But in the song and its oral tradition they a) were burried and b) committed. Are you suggesting the "sin" mentioned was having the plague at all?

Also, just because they (it is said) were having sex with the delivery boy, mightn't they have been having sex with each other? I have heard vague rumors that such ghastly things have occured.

Ok, ok. I've got a Merck right here at my desk but I was too lazy to stand all the way up. Quoting...

Man-to-man transmission occurs from inhalation of droplet nuclei spread by caughing patients with bubonic or septicemic plague who have developed pulmonary lesions; primary pneumonic plague is the result. A number of cases have been associated with household pets, especially cats. Transmission from cats can be by bite or, if the cat has pneumonic plague, by inhalation of infected droplets.

Bubonic is most common form...incubation from a few hours to 12 days...usually 1-5 days. There follows a description of symptoms nowhere near as graphic or specific as Bocaccio's. Primary pneumonic plague has 2-3 day incubation. Most untreated patients die within 48 hours after symptoms begin. With antibiotic treatment, mortality less than 5%.

As Jeri found, the actual contageous period is not clearly given. Bubonic is far less dangerous. Caughing seems to start well into the symptoms when you'd think Delivery Boy wouldn't want to be driving around with the grocery order. Still, if it were deliver or lose his job and in the early stages...and just maybe plague was trasmissable earlier in the incubation period through other bodily fluids than cough drops. WhatdoI know?