This episode brings our fourth day and its gloomy theme (love that ended unhappily) to a close, with a gory and miserable narrative by the monarch of the day (4.9), followed by Dioneo blithely ignoring the day's theme to tell a comic tale instead (4.10). In Philostrato's story, a cuckolded husband takes gruesome revenge on his wife and her lover. (Please feel free to skip ahead to the end of the story at 8:40, if you'd rather only hear the funny one). In Dioneo's tale, a doctor's wife brings her lover into the house, only for him to drink an anaesthetic by accident, setting off a series of misadventures that are all resolved happily by the end of the story.

CONTENT WARNINGS: In the first story, starting at 4:29, a man's heart is cut out, given to an unknowing cook to prepare (which is described in detail), and served to be eaten unknowingly by the man's lover. When this is revealed, she commits suicide. Skip ahead to 8:40 if you prefer to avoid this story.

The medieval justice system shows its usual failings in the second story: a confession extracted by torture (not described), and a judge extorting sexual favours from someone trying to help a prisoner (also not described).