THE DECAMERONby Boccaccio GiovanniTHE INDUCTION OF THE AUTHOR TO THEFOLLOWING DISCOURSESGracious Ladies,so often as I consider with myself,and observerespectively,how naturally you are enclined to compassion;as manytimes doe I acknowledge,that this present worke of mine,will (in yourjudgement)appeare to have but a harsh and offensive beginning,inregard of the mournfull remembrance it beareth at the verie entrance ofthe last Pestilentiall mortality,universally hurtfull to all that beheld it,orotherwise came to knowledge of it.But for all that,I desire it may not beso dreadfull to you,to hinder your further proceeding in reading,as ifnone were to looke thereon,but with sighes and teares.For,I could ratherwish,that so fearefull a beginning,should seeme but as an high andsteepy hil appeares to them,that attempt to travell farre on foote,andascending the same with some difficulty,come afterward to walk upon agoodly even plaine,which causeth the more contentment in them,because the attayning thereto was hard and painfull.For even as pleasuresare cut off by griefe and anguish;so sorrowes cease by joyes most sweeteand happie arriving.thereto deputed:besides prohibition of all sickly persons enterance,andall possible provision dayly used for conservation of such as were inhealth,with incessant prayers and supplications of devoute people,for theasswaging of so dangerous a sicknesse.About the beginning of the yeare,it also began in very strange manner,asappeared by divers admirable effects;yet not as it had done in the EastCountries,where Lord or Lady being touched therewith,manifest signesof inevitable death followed thereon,by bleeding at the nose.But here itbegan with yong children,male and female,either under the armepits,orin the groine by certaine swellings,in some to the bignesse of an Apple,in others like an Egge,and so in divers greater or lesser,which (in theirvulgar Language)they termed to be a Botch or Byle.In very short timeafter,those two infected parts were growne mortiferous,and woulddisperse abroad indifferently,to all parts of the body;whereupon,suchwas the quality of the disease,to show it selfe by blacke or blew spottes,which would appeare on the armes of many,others on their thighes,andevery part else of the body:in some great and few,in others small andthicke.Now,as the Byle (at the beginning)was an assured signe of neereapproaching death;so prooved the spots likewise to such as had them:for