THE SCENE: There’s no revenge like “making your wife eat the heart of her dead lover” revenge.
THE TEXT: Roussillon waited until Cabestanh was at close range, then he rushed out at him with murder and destruction in his heart, brandishing a lance above his head and shouting: “Traitor, you are dead!” And before the words were out of his mouth he had driven the lance through Cabestanh’s breast.
Cabestanh was powerless to defend himself, or even to utter a word, and on being run through by the lance he fell to the ground. A moment later he was dead, and his men, without stopping to see who had perpetrated the deed, turned the heads of their horses and galloped away as fast as they could in the direction of their master’s castle.
Dismounting from his horse, Roussillon cut open Cabestanh’s chest with a knife, tore out the heart with his own hands, and, wrapping it up in a banderole, told one of his men to take it away. Having given strict orders that no one was to breathe a word about what had happened, he then remounted and rode back to his castle, by which time it was already dark.
The lady had heard that Cabestanh was to be there that evening for supper and was eagerly waiting for him to arrive. When she saw her husband arriving without him she was greatly surprised, and said to him: “And how is it, my lord, that Cabestanh has not come?”
To which her husband replied:
“Madam, I have received word from him that he cannot be here until tomorrow.”
Roussillon left her standing there, feeling somewhat perturbed, and when he had dismounted, he summoned the cook and said to him: “You are to take this boar’s heart and see to it that you prepare the finest and most succulent dish you can devise. When I am seated at table, send it in to me in a silver tureen.”
The cook took the heart away, minced it, and added a goodly quantity of fine spices, employing all his skill and loving care and turning it into a dish that was too exquisite for words.
When it was time for dinner, Rousillon sat down at the table with his lady. Food was brought in, but he was unable to do more than nibble at it because his mind was dwelling upon the terrible deed he had committed. Then the cook sent in his special dish, which Roussillon told them to set before his lady, saying that he had no appetite that evening.
He remarked on how delicious it looked, and the lady, whose appetite was excellent, began to eat it, finding it so tasty a dish that she ate every scrap of it.
On observing that his lady had finished it down to the last morsel, the knight said:
“What do you of that, madam?”
“In good faith, my lord,” replied the lady, “I like it very much.”
“So help me God,” exclaimed the knight, “I do believe you did. But I am not surprised to find that you liked it dead, because when it was alive you liked it better than anything else in the whole word.”
On hearing this, the lady was silent for a while; then she said: “How say you? What is this that you have caused me to eat?”
“That which you have eaten,” replied the knight, “was in fact the heart of Guillaume de Cabestanh, with whom you, faithless woman that you are, were so infatuated. And you may rest assured that it was truly his, because I tore it from his breast myself, with these very hands, a little before I returned home.”
– Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 14th Century AD
