On the morrow, Bruno and Buffalmacco, having painted their bodies all over with livid patches to give them the appearance of having been thrashed, came to the doctor’s house, and finding that he was already risen, went in, being saluted on all hands by a foul smell, for time had not yet served thoroughly to cleanse the house.  The doctor, being informed that they were come to see him, advanced to meet them, and bade them good morning.  Whereto Bruno and Buffalmacco, having prepared their answer, replied:—­“No good morning shall you have from us:  rather we pray God to give you bad years enough to make an end of you, seeing that there lives no more arrant and faithless traitor.  ’Tis no fault of yours, if we, that did our best to honour and pleasure you, have not come by a dog’s death; your faithlessness has cost us to-night as many sound blows as would more than suffice to keep an ass a trotting all the way from here to Rome; besides which, we have been in peril of expulsion from the company in which we arranged for your enrolment.  If you doubt our words, look but at our bodies, what a state they are in.”  And so, baring their breasts they gave him a glimpse of the patches they had painted there, and forthwith covered them up again.  The doctor would have made them his excuses, and recounted his misfortunes, and how he had been thrown into the trench.  But Buffalmacco broke in with:—­“Would he had thrown you from the bridge into the Arno!  Why must you needs mind you of God and the saints?  Did we not forewarn you?” “God’s faith,” returned the doctor, “that did I not.”  “How?” quoth Buffalmacco, “you did not?  You do so above a little; for he that we sent for you told us that you trembled like an aspen, and knew not where you were.  You have played us a sorry trick; but never another shall do so; and as for you, we will give you such requital thereof as you deserve.”  The doctor now began to crave their pardon, and to implore them for God’s sake not to expose him to shame, and used all the eloquence at his command to make his peace with them.  And if he had honourably entreated them before, he thenceforth, for fear they should publish his disgrace, did so much more abundantly, and courted them both by entertaining them at his table and in other ways.  And so you have heard how wisdom is imparted to those that get it not at Bologna.

(1) The distinguishing mark of a doctor in those days.  Fanfani, Vocab. della Lingua Italiana, 1891, “Batolo.”

(2) Perhaps an allusion to some frightful picture.

(3) About four miles from Florence.

(4) In the Italian “artagoticamente,” a word of Boccaccio’s own minting.

(5) A Venetian coin of extremely low value, being reckoned as 1/4 of the Florentine quattrino.

(6) I.e. without salt, that Florentine symbol of wit, not being so readily procurable on a holiday as on working-days.

(7) A public sink at Florence.

(8) In the contado of Arezzo:  the equivoque is tolerably obvious.