[290] Lit. a due or deserved bite (debito morso). I mention this to show the connection with teeth.
[291] An ellipsis of a kind common in Boccaccio and indeed in all the old Italian writers, meaning "it may be useful to enlarge upon the subject in question."
[292] The songs proposed by Dioneo are all apparently of a light, if not a wanton, character and "not fit to be sung before ladies."
[293] This singularly naïve give-and-take fashion of asking a favour of a God recalls the old Scotch epitaph cited by Mr. George Macdonald:
Here lie I Martin Elginbrodde:
Hae mercy o' my soul, Lord God;
As I wad do, were I Lord God
And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.
[294] Lit. for their returning to consistory (del dovere a concistoro tornare).
[295] Messer Mazza, i.e. veretrum.
[296] Monte Nero, i.e. vas muliebre.
[297] i.e. who are yet a child, in modern parlance, "Thou whose lips are yet wet with thy mother's milk."
[298] i.e. women's.