the clerk’s tale

In Italy, in the Region of Saluzzo, a young Marquis named Walter had not yet found a wife so there was no heir to the throne. Under the insistence of his concerned subjects, he agrees to marry, only as long as he himself chooses the most worthy consort for him.

After a long search, the young ruler announces to the people that he has made his choice and that he would marry that very day. All the people then flock to the small village to see the bride but surprise the Marquis goes to a humble cottage of a farmer. Entering it alone asks for the hand of the farmer’s daughter. The latter, to say the least, perplexed and the girl (named Griselda) is then taken out of the house, stripped in front of all of her miserable clothes and dressed as a queen, the couple moves to the palace

Griselda, despite her humble beginnings, also proves very adept at handling political issues when her husband is away or traveling. The story goes on to tell the birth of the couple’s children: as the eldest child a beautiful child, and then a beautiful baby.

Walter decides to test his wife’s fidelity and absolute obedience. To test her, in two distinct moments of the story, there was the murder of both children: the woman remains impassive, and both times she submits to the will of her husband, who is pleasantly surprised. Being not quite satisfied, the king submits his wife to a third trial, in which he pretends to repudiate her in favor of a richer and younger woman, again the young woman agrees to the will of her husband. Griselda is then stripped again and covered only by a rag is driven from the palace. The girl then returns to the village at her father’s house. Shortly after Griselda is summoned back to the palace by the Marquis to serve as a servant and prepare the bridal thalamus to the new bride who would arrive the same day

Finally, when the “new wife” shows up at the royal palace, the king unmasks the staging: he declares to Griselda, the real wife, his own love, and confesses to her that the new “bride” others are but their first daughter, which he had pretended to kill but that instead to she was secretly sent to Bologna by her sister and that the page that accompanied her was none other than their son. The story ends with Griselda’s new dress in majestic clothes.