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La dea decise la vendetta perché il mortale disse una bugia.

La dea decise la vendetta perché il mortale disse una bugia.
The goddess decided on revenge because the mortal told a lie.
From Lesson 202:Historic past of irregular verbs·Italian

Questions & Answers about La dea decise la vendetta perché il mortale disse una bugia.

Why does the verb decidere become decise here?
Decise is the passato remoto (historic past) of decidere. This verb is irregular in this tense. Instead of following the regular -ere ending rules, its root changes to decis- for the io, lui/lei, and loro forms, making the lui/lei form decise.
Where does the form disse come from?
Disse is the lui/lei form of dire (to say/tell) in the passato remoto. It is a very common irregular verb. The double s is a pattern you will see in several other irregular historic past tense verbs, such as scrisse (wrote) and lesse (read).
In English we "tell" a lie. Why does this sentence use dire (to say) instead of a verb like raccontare (to tell)?
In Italian, the standard phrase for "to tell a lie" is dire una bugia. You cannot use raccontare (to tell a story) here; lies are always "said" using dire.
Is dea (goddess) related to the word dio (god)?
Yes, la dea is the feminine form of il dio. While the masculine word has a famously tricky plural (gli dei), you will be happy to know that the feminine version is perfectly regular: the plural of la dea is simply le dee.

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