Loyalty, Disobedience, and Trickery in King Lear and Decameron

Introduction: Obedience Versus Loyal Disobedience

In Mandragola, the servant Siro declares: "I am your servant, and servants ought never to ask their masters about anything, nor to look into any of their affairs, but when they are told about them by them themselves, they ought to serve them faithfully, so I have done and so I shall do." Siro thus asserts that the primary duty of a loyal servant — and indeed of others who serve, such as vassals, spouses, and children who owe loyalty to masters — is to obey. Some servants and other subordinate figures in Mandragola, the Decameron, and King Lear seem to agree. Others, however, do not. The Earl of Kent in King Lear, for example, expresses his loyalty precisely by disobeying his master and engaging in trickery.

The question worth examining is why Kent rejects Siro's point of view and decides that the best way to remain loyal — first to King Lear, and later to the Duke of Gloucester — is to disobey and to deceive. What do disobedience and trickery achieve? And do they produce better results than the obedient behavior of the servant women in Decameron 7.8 and 8.4?

Both of the women servants in the Decameron experience better outcomes than the characters in King Lear, since most of the latter end up dead by the close of the play. No one dies in the two Boccaccio stories, which were intended to be humorous — although one of the servant women receives a very bad beating. Unlike those servants, who were members of the lower classes and quite literally nameless nobodies, the Earl of Kent was an aristocrat who had always served King Lear totally and without reservation. He was not a hired man but was bound by feudal oaths of loyalty to his sovereign.

The Earl of Kent: Feudal Loyalty and Noble Disguise

At the start of King Lear, the Earl of Kent objects to the exile of Cordelia to France and is immediately banished himself for daring to question the king's will. From start to finish, however, he is a man of the highest honor and integrity, and speaks out openly against the injustice done to the youngest — and best — of Lear's three daughters. He states in Act 2 that he had always honored and served the king, whom he "loved as my father, as my master followed" (Lear, 1998, p. 8). So dog-like is his devotion that he even described himself as "a pawn to wage against thine enemies" — that is, a common foot soldier rather than a nobleman (Lear, p. 9).

When the king banished Kent from the palace and sent him into exile, their feudal bonds were formally broken and Kent owed no further allegiance. Yet he stayed with Lear until the very end of the play, disguising himself under the name Caius to continue serving the wandering, demented king. He tricked the mad king into believing he was simply a servant — but with the noblest of intentions — and received no rewards or incentives such as those offered to the housemaids in Boccaccio's stories. Kent lived to see all of Lear's enemies defeated and killed, but in the end all he wished was that the old king should not have to suffer any more, longing to "stretch him no longer" upon "the rack of this tough world" (Lear, p. 145). Kent died almost immediately after Lear, literally loyal to the death and displaying far more virtue and friendship than the king had ever shown him.

Servant Trickery in Decameron 7.8 and 8.4

Neither of the servants in the Decameron was of nearly the same social status as the kings and upper nobility of King Lear, though both served in the households of the merchant and gentry classes. They have no ties of blood, friendship, or feudal vassalage to their masters; they simply work for wages. In both cases, they receive some reward for helping the ladies of the house out of very difficult situations.

In Decameron 7.8, the widow of Fiesole conspires with her maid and two brothers to embarrass the parish priest who is determined to have an affair with her. He is quite elderly — though he behaves like a juvenile — and she feels only revulsion toward him. Her maid, Ciutazza, known as "the Troll," is also elderly, ugly, and lame, but in return for a new gown she agrees to sleep with the priest while the widow and her brothers arrange for the bishop to catch them in the act. At one point, the Troll professes some devotion to her mistress, saying "to oblige you, madam, I will sleep with half-a-dozen," and at the end of the story the priest is caught and forced to do penance (Boccaccio, 1920, p. 393). Unlike in King Lear, no one dies in this tale. By customary rights, the widow's brothers could have killed any man who made improper sexual advances toward their sister, but since he was a priest they refrained from doing so.

In story 8.4, Sismonda — the aristocratic wife of a merchant — really is guilty of adultery with a young gentleman named Ruberto, and her husband is determined to catch them and send her home to her brothers for punishment. One night he finds Ruberto in the house and chases him out, whereupon Sismonda promises her maid money if she will take the beating when he returns. The maid is beaten bloody and has her hair cut off, but never utters a word throughout her ordeal except "for God's sake have mercy" when the punishment becomes too intense (Boccaccio, p. 363). She receives her promised reward, and when the husband subsequently confronts Sismonda's brothers, they question his sobriety or mental stability — for Sismonda bore no marks of beating at all.

References

Boccaccio, G. (1920). Decameron. Cincinnati, OH.

Shakespeare, W. (1998). King Lear. Signet Classics.