which I have already referred to and used in suggesting that five years passed between the innamoramento and the possession in Boccaccio's love affair.[376]
I now turn to the sonnets, which, in their dolorous complaint, would seem to belong to the period after his betrayal. In sonnets lxxix. and lxxx. he reproves Love, in lxx. he swears that love is more than honour, in lvii. he invokes death as his only refuge, in lxxvii. he burns with love and rage:—
"Ed io, dolente solo, ardo ed incendo
In tanto fuoco, che quel di Vulcano
A rispetto non è ch' una favilla."
In sonnets iv., v., xliii., lv., and ballata i. he is altogether desperate. In iv. we have the splendidly bitter invective against Baia already quoted.[377]
It is true that we should not have recognised the soul of Fiammetta as the "chastest that ever was in woman"; but that Boccaccio could think so is not only evidence that he had been blind, as he says, but also of the eagerness of his passion. If we had any doubt of the reason of his misery, however, it is removed by sonnets xliii., lv., and ballata i., where his betrayal is explicitly mentioned.[378] In sonnet xvi. a thousand ways of dying present themselves to him; in cv. he hopes, how vainly, to win her back again:—
"Questa speranza sola ancor mi resta,
Per la qual vivo, ingagliardisco e tremo
Dubbiando che la morte non m' invole...."