1. Griselda is being tested so that her husband Gualtieri could find out the limits of her character. He does this on a whim, lying a creating a situation that tried Griselda in many different ways. Until he found that he was unable to break her and then apparently decided that the game was over.
2. The Decameron and The Thousand and One Nights each have similar and different reasons for telling the stories that are in them. In The Decameron the main goal of the stories is to entertain for the point of forgetting about the rest of the world. All of the main ten characters are very specific about this telling there servants that only news of the outside world thats allowed to reach them is happy news. Escaping in this manner is there method of dealing with the massive amounts of death that now surround them. While in The Thousand and One Nights the aim is the opposite because the stories are being told to deal with a real world problem. Shahrazad also directs the stories in subtle ways to point out to Shahrayar that him killing everyone who displeases him is not the best method of dealing with people. While The Decameron has many of the different stories each with its own individual point they don’t have the same overarching point that The Thousand and One Nights does ands needs to meet its goal of stopping Shahrayar. The Decameron doesn’t need the unity of the tales that The Thousand and One Nights does though because its lack of direction helps it accomplish its goal of just to entertain people.
3. The nightingale symbolizes the love between the wife and the best friend. With the nightingales death it shows how that love was destroyed by the interference of the husband. Then the actions of both the wife sending the nightingale to the best friend and the best friend keeping in the golden box it symbolizes how they both will always treasure that love even though its no longer a possibility.
I like that you used the nightingales death to represent the death of their love, was a good analogy and I agree.