Stanza 91

Boccaccio:

della qual cosa la donna né altro viso né altre parole fece che della fanciulla fatte avesse, di che Gualtieri si maravigliava forte e seco stesso affermava niuna altra femina questo poter fare che ella faceva; e se non fosse che carnalissima de' figliuoli, mentre gli piacea, la vedea, lei avrebbe creduto ciò fare per piú non curarsene, dove come savia lei farlo cognobbe.

which Gualtieri found passing strange, and inly affirmed that there was never another woman in the world that would have so done. And but that he had marked that she was most tenderly affectionate towards her children, while 'twas well pleasing to him, he had supposed that she was tired of them, whereas he knew that 'twas of her discretion that she so did.


Petrarch:

Cum his mandatis reversus ad dominum, animum eius magis ac magis in stuporem egit, ut nisi eam nosset amantissimam filiorum, paulo minus suspicari posset hoc femineum robur quadam ab animi feritate procedere, sed cum suorum omnium valde, nullius erat amantior quam viri. Iussus inde Bononiam proficisci, eo illum tulit quo sororem tulerat.

The man, returning to his master with these words of hers, drove him to yet greater wonder, so that if he had not known her for the most loving of mothers, he might have had some faint suspicion that the strength of the woman came from a certain hardness of heart; but while she was strongly attached to all that were hers, she loved no one better than her husband. The servant was then bidden to set off for Bologna and to take the boy where he had taken his sister.


Chaucer:

This markys wondred evere lenger the moore
Upon hir pacience, and if that he
Ne hadde soothly knowen therbifoore
That parfitly hir children loved she,
He wolde have wend that of som subtiltee,
And of malice, or for crueel corage,
That she hadde suffred this with sad visage.


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