Title
The book's primary title exemplifies Boccaccio's fondness for Greek philology: Decameron combines two Greek words, Greek: δέκα déka ("ten") and Greek: ἡμέρα hēméra ("day"), to form a term that means "ten-day event". Ten days is the time period in which the characters of the frame story tell their tales.
Boccaccio's alternative title, Prencipe Galeotto (Prince Galehaut), refers to Galehaut, a fictional king portrayed in the Lancelot-Grail who was sometimes called by the title haut prince ("high prince"). Galehaut was a close friend of Lancelot and an enemy of King Arthur. When Galehaut learned that Lancelot loved Arthur's wife, Guinevere, he set aside his own ardor for Lancelot in order to arrange a tryst between his friend and Guinevere. At this meeting the Queen first kisses Lancelot, and so begins their love affair.
In Canto V of Inferno, Dante compares these fictional lovers with the real-life paramours Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, whose relationship he fictionalises. In Inferno, Francesca and Paolo read of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the story impassions them to lovemaking.
Dante's description of Galehaut's munificence and savoir-faire admidst this intrigue impressed Boccaccio. By invoking the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to Decameron, Boccaccio alludes to a sentiment he expresses in the text: his compassion for women deprived of free speech and social liberty, confined to their homes and, at times, lovesick. He contrasts this life with that of the menfolk, who enjoy respite in sport, such as hunting, fishing, riding, and falconry.
Read more about this topic: The Decameron
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every mans title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“It was his title that killed me. I had never spoken to a lord before. Oh, me! what a fool, what a beast I have been!”
—Anthony Trollope (18151882)
“Down the road, on the right hand, on Bristers Hill, lived Brister Freeman, a handy Negro, slave of Squire Cummings once.... Not long since I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord,where he is styled Sippio Brister,MScipio Africanus he had some title to be called,a man of color, as if he were discolored.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)