when
"nella braccia la Donna pietosa
Istupefatto gli parea tenere."
Taken thus we may divide the story of his love for Fiammetta into three periods. The first of these ends twelve days after the first meeting, and is the period of uncertainty. The second period is that in which he is accepted as courtier, as it were, on his trial. The third begins when his lady, moved by long service and repeated proofs of his devotions, returns his love; it is the period of "dolce signoria" and lasts one hundred and thirty-five days, at the end of which she gives herself to him.[137]
Of these periods we know only the length, then, of the first and the last. The first began on the 30th March and lasted till the 12th April, 1331, when the second began, to last how long? Well, at least two months, it seems,[138] perhaps three. In that case all three periods belong to the same year. If this be not so, the second period was of longer duration than three months, perhaps much longer. Boccaccio himself tells us that it was "non senza molto affanno lunga stagione."[139] Now it seems reasonable to suppose that even so eager a lover as Boccaccio cannot call three months "lunga stagione," though he were dying for her and each minute was an eternity. He can scarcely have hoped to seduce a woman of his own class in less time. Common sense, then, is on our side when reminding ourselves that Maria d'Aquino was of the noblest family, married, too, to a husband who loved her, and generally courted by all the golden youth of Naples—while Giovanni was the son of a merchant—we insist that he cannot mean a paltry three months when he speaks of a long time.[140] But if the second period lasted more than three months, and so does not belong to the year 1331, to what year or years does it belong?
Della Torre seems to have found a clue in the following sonnet, whose authenticity, though doubted by Crescini,[141] he insists upon:—
"Se io potessi creder che in cinqu' anni
Ch' egli è che vostro fui, tanto caluto
Di me vi fosse, che aver saputo
Il nome mio voleste, de' miei danni