Stanza 98

Boccaccio:

Ma essendo piú anni passati dopo la natività della fanciulla, parendo tempo a Gualtieri di fare l'ultima pruova della sofferenza di costei, con molti de' suoi disse che per niuna guisa piú sofferir poteva d'aver per moglie Griselda e che egli cognosceva che male e giovenilmente aveva fatto quando l'aveva presa, e per ciò a suo potere voleva procacciar col Papa che con lui dispensasse che un'altra donna prender potesse e lasciar Griselda; di che egli da assai buoni uomini fu molto ripreso; a che nulla altro rispose se non che conveniva che cosí fosse.

Years not a few had passed since the girl's birth, when Gualtieri at length deemed the time come to put his wife's patience to the final proof. Accordingly, in the presence of a great company of his vassals he declared that on no wise might he longer brook to have Griselda to wife, that he confessed that in taking her he had done a sorry thing and the act of a stripling, and that he therefore meant to do what he could to procure the Pope's dispensation to put Griselda away, and take another wife: for which cause being much upbraided by many worthy men, he made no other answer but only that needs must it so be.


Petrarch:

Itaque cum iam ab ortu filie duodecimus annus elapsus esset, nuntios Romam misit, qui simulatas inde literas apostolicas referrent, quibus in populo vulgaretur datam sibi licentiam a Romano Pontefice, ut pro sua et suarum gentium quiete, primo matrimonio reiecto, aliam ducere posset uxorem;

And so, when twelve years had passed since the birth of his daughter, he sent envoys to Rome to bring back thence documents bearing the appearance of a papal bull, which should cause the rumor to circulate among the people that licence had been granted him by the Roman pontiff, with a view to his own peace and that of his people, to annul his first marriage and to take another wife;


Chaucer:

Whan that his doghter twelf yeer was of age,
He to the court of Rome in subtil wyse
Enformed of his wyl sente his message,
Comaundynge hem swiche bulles to devyse
As to his crueel purpos may suffyse,
How that the pope as for his peples reste
Bad hym to wedde another, if hym leste.


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