Note 224 — THE SECOND STORY

i.e. was more inclined to consider the wishes of the ladies her companions, which she divined by sympathy, than those of Filostrato, as shown by his words (più per la sua affezione cognobbe l'animo delle campagne che quello del re per le sue parole). It is difficult, however, in this instance as in many others, to discover with certainty Boccaccio's exact meaning, owing to his affectation of Ciceronian concision and delight in obscure elliptical forms of construction; whilst his use of words in a remote or unfamiliar sense and the impossibility of deciding, in certain cases, the person of the pronouns and adjectives employed tend still farther to darken counsel. E.g., if we render affezione sentiment, cognobbe (as riconobbe) acknowledged, recognized, and read le sue parole as meaning her (instead of his) words, the whole sense of the passage is changed, and we must read it "more by her sentiment (i.e. by the tendency and spirit of her story) recognized the inclination of her companions than that of the king by her [actual] words." I have commented thus at large on this passage, in order to give my readers some idea of the difficulties which at every page beset the translator of the Decameron and which make Boccaccio perhaps the most troublesome of all authors to render into representative English.