Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

home. He is received joyously by his father, and in time, succeeds him and receives
legates from Genoa, among whom is the same Spinetta. Spinetta, upon prompting,
confesses the harm he did to the owner of the hawk and that he had acted discourteously;
he should have accepted the gift and given the owner clothing, "perch'era nudo."
OttavianoJBorra explains that it was he, and thanks Spinetta for giving him the impetus to
return home. The story concludes that in consequence, in Genoa it was decided to
address all people as messere, since, by Borra's example, shabby clothing was not an
accurate indication of status.
Both of these novelle show a blurring of the lines of nobility, in that they
concentrate on defining who is an appropriate person to associate with hawks relative to
people's actions and appearances rather than their birth. The antagonists in these tales
judge wrongly by appearance; in Sacchetti's story the inner nobility of the farmer is
proven, while in Sercambi's, Borra's outer appearance belies his true nobility of birth and
consequent gracious behavior and knowledge of hawks. The old perceptions of people
with hawks can no longer be trusted.
In his Decameron, Boccaccio often uses birds in relation to love as a plot device.
The most memorable of these instances is of course the central role that the nightingale
plays in the love story of Caterina and Ricciardo, story four of day five, in which the
nightingale and the practice of "uccellare" are good-humored sexual euphemisms. To
meet with her lover, Caterina arranges to sleep outside; she argues to her mother for this
arrangement because, she says, it is too warm inside, and in this way the nightingale can
sing her to sleep. She and her Ricciardo are caught the next morning by her father, who
tells her mother that Caterina, in her sleep, has held on to her favorite part of Ricciardo: