trick or treat?

The stories from these two days deal with trickery (not a new topic in the Decameron).
I'd like you to write your own questions for two of the tales and then answer them, keeping in mind the notion of trickery (for instance -- Why do you think it is such a common theme running throughout these 100 stories? What is it to trick, to be decieved, to 'succeed' at trickery, etc.?).

What comes of trickery - good or bad?

This question can apply to any of the tales, but I'll apply it to Day 8, Story 3, where Calandrino goes along picking up black rocks that he thinks will make him invisible. His companions (certainly not friends) Buffalmacco and Bruno think to have a good time playing around with Calandrino, but what of his poor wife? At the climax of the tale, Calandrino takes out his pointless anger on her: "Running in a fury at his wife, he laid hold of her by the hair and throwing her down at his feet, cuffed and kicked he in every part as long as he could wag his arms and legs, without leaving her a hair on her head or a bone in her body that was not beaten to a mash, nor did it avail her aught to cry him mercy with clasped hands." What a horrible description of domestic abuse! How graphic (and how interesting that it is told by a female narrator)! There is no way around it: this is a really brutal beating for no good reason. It is utterly stupid of Calandrino to take out his own anger on his faultless wife, but to me, it is just as bad that Buffalmacco and Bruno paid no regard to the potential side effects of their prank.

This bit of trickery did not end well - it ended with a bloody act of violence against an innocent bystander. In the Decameron, many tales involving trickery pan out for the best. But although his particular tale does "work out" because everyone is reconciled at the end, the conclusion seems superficial and unsatisfying. For me, a tale that involves real physical damage to an innocent party taints the dubious element of "fun" in a deception. The moral of the story, I think, is that deceiving a fool is as good as indiscriminately taking an axe to everyone around him. An unstable person, faced with false information, will yield unpredictable results ... so remember, if you must trick, trick with care.