisis of Word and Deed in Decameron V, 10

The tale of Madonna Oretta, the first tale of Day Six, has received much critical attention as the midpoint of Boccaccio's Decameron, but the tenth story of the preceding day has not. And yet this novella is just as central as the one that follows it; indeed, if one counts the Author's tale in the Introduction to Day Four, the final story of Day Five is the fifty-first tale. This novella could thus even challenge the status of Madonna Oretta's story as a key to reading the Decameron as a whole—a parallel of Purgatory XVII, 51 of Dante's Commedia. ¹ Roberta Bruno Pagnamenta observes the symmetry between the two central tales of the Decameron: whereas the first story of Day Six is about telling stories, the last tale of Day Five is about the fruits of storytelling. ² This essay will argue that these two tales together, through the play of metaphors used to describe sex and storytelling, constitute a crisis at the midpoint of the work. Considering the ample critical attention directed to VI, 1, this essay will examine primarily V, 10 within the context of VI, 1.