Elissa

There has been much discussion concerning the significance of the names Boccaccio has given to his narrators - allegorical representations of the seven virtues, symbols of other moral qualities, or just characters that have populated Boccaccio's earlier works. It has been said that Elissa represents either "hope" (Kirkham) or "justice" (Ferrante) and also that she is very young and dominated by a violent passion. Paden suggests that she is the sole recognizable Ghibelline of the group.

The first glimpse of Elissa's character comes in the Introduction of the First Day in which Pampinea has suggested to the other women her plan for fleeing the city in order in an attempt to save their own lives and to return to a somewhat ordered and rational existence. Filomena agrees that this is a good idea but she believes since they are all women and, by nature, "fickle, quarrelsome, suspicious, cowardly, and easily frightened," they will never succeed in their venture.

It is here that Elissa speaks up: she agrees that women are unsuited and unable to act without male guidance but, she wonders, where will they find suitable male companions. She fears for the safety of the group and is concerned about any possible scandal related to traveling with a group of men.

Elissa's Introductory Remarks:

Many of the comments made by the Narrator when, in the transition at the beginning of each novella, he introduces its narrator, follow the same rhetorical model: the members of the brigata are always eager to begin their stories and oblige the command of the Queen or King of the Day. This is true in the treatment of Elissa as well insofar as she generally obeys the day's ruler yet, in the Introduction to Day Three, she assumes an insolent attitude from which we can deduce some features of Elissa's "aristocratic" character. Is she reacting to the anti-ghibelline sentiments of the previous stories told in that day?

• Day 1 "The Queen's final command was reserved for Elissa, who, without pausing to hear it, began all merrily as follows..."
  
• Day 2 "And being only too happy to oblige, Elissa began as follows..."
  
• Day 3 "Whereupon, speaking rather haughtily, not from affectation but from habit long established, Elissa began to address them as follows..."
  
• Day 4 "And in tones of humility she began as follows..."
  
• Day 5 "Elissa was only too eager to obey, and began as follows..."
  
• Day 6 "(She) began to address the company as follows:"
  
• Song for Day 6: "Elissa, with a smile, readily consented and began to sing in dulcet tones" the song that closes the sixth day.
  
• Day 7 "...he called upon Elissa to speak, and she promptly obeyed, beginning as follows:"
  
• Day 8 "And so, still laughing, she thus began:"
  
• Day 9 "Then Elissa was graciously asked by the queen to continue, and she promptly began as follows:"
  
• Day 10 "...and she promptly began, as follows:"

At the end of the sixth day, Dioneo asks Elissa to sing a song and tells her, "let your song be about the one you prefer to all the rest" and when she finishes, "with a most pathetic sigh," she leaves the group very puzzled and "no one was able to say who it was that had caused her to sing such a song." The song of Elissa is very sad; in it she speaks of being a prisoner of Love in an unhappy affair. Love, according to her, is a "war" in which she has been utterly defeated.

Notes on the Characters in Elissa's Stories:

The main characters in the first four of Elissa's stories are all noble. It is only in the fifth day that a "plebeian" is introduced. All the nobles have Ghibelline ties. In Day Six, for example, we meet Guido Cavalcanti and his circle. In Day Seven Elissa's main character is a friar. Day Nine and Ten present us with more members of the clergy: Day Nine with an abbess and the nuns in a convent and Day 10 with the Abbott of Cluny.

Elissa's Stories

(P. G.) Kirkham, Victoria. "An Allegorically Tempered Decameron." Italica 62.1 (1985): 1-23; Ferrante, Joan. "The Frame Characters of the Decameron. A Progression of Virtues." Romance Philology 19.2 (1965): 212-26; Paden, Michael. "Elissa: La Ghibellina del Decameron," Studi sul Boccaccio 21 (1993): 139-50.

Main: Brigata: Elissa