[The original of this celebrated tale was at one time believed to have been an old MS. entitled ‘Le Parement des Dames.’ This was first asserted by Duchat’in his notes on Rabelais. It was afterwards mentioned by Le Grand and Manni and through them by the Abbé de Sade and Gallaud (‘Discours sur quelques anciens Poètes’); but Tyrwhitt informs us, that Oliver de la Marche, the author of the ‘Parement des Dames,’ was not born for many years after the composition of the ‘Decameron,’ so that some other original must be sought. Noguier in his ‘Histoire de Thoulouse,’ asserts that the patient heroine of the tale actually existed in 1103. In the ‘Annales d’Aquitaine,’ she is said to have flourished in 1025. That there was such a person is positively asserted by Foresti de Beigamo, in his ‘Chronicle,’ though he does not fix the period at which she lived. The probability, therefore, is that Boccaccio’s novel, as well as the ‘Parement des Dames,’ has been founded on some real or traditional Incident; a conjecture which is confirmed by the letter of Petrarch to Boccaccio, written after a perusal of the ‘Decameron,’ in which he says he had heard the story of Griselda related many years before.
From whatever source derived, ‘Griselda’ appears to have been the most popular of all the stories of the ‘Decameron.’ In the fourteenth century, the prose translations of it in French were very numerous; Le Grand mentions that he had seen upwards of twenty, under the different names, ‘Miroir des Dames,’ ‘Exemples de bonnes et mauvaises Femmes,’ etc. Petrarch, who had not seen the ‘Decameron ’ till a short time before his death (which shows that Boccaccio was ashamed of the work), read it with much admiration, as appears from his letter, and translated it into Latin, in 1373. Chaucer, who borrowed the story from Petrarch, assigns it to the Clerk of Oxenforde, in his ‘Canterbury Tales.’ The clerk declares in his prologue that he learned it from Petrarch at Padua; and if we may believe Warton, Chaucer, when in Italy, actually heard the story related by Petrarch, who, before translating it into Latin, had got it by heart, in order to repeat it to his friends. The tale became so popular in France, that the comedians of Paris represented, in 1393, a Mystery, in French verse, entitled, ‘Le Mystère de Griseldi.’ There is also an English drama, named ‘Patient Grissel,’ entered in Stationers’ Hall, 1599. One of Goldoni’s plays, in which the tyrant husband is king of Thessaly, is also formed on the subject of ‘Griselda.’ In a novel by Luigi Alamanni, a count of Barcelona subjects his wife to a similar trial of patience with that which Griselda experienced. He proceeds, however, so far as to force her to commit dishonorable actions at his command. The experiment, too, is not intended as a test of his wife’s obedience, but as a revenge, on account of her once having refused him as a husband.
The story of Boccaccio seems hardly deserving of so much popularity and imitation. “An English reader,” says Ellis, in his notes to Way’s Fabliaux, “is naturally led to compare it with our national ballad, the ‘Nut Brown Maid’ (the ‘Henry and Emma’ of Prior), because both compositions were intended to describe a perfect female character, exposed to the severest trials, submitting, without a murmur, to unmerited cruelty, disarming a tormenter by gentleness and patience; and finally recompensed for her virtues by transports rendered more exquisite by her sufferings.” The author then proceeds to show that although the intention be the same, the conduct of the ballad is superior to that of the novel. “In the former, the cruel scrutiny of the feelings is suggested by the jealousy of a lover, anxious to explore the whole extent of his empire over the heart of a mistress; his doubts are perhaps natural, and he is only culpable because he consents to purchase the assurance of his own happiness at the expense of the temporary anguish and apparent degradation of the object of his affections. But she is prepared for the exertion of her firmness by slow degrees; she is strengthened by passion, by the consciousness of the desperate step she had already taken, and by the conviction that every sacrifice was tolerable which ensured her claim to the gratitude of her lover, and was paid as the price of his happiness; her trial is short, and her recompense is permanent. For his doubts and jealousy she perhaps found an excuse in her own heart; and in the moment of her final exultation and triumph in the consciousness of her own excellence, and the prospect of unclouded security, she might easily forgive her lover for having evinced that the idol of his heart was fully deserving of his adoration. Gualtieri, on the contrary, is neither blinded by love nor tormented by jealousy: he merely wishes to gratify a childish curiosity, by discovering how far conjugal obedience can be carried; and the recompense of unexampled patience is a mere permission to wear a coronet without further molestation. Nor, as in the ballad, is security by a momentary uneasiness, but by long years of suffering. It may be doubted whether the emotions to which the story of Boccaccio gives rise are at all different from those which would be excited by an execution on the rack. The spirit, too, of resignation, depends much on its motive; and the cause of morality is not greatly promoted by bestowing on a passive submission to capricious tyranny the commendation which is only due to a humble acquiescence in the just dispensations of Providence.” ]