."..a very fair damsel come running, naked, through a thicket all thronged with underwood and briers, towards the place where he was, weeping and crying sore for mercy and all disheveled and torn by the bushes and the brambles." (pg. 439) This scene from The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, depicts a naked woman being pursued by a knight on horse back. Surprisingly the force that compels this knight to ensue with his gruesome rampage is the delicate weight of love. Love can sometimes be a destructive emotion. Love can instigate jealousy or revenge, irrational decisions, and can also transform into greed.

Love, when pushed to the brink of obsession, can incite jealousy and revenge. Examples can be seen in The Decameron when Nastagio witnesses a damsel running through the forest under pursuit of an irate knight and his ferocious dogs. The knight explains his grounds for pursuing her in...