Two instances of falling in love with the picture of a pretty woman occur in the “Kathá Sarít Ságara.” In Book ix., cha, a painter shows King Prithvirúpa the “counterfeit presentment” of the beauteous Princess Rapalatá, and “as the king gazed on it his eye was drowned in that sea of beauty her person, so that he could not draw it out again. For the king, whose longing was excessive, could not be satisfied with devouring her form, which poured forth a stream of the nectar of beauty, as the partridge cannot be satisfied with devouring the moonlight.” In Book xii., cha, a female ascetic shows a wandering prince the portrait of the Princess Mandáravatí, “and Sundarasena when he beheld that maiden, who, though she was present there only in a picture, seemed to be of romantic beauty and like a flowing forth of joy, immediately felt as if he had been pierced with the arrows of the god of the flowery bow [i.e. Káma].” In chapter 35 of Scott’s translation of the “Bahár-i-Dánish,” Prince Ferokh-Faul opens a volume, “which he had scarcely done when the fatal portrait of the fair princess who, the astrologers had foretold, was to occasion him so many perils, presented itself to his view. He instantly fainted, when the slave, alarmed, conveyed intelligence of his condition to the sultan, and related the unhappy cause of the disorder.” In Gomberville’s romance of Polexandre, the African prince, Abd-el-Malik, falls in love with the portrait of Alcidiana, and similar incidents occur in the romance of Agesilaus of Colchos and in the Story of the Seven Wazírs (vol. vi.); but why multiply instances? Nothing is more common in Asiatic fictions.
THE FULLER, HIS WIFE, AND THE TROOPER. — Vol. XI. .
In addition to the versions of this amusing story referred to on — all of which will be found in the second volume of my work on “Popular Tales and Fictions,” p-228 — there is yet another in a Persian story-book, of unknown date, entitled, “Shamsa ú Kuhkuha,” written by Mirza Berkhorder Turkman, of which an account, together with specimens, is given in a recently- published little book (Quaritch), “Persian Portraits: a sketch of Persian History, Literature, and Politics,” by Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, author of “Early Ideas: a Group of Hindoo Stories.”
This version occurs in a tale of three artful wives — or, to employ the story-teller’s own graphic terms, “three whales of the sea of fraud and deceit: three dragons of the nature of thunder and the quickness of lightning; three defamers of honour and reputation; namely, three men-deceiving, lascivious women, each of whom had from the chicanery of her cunning issued the diploma of turmoil to a hundred cities and countries, and in the arts of fraud they accounted Satan as an admiring spectator in the theatre of their stratagems.509 One of them was sitting in the court of justice of the kazi’s embrace; the second was the precious gem of the bazaar-master’s diadem of compliance; and the third was the beazle and ornament of the signet-ring of the life and soul of the superintendent of police. They were constantly entrapping the fawns of the prairie of deceit within the grasp of cunning, and plundered the wares of the caravans of tranquillity of hearts of strangers and acquaintances, by means of the edge of the scimitar of fraud. One day this trefoil of roguery met at the public bath, and, according to their homogeneous nature they intermingled as intimately as the comb with the hair; they tucked up their garment of amity to the waist of union, entered the tank of agreement, seated themselves in the hot-house of love, and poured from the dish of folly, by means of the key of hypocrisy, the water of profusion upon the head of intercourse; they rubbed with the brush of familiarity and the soap of affection the stains of jealousies from each other’s limbs. After a while, when they had brought the pot of concord to boil by the fire of mutual laudation, they warmed the bath of association with the breeze of kindness, and came out. In the dressing-room all three of them happened simultaneously to find a ring, the gem of which surpassed the imagination of the jeweler of destiny, and the like of which he had never beheld in the storehouse of possibility. In short, these worthy ladies contended with each other for possession of the ring, until at length the mother of the bathman came forward and proposed that they should entrust the ring to her in the meanwhile, and it should be the prize of the one who most cleverly deceived and befooled her husband, to which they all agreed, and then departed for their respective domiciles.510
Mr. Arbuthnot’s limits pertained only of abstracts of the tricks played upon their husbands by the three ladies — which the story- teller gives at great length — and that of the kazi’s wife is as follows:
The kazi’s wife knows that a certain carpenter, who lived close to her, was very much in love with her. She sends her maid to him with a message to say that the flame of his love had taken effect upon her heart, and that he must make an underground passage between his house and her dwelling, so that they might communicate with each other freely by means of the mine. The carpenter digs the passage, and the lady pays him a visit, and says to him, “To-morrow I shall come here, and you must bring the kazi to marry me to you.” The next day the kazi goes to his office; the lady goes to the carpenter’s house, and sends him to bring her husband, the kazi, to marry them. The carpenter fetches him, and, as the kazi hopes for a good present, he comes willingly enough, but is much surprised at the extreme likeness between the bride and his own wife. The more he looks at her, the more he is in doubt; and at last, offering an excuse to fetch something, he rushes off to his own house, but is forestalled by his spouse, who had gone thither by the passage, and on his arrival is lying on her bed. The kazi makes some excuses for his sudden entry into her room, and, after some words, goes back to the carpenter’s house; but his wife had preceded him, and is sitting in her place. Again he begins the ceremony, but is attracted by a black mole on the corner of the bride’s lip, which he could have sworn was the same as that possessed by his wife. Making more excuses, and in spite of the remonstrances of the carpenter, he hurries back to his house once more; but his wife had again got there before him, and he finds her reading a book, and much astonished at his second visit. She suggests that he is mad, and he admits that his conduct is curious, and returns to the carpenter’s house to complete the ceremony. This is again frequently interrupted, but finally he marries his own wife to the carpenter, and, having behaved in such an extraordinary manner throughout, is sent off to a lunatic asylum.
For the tricks of the two other ladies, and for many other equally diverting tales, I refer the reader to Mr. Arbuthnot’s pleasing and instructive little book, which is indeed an admirable epitome of the history and literature of Persia, and one which was greatly wanted in these days, when most men, “like the dogs in Egypt for fear of the crocodiles, must drink of the waters of information as they run, in dread of the old enemy Time.”
I have discussed the question of the genealogy of this tale elsewhere, but, after a somewhat more minute comparative analysis of the several versions, am disposed to modify the opinion which I then entertained. I think we must consider as the direct or indirect source of the versions and variants the “Miles Gloriosus” of Plautus, the plot of which, it is stated in the prologue to the second act, was taken from a Greek play. It is, however, not very clear whether Berni adapted his story from Plautus or the “Seven Wise Masters”; probably from the former, since in both the lady is represented, to the captain and the cuckold, as a twin sister, while in the S. W. M. the crafty knight pretends that she is his leman, come from Hungary with tidings that he may now with safety return home. On the other hand, in the S. W. M., as in Plautus, the lovers make their escape by sea, an incident which Berni has altered to a journey by land — no doubt, in order to introduce further adventures for the development of his main plot. But then we find a point of resemblance between Berni and the S. W. M., in the incident of the cuckold accompanying the lovers part of their way — in the latter to the sea-shore; while in Plautus the deceived captain remains at home to prosecute an amour and get a thrashing for his reward (in Plautus, instead of a wife, it is the captain’s slave- girl). It is curious that amidst all the masquerade of the Arabian story the cuckold’s wife
also personates her supposititious twin-sister, as in Plautus and Berni. In Plautus the houses of the lover and the captain adjoin, as is also the case in the modern Italian and Sicilian versions; while in Berni, the S. W. M., the Arabian, and the Persian story cited in this note they are at some distance. With these resemblances and variations it is not easy to say which version was derived from another. Evidently the Arabian story has been deliberately modified by the compiler, and he has, I think, considerably improved upon the original: the ludicrous perplexity of the poor fuller when he awakes, to find himself apparently transformed into a Turkish trooper, recalls the nursery rhyme of the little woman “who went to market her eggs for to sell,” and falling asleep on the king’s highway a pedlar cut off her petticoats up to the knees, and when she awoke and saw her condition she exclaimed, “Lawk-a-mercy me, this is none of I!” and so on. And not less diverting is the pelting the blockhead receives from his brother fullers — altogether, a capital story.
TALE OF THE SIMPLETON HUSBAND. — Vol. XI. .
The “curious” reader will find European and Asiatic versions of this amusing story in “Originals and Analogues of some of
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,” published for the Chaucer Society, p-188 and (in a paper contributed by me: “The Enchanted Tree”) -364.
TALE OF THE THREE MEN AND OUR LORD ISA. — Vol XI. .
Under the title of “The Robbers and the Treasure-Trove” I have brought together many European and Asiatic versions of this wide- spread tale in “Chaucer Analogues,” p-436.
THE MELANCHOLIST AND THE SHARPER. — Vol. XI. .
A similar but much shorter story is found in Gladwin’s “Persian Moonshee,” and story-books in several of the Indian vernaculars which have been rendered into English:
A miser said to a friend, “I have now a thousand rupees, which I will bury out of the city, and I will not tell the secret to any one besides yourself.” They went out of the city together, and buried the money under a tree. Some days after the miser went alone to the tree and found no signs of his money. He said to himself, “Excepting that friend, no other has taken it away; but if I question him he will never confess.” He therefore went to his (the friend’s) house and said, “A great deal of money is come into my hands, which I want to put in the same place; if you will come to-morrow, we will go together.” The friend, by coveting this large sum, replaced the former money, and the miser next day went there alone and found it. He was delighted with his own contrivance, and never again placed any confidence in friends.
One should suppose a miser the last person to confide the secret of his wealth to any one; but the Italian versions bear a closer resemblance to the Arabian story. From No. 74 of the “Cento Novelle Antiche” Sacchetti, who was born in 1335 and is ranked by Crescimbini as next to Boccaccio, adapted his 198th novella, which is a most pleasing version of the Asiatic story:
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
ITALIAN VERSION.
A blind man of Orvieto, of the name of Cola, hit upon a device to recover a hundred florins he had been cheated of, which showed he was possessed of all the eyes of Argus, though he had unluckily lost his own. And this he did without wasting a farthing either upon law or arbitration, by sheer dexterity; for he had formerly been a barber, and accustomed to shave very close, having then all his eyes about him, which had been now closed for about thirty years. Alms seemed then the only resource to which he could betake himself, and such was the surprising progress he in a short time made in his new trade that he counted a hundred florins in his purse, which he secretly carried about him until he could find a safer place. His gains far surpassed anything he had realised with his razor and scissors; indeed, they increased so fast that he no longer knew where to bestow them; until one morning happening to remain the last, as he believed, in the church, he thought of depositing his purse of a hundred florins under a loose tile in the floor behind the door, knowing the situation of the place perfectly well. After listening some time without hearing a foot stirring, he very cautiously laid it in the spot; but unluckily there remained a certain Juccio Pezzichernolo, offering his adoration before an image of San Giovanni Boccadoro, who happened to see Cola busily engaged behind the door. He continued his adorations until he saw the blind man depart, when, not in the least suspecting the truth, he approached and searched the place. He soon found the identical tile, and on removing it with the help of his knife, he found the purse, which he very quietly put into his pocket, replacing the tiles just as they were, and, resolving to say nothing about it, he went home.
At the end of three days the blind mendicant, desirous of inspecting his treasure, took a quiet time for visiting the place, and removing the tile searched a long while in great perturbation, but all in vain, to find his beloved purse. At last, replacing things just as they were, he was compelled to return in no very enviable state of mind to his dwelling; and there meditating on his loss, the harvest of the toil of so many days, by dint of intense thinking a bright thought struck him (as frequently happens by cogitating in the dark), how he had yet a kind of chance of redeeming his lost spoils. Accordingly in the morning he called his young guide, a lad about nine years old, saying, “My son, lead me to church,” and before setting out he tutored him how he was to behave, seating himself at his side before the entrance, and particularly remarking every person who should enter into the church. “Now, if you happen to see any one who takes particular notice of me, and who either laughs or makes any sign, be sure you observe it and tell me.” The boy promised he would; and they proceeded accordingly and took their station before the church
When the dinner-hour arrived, the father and son prepared to leave the place, the former inquiring by the way whether his son had observed any one looking hard at him as he passed along. “That I did,” answered the lad, “but only one, and he laughed as he went past us. I do not know his name, but he is strongly marked with the small-pox and lives somewhere near the Frati Minori.” “Do you think, my dear lad,” said his father, “that you could take me to his shop, and tell me when you see him there?” “To be sure I could,” said the lad. “Then come, let us lose no time,” replied the father, “and when we are there tell me, and while I speak to him you can step on one side and wait for me.” So the sharp little fellow led him along the way until he reached a cheesemonger’s stall, when he acquainted his father, and brought him close to it. No sooner did the blind man hear him speaking with his customers than he recognised him for the same Juccio with whom he had formerly been acquainted during his days of light. When the coast was a little clear, our blind hero entreated some moments’ conversation, and Juccio, half suspecting the occasion took him on one side into a little room, saying, “Cola, friend, what good news?” “Why,” said Cola, “I am come to consult you, in great hopes you will be of use to me. You know it is a long time since I lost my sight, and being in a destitute condition, I was compelled to earn my subsistence by begging alms. Now, by the grace of God, and with the help of you and of other good people of Orvieto, I have saved a sum of two hundred florins, one hundred of which I have deposited in a safe place, and the other is in the hands of my relations, which I expect to receive with interest in the course of a week. Now if you would consent to receive, and to employ for me to the best advantage, the whole sum of two hundred florins it would be doing me a great kindness, for there is no one besides in all Orvieto in whom I dare to confide; nor do I like to be at the expense of paying a notary for doing business which we can as well transact ourselves. Only I wish you would say nothing about it, but receive the two hundred florins from me to employ as you think best. Say not a word about it, for there would be an end of my calling were it known I had received so large a sum in alms.” Here the blind mendicant stopped; and the sly Juccio, imagining he might thus become master of the entire sum, said he should be very happy to serve him in every way he could and would return an answer the next morning as to the best way of laying out the mon
ey. Cola then took his leave, while Juccio, going directly for the purse, deposited it in its old place being in full expectation of soon receiving it again with the addition of the other hundred, as it was clear that Cola had not yet missed the money. The cunning old mendicant on his part expected that he would do no less, and trusting that his plot might have succeeded, he set out the very same day to the church, and had the delight, on removing the tile, to find his purse really there. Seizing upon it with the utmost eagerness, he concealed it under his clothes, and placing the tiles exactly in the same position, he hastened home whistling, troubling himself very little about his appointment of the next day.
The sly thief Juccio set out accordingly the next morning to see his friend Cola, and actually met him on the road. “Whither are you going?” inquired Juccio. “I was going,” said Cola, “to your house.” The former, then taking the blind man aside, said, “I am resolved to do what you ask; and since you are pleased to confide in me, I will tell you of a plan that I have in hand for laying out your money to advantage. If you will put the two hundred florins into my possession, I will make a purchase in cheese and salt meat, a speculation which cannot fail to turn to good account.” “Thank you,” quoth Cola, “I am going to-day for the other hundred, which I mean to bring, and when you have got them both, you can do with them what you think proper.” Juccio said, “Then let me have them soon, for I think I can secure this bargain; and as the soldiers are come into the town, who are fond of these articles, I think it cannot fail to answer; so go, and Heaven speed you.” And Cola went; but with very different intentions from those imagined by his friend — Cola being now clear-sighted, and Juccio truly blind. The next day Cola called on his friend with very downcast and melancholy looks, and when Juccio bade him good day, he said, “I wish from my soul it were a good, or even a middling, day for me.” “Why, what is the matter?” “The matter?” echoed Cola; “why, it is all over with me: some rascal has stolen a hundred florins from the place where they were hidden, and I cannot recover a penny from my relations, so that I may eat my fingers off or anything I have to expect.” Juccio replied, “This is like all the rest of my speculations. I have invariably lost where I expected to make a good hit. What I shall do I know not; for if the person should choose to keep me to the agreement I made for you, I shall be in a pretty dilemma indeed.” “Yet,” said Cola, “I think my condition is still worse than yours. I shall be sadly distressed and shall have to amass a fresh capital, which will take me ever so long. And when I have got it, I will take care not to conceal it in a hole in the floor, or trust it, Juccio, into any friend’s hands.” “But,” said Juccio, “if we could contrive to recover what is owing by your relations, we might still make some pretty profit of it, I doubt not.” For he thought, if he could only get hold of the hundred he had returned it would still be something in his way. “Why,” said Cola, “to tell the truth, if I were to proceed against my relations I believe I might get it; but such a thing would ruin my business, my dear Juccio, for ever: the world would know I was worth money, and I should get no more money from the world; so I fear I shall hardly be able to profit by your kindness, though I shall always consider myself as much obliged as if I had actually cleared a large sum. Moreover, I am going to teach another blind man my profession, and if we have luck you shall see me again, and we can venture a speculation together.” So far the wily mendicant, to whom Juccio said, “Well, go and try to get money soon, and bring it; you know where to find me, but look sharp about you and the Lord speed you; farewell.” “Farewell,” said Cola; “and I am well rid of thee,” he whispered to himself, and going upon his way, in a short time he doubled his capital; but he no longer went near his friend Juccio to know how he should invest it. He had great diversion in telling the story to his companions during their feasts, always concluding, “By St. Lucia! Juccio is the blinder man of the two: he thought it was a bold stroke to risk his hundred to double the amount.”
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