Neifile's tale was praised by all , and when she had finished talking, Filomena, at the Queen's command, began to speak in this fashion:<

The tale that Neifile told brings back to my memory a dangerous incident that once happened to a Jew ; and since God and the truth of our faith have already been well dealt with by us, from now on nothing should prevent us from descending to the acts of men. Now, I shall tell you this story, and when you have heard it, perhaps you will become more cautious when you reply to questions put to you.

You should know, my dear companions, that just as stupidity can often remove one from a state of happiness and place him in the greatest misery, so, too, intelligence can rescue the wise man from the gravest of dangers and restore him to his secure state. The fact that stupidity leads one from a state of happiness to one of misery is shown by many examples which, at present, I do not intend to relate, since thousands of clear illustrations of this appear every day; but, as I promised, I shall demonstrate briefly with a little story how intelligence may be the cause of some consolation.

Saladin, whose worth was such that from humble beginnings he became the Sultan of Babylon and won many victories over Christian and Saracen kings, one day on an occasion in which he needed a large amount of money that he had consumed all his wealth fighting many wars and displaying his grandiose magnificence. Not being able to envision a means of obtaining what he needed in a short time, he happened to recall a rich Jew, whose name was Melchisedech, who loaned money at usurious rates in Alexandria, and he thought that this man might be able to assist him, if only he would agree to do so. But this Jew was so avaricious that he would not agree of his own free will, and the Sultan did not wish to have recourse to force; therefore, as his need was pressing, he thought of nothing but finding a means of getting the Jew to help him, and he decided to use some colorful pretext to accomplish this. He had him summoned, and after welcoming him in a friendly manner, he had him sit beside him and said to him:

"Worthy man, I have heard from many people that you are very wise and most versed in the affairs of God; because of this I would like you to tell me which one of the three Laws you believe to be the true one: the Jewish, the Saracen, or the Christian."

The Jew, who really was a wise man, realized all too well that Saladin was trying to trap him with his words in order to pick an argument with him, and so he understood he could not praise any of the three Laws more than the other without Saladin's achieving his goal; therefore, like one who seems to be searching for an answer in order not to be entrapped, he sharpened his wits, knowing full well already what he had to say, and declared:

"My lord, the question which you have put to me is a good one, and in order to give you an answer, I shall have to tell you a story which you shall now hear. If I am not mistaken, I remember having heard many times that there once was a great and wealthy man who had a most beautiful and precious ring among the many fine jewels in his treasury. Because of its worth and its beauty, he wanted to honor it by bequeathing it to his descendents forever, and he ordered that whichever of his sons would be found in possession of this ring, which he would have left him, should be honored and revered as his true heir and head of the family by all the others. The man to whom he left the ring did the same as his predecessor had, having left behind the same instructions to his descendents; in short, this ring went from hand to hand through many generations, and finally it came into the possession of a man who had three handsome and virtuous sons, all of whom were obedient to their father, and for this reason, all three were equally loved by him. Since the father was growing old and they knew about the tradition of the ring, each of the three men was anxious to be the most honored among his sons, and each one, as best he knew how, begged the father to leave the ring to him when he died. The worthy man, who loved them all equally, did not know himself to which of the three he would choose to leave the ring, and since he had promised it to each of them, he decided to try to satisfy all three: he had a good jeweler secretly make two more rings which were so much like the first one that he himself, who had had them made, could hardly tell which was the real one. When the father was dying, he gave a ring to each of his sons in secret, and after he died each son claimed the inheritance and the position, and one son denied the claims of the other, each bringing forth his ring to prove his case, and when they discovered the rings were so much alike that they could not recognize the true one, they put aside the question of who their true heir was, and left it undecided, as it is to this day.

"And let me say the same thing to you, my lord, concerning the three Laws given to three peoples by God our Father which are the subject of the question you put to me: each believes itself to be the true heir, to posses the true Law, and to follow the true commandments, but whoever is right, just as in the case of the rings, is still undecided."

Saladin realized how the man had most cleverly avoided the trap which he had set to snare him, and for that reason he decided to make his needs known openly to him and to see if he might wish to help him; and he did so, revealing to him what he had had in mind to do if the Jew had not replied to his question as discreetly as he had. The Kew willingly gave Saladin as much money as he desired, and Saladin later repaid him in full; in fact, he more than repaid him: he gave him great gifts and always esteemed him as his friend and kept him near him at court in a grand and honorable fashion.

When I first leafed through The Decameron the small text haunted me. There was no way I would be able to read this for class. The introduction did not ease my worries. Not only was this book huge, but the language was difficult to follow.

Until I started reading the stories. After which, I decided that I love this book. It's easy to read and really delightful. Bocaccio presents the first example of frame narration. Gives inspiration to other amazing works such as the Canterbury Tales. And introduces us to the idea of utopia. All in one novel. Which is comprised of 100 stories, in total, which is the same amount of cantos in all three of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Most of the stories a few pages long and I tried to pick a reasonably short one which was the main criteria for the excerpt below.