On Famous Women

— XII —

...contentions occur and peace is brief, etc." (It was easy to supply the word sorrows, as has been done, by taking it from the text: original: "nec carent ista doloribus" nor are those things without sorrows). The Neapolitan editor of Boccaccio's Latin text, therefore, occasionally made use of it; but not always, even when doing so was not just useful, but necessary. For example, in Chapter II, which concerns Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians, where it is said (p. 6) that "it was a most certain thing that, having put everything in order and being at rest, one day while having her hair combed by her maids original: "donzelle", according to the custom of the country having her hair braided, and having not yet combed more than half of it, it happened that it was announced to her that Babylon had rebelled and had come under the lordship of a stepson of hers. This thing she took so poorly that she threw away the comb, immediately left behind the feminine task, rose up in anger, and took up arms, and immediately besieged that most strong city"; if in this passage the Neapolitan Editor, reaching the words that follow immediately:

"And she did not stop to cease those citizens who remained,"

which make no sense, had turned to the Latin source, he would have found there: original: "nec ante quod inordinatorum crinium superfuerat composuit" nor did she arrange what remained of her disordered hair, which was more than enough reason to replace the word citizens original: "cittadini" with the word locks or hair original: "crini", which although cer—