Decameron #2

From the beginning to end Andreccuio learns how to not trust, people who seem too friendly to a stranger. From one bad situation into another he was fooled, by friendly strangers who pretended to help him. He was easily fooled and taken advantage of, with that young woman who pretended to be his sister; and those two men who left him in the well then in the tomb.

Humanity is a constant fight for survival. The strong prey upon the weak, or leave them there to die; and the strong join the strong to become stronger off each other. Or the one strong are turned weak, and flee to a new area where their chances of becoming strong again are higher. How Madam Beriota fled to save her life and her sons. But stayed alive of her desire to live, she became a “wild-woman”.

Everywhere she went, the lady was observed by the men as being very beautiful and they lusted after her. But every time a new male character came into the picture, she was already under the project of another. There entailed the lust. From Pericone having her first, being killed by his brother Marato, skip a few men until the Duke of Athens, killed Ciuriaci and the Prince for her. All the while she was crying, not over the fact that men were killing each other over but that her misfortunes kept on growing.

The merchants wife Madonna Zinevra, for six years pretended to be a man, since she escaped being killed by her husband. Because her husband Bernabo was easily tricked into believing that she had slept with another merchant Ambruogiuolo.In this time it was easier and safer to be a single man traveling the world than it was to be a woman.Eve the Sultan didn't know that Madonna was a woman and she had become one of his close advisers.

Being mute as it was used in both of these stories is a perfect way of concealing ones true intentions and history of where they have come from. It gives the person who is being 'mute' an advantage over the people around them, since they think they can't talk, but the person just sits there listening an observing until the time is right to begin speaking once more.