Story of the Month: The Falcon

In Florence there was a young man named "Federigo," famed throughout the whole province for surpassing its young men in skill at swordplay, in refinement of manner, and in nobility of soul. Before long he fell into what young men fall into: he fell in love with a maiden called "Monna Giovanna," known in her day as one of the loveliest of beauties.

Wishing to win her love, he took to jousting, displaying his arts in the lists, and set about giving banquets, holding parties, and spending money recklessly; but she joined chastity to beauty, and paid him no heed.

He kept up his extravagance until he lost his money and poverty overtook him, leaving him nothing but a small farm that scarcely sufficed him, and a falcon counted among the finest falcons in the world.

Love wore him down, and his ardor grew fierce, and he no longer possessed the means to live in town as he loved to do. So he moved to the farm and spent most of his time there, sending his falcon out after game, asking nothing of anyone, bearing his poverty with patience.

While he was far from the city, an illness struck the husband of "Monna Giovanna" and pressed hard upon him. Feeling that he was drawing near to death, he wrote his will. He was rich, and had but one son; and he loved "Monna" most dearly, so he made her his heir after his son, should the boy die without issue.

The wife grieved for her husband after his death, and went with her son to a house of hers in the countryside, near the farm where "Federigo" lived, to pass the year of mourning.

It happened that the boy became acquainted with Federigo, and a friendship grew up between them that strengthened with the days. The boy delighted in the dogs and the birds, and often saw the falcon fly, and wished it were his; but he dared not ask it of Federigo, having seen how intensely he prized it.

One day the boy fell ill, and his mother was most anxious for him. She took to spending the whole day at his bedside, comforting and diverting him, asking whether there was anything he wanted, and saying to him: "Ask whatever you wish, and I will get it for you if I can find any way to it."

She pressed him, and he said: "Mother, if you bring me Federigo's falcon, I have no doubt I shall be cured of my illness."

The mother fell to pondering the matter at length, to see what she should do. She knew that Federigo loved her, but she knew also that she had never once favored him with a glance to gladden his soul and console his love with hope.

She said to herself: How can I go to him, or send to ask the falcon of him, when I have heard it is the best of falcons? Indeed, how can I bring myself to snatch it from a man who has no consolation left in the world but it?

She was certain that she had scarcely to ask it of him before he would give it; yet she remained perplexed, not knowing what to tell her son.

But her love for her boy prevailed in the end over everything, and she resolved to satisfy him, whatever the price of that satisfaction. She would not send a messenger to Federigo, but decided to go to him herself.

She turned to the boy and said: "Be easy, my son, and do not fret; tomorrow I shall go for the falcon, and I shall bring it back to you."

No sooner did the boy hear her words than he rejoiced and revived. His mother set out the next morning, in the company of one of the women, taking a stroll through the village as though she had gone out for exercise, until she came to Federigo's farm and asked for him.

He was in the garden, working the earth; for the weather had been overcast for days, and he had not gone out with his falcon to hunt.

How astonishment seized him when he was told that Monna was at the door asking for him! She saw him coming toward her, and hastened to greet him — a charmer to captivate the mind. He greeted her courteously... and she began: "How are you, Federigo, and how do you fare? I have come to atone for what I have done. You loved me, and loved to excess, and suffered by it. And I have come to dine with you today, I and my companion, to prove to you that I regret what passed from me."

He said, with utmost courtesy: "My lady, I do not recall ever having met with any ill from you on any day, nor that you ever brought me any hurt. If there remains in me today anything worthy of praise, it comes from that love, and is part of the praise that is your due... This gracious visit of yours is so dear to my soul that I would I had all that is on earth, to spend it once again as I spent it the first time. But you have come today to a poor man."

He led her into the house, and thence to the garden, and then said: "Pray, my lady, sit here with this good woman, the wife of this gardener, to keep you company and entertain you, while I go to prepare the table."

For all the sore poverty he was in, he had never before this day grasped the extent of his prodigality and folly in squandering his money and dissipating his fortune in the days gone by. Oh, how bitter his remorse now, and the anguish of his soul, when it became plain to him that he was powerless to do honor to that maiden for whose sake he had so often given banquets and lavished money without stint!

The hour was late, and his desire to honor her extreme; but he would not ask anything of people, nor would he consent to seek from the gardener any help to save the situation.

His glance chanced upon the falcon, perched on an iron bar in its chamber. He took hold of it and felt it, and found it fat and plump, and said: nothing will serve the station of such a maiden but this. He did not hesitate, but took it and slaughtered it, and charged a little servant girl of his to pluck its feathers and prepare it on the spit as roasted meat, while he himself went to the table and spread it; then he returned to the fair lady in the garden, beaming, to inform her that the food which his slender means allowed had been made ready.

The fair lady rose with her companion and went to the table, and the two sat down to the food and ate the roasted falcon, knowing nothing of it.

After the meal she lingered, exchanging talk with him, until she judged the time had come to broach what she had come for, and she began: "Hear me out at length, Federigo. I do not doubt that when you remember the past, and remember your love for me, and remember above all my chastity and what you suffered from it, and then hear what I am about to say, you will count what I have come to ask today an impudence beyond all impudence. But I am certain that if you had a child, by whom you would know the meaning of a father's love and its measure, you would find some excuse for me in what I say and ask... I am, as you know, a mother... and I have an only son, and motherhood has the mastery of me; so do not wonder that I have come to beg of you — against my own will — a gift I know is dear to you. You have every right to prize it, now that your money is gone and you have no consolation left in life but it. This gift I ask of you is... the falcon you keep. My son has been utterly bewitched by it, so much that I have come to fear that the illness he suffers today may grow worse upon him. I adjure you — not in the name of the love you bear me, for that binds you to fulfill nothing, but in the name of the chivalry by which you have risen above all men — to grant me this falcon, that with it I may save my son from death, and remain forever your debtor for it."

Scarcely had Federigo heard her request, and realized that it was no longer in his power to grant it, since he had served her the bird as food, than he began to weep...

Monna thought at first that he grieved and wept at parting from his falcon, and she was on the point of withdrawing her request; but she held back, and waited for what he would say... After he had dried his tears and composed himself a little, he said:

"Ah, my lady, today I have come to believe that fortune, ever since God willed that I should love you, has set itself against me, and that fate mocks me. My sorrows in times gone by were great, but how light all those sorrows, measured against this sorrow that has come upon me now, and that will return to me forever, whenever I picture that you came to my humble house to ask of me a small gift which fate rendered me powerless to give. And here is the secret of my powerlessness:

"When you graciously showed, my lady, your wish to take dinner, I pictured your greatness and your majesty, and this made it needful, in my eyes, that any food served to you must be grand and noble; and I found no food grander or nobler than the falcon you now ask of me as a gift. So I slaughtered it and roasted it and served it to you at table, as best I could. I did not know that you wanted the falcon in any other fashion than this; so how deserving I am of grief, and how fitting for me are sorrow and regret."

And he showed her the feathers, the legs, and the beak that remained of the falcon, as proof.

The fair lady saw and heard all this, and at first she took to reproaching him for slaughtering this precious falcon to make of it a meal for a woman; then she returned to herself, and honored in him his rare chivalry. She departed hopeless and sad, and went back to her little boy.

Death overtook the boy within days — whether from the dashing of his hope in the falcon, or from the worsening of the illness that pressed upon him. For a season she wept the bitterest tears and mourned most grievously.

But she was in the prime of life and newly come into wealth, so her brothers began to press her to marry, while she held back and refused; until, when they pressed too hard, she remembered Federigo's chivalry and his manliness, and his generosity with the falcon, the dearest thing he possessed, and she said to her brothers: "If you truly wish me to take a husband, I will accept none but Federigo for a spouse. By God, he is the best of mates."

They burst out laughing at her in mockery!

They said: "What a wonder you are, and what folly! Would you marry a man who does not own a farthing?"

She said: "You have spoken truly: he does not own a farthing. But I would rather marry a man in need of money than marry money in need of a man!"

Her brothers saw the sincerity of her resolve, and they knew Federigo's merit, so they yielded to her and married her to him, poor as he was.

Federigo found that he had won the woman on whom he had bestowed the deepest love, and gained at her side the ample wealth that had passed to her; and the couple lived the rest of their days in happiness and good estate.

(From the book "Amorous Situations" by the American writer Carl Mason)
Summarized by: Abbas Hafiz