Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookppel has shewn[140] that several lines in this Tale are imitated from Albertano of Brescia, so that it becomes clear that the Tale of Melibeus (which is little else than a translation from that author) had already been written before the Marchantes Tale was begun. This easily appears by comparing the following passages: (_a_) E 1362-1374 with B 2287-91, where Jacob, Judith, Abigail, and Hester are mentioned, in both passages, in the same order: (_b_) E 1483-6 with B 2193: (_c_) E 2246-8 with B 2247, and E 2250 with B 2249: (_d_) E 2277-81 and 2286-90 with B 2266-70: (_e_) E 2365 with B 2167. Moreover, in two instances at least, Chaucer follows the Latin text of Albertano even where there is no corresponding passage in the Tale of Melibeus. Thus, in E 1373, there is mention of _Mardochee_; but he is not named in B 2291. However, the Latin text has: 'Simili modo et Hester Iudaeos per suum bonum consilium simul cum _Mardochaeo_, in regno Assueri regis, sublimauit'; cap. v. (ed. T. Sundby, p. 17). Again, the lines E 1375-6 do not appear after B 2298 (their proper place), but only occur in the Latin text: 'Quartam uero rationem ad hoc inducit Seneca, commendans super omnia benignas coniuges; ait enim: Sicut nihil est superius benigna coniuge, ita nihil est crudelius infesta muliere'; (p. 18). Dr. Köppel has further pointed out, in the same article, that Chaucer has also introduced into this Tale some quotations from another work by Albertano, entitled Liber de amore et dilectione Dei; for examples, see the Notes. Moreover, this Tale also exhibits quotations from Boethius, as, e.g. in E 2021-2, for which see Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 2. 55; and, in one passage, E 1582, we find a reminiscence both of Boethius, bk. v. met. 4. 8, and of Troilus, i. 365. But, beyond all this, there is the somewhat extraordinary reference to the Wife of Bath's Prologue in E 1685, where we are told that she had already discussed the question of marriage 'in litel space.' This shews at once, past all doubt, that the Marchantes Tale was not only written later than Melibeus, Boethius, and Troilus; but even later than the highly mature performance written in the Wife's name, as the result of her wide experience. The Tale practically consists of three parts. The first part (E 1245-1688) is a discourse upon marriage, somewhat in the style of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, but treating it from a more favourable point of view, with the addition of some hints from Albertano of Brescia. The second part describes the wedding of January and May, and the love-languor of Damian (E 1689-2056). The third part describes how January became blind, and the means whereby he was restored to sight (E 2057-2418). The last part has several analogues, and is, in fact, founded on a story once widely current. For a full account of this story, see Originals and Analogues, Chaucer Society, pp. 177 and 341. Chaucer probably took the outline of his story from some French or Latin source. Tyrwhitt says:--'The scene of the Marchantes Tale is laid in Italy, but none of the names, except Damian and Justin, seem to be Italian, but rather made at pleasure; so that I doubt whether the story be really of Italian growth. The adventure of _the Pear-tree_ I find in a small collection of Latin fables, written by one Adolphus, in elegiac verses of his fashion, in the year 1315. The same story is inserted among the Fables of Alphonse, printed by Caxton in English, with those of Æsop, Avian, and Pogge, without date; but I do not find it in the original Latin of Alphonsus (MS. Bibl. Reg. 10 B xii), or in any of the French translations of his work that I have examined.' Five 'Pear-tree' stories are printed in the Originals and Analogues. The first is the fable of Adolphus, above mentioned. It is the first fable in Adolphi Fabulae, printed in Polycarpi Leyseri Historia Poetarum et Poematum Medii Ævi: Halae Magdelburgiae, 1721, p. 2008. It consists of thirty-six elegiac lines, and tells how a blind man's wife ascended a pear-tree in which her lover was hidden; whereupon the blind man's sight was suddenly restored, and she explains that the cure was due to her contrivance. Another very similar story occurs in an Appendix to the Latin editions of Æsop's Fables printed in the fifteenth century, and was reprinted by Wright in his 'Latin Stories,' for the Percy Society, 1842, p. 78. This is the same story, or nearly so, as the fable of Alphonsus which Tyrwhitt failed to find, and is written in prose. The English version (as Tyrwhitt says) was printed by Caxton in 1483, in The Book of the subtyl hystoryes and Fables of Esope[141], at leaf 132. The title runs, 'The xii fable is of a blynd man and of hys wyf.' A third Latin 'Pear-tree' story occurs in the Comoedia Lydiae, by Matthieu de Vendôme, and was printed from a MS. at Vienna, in Anecdota Poetica, &c.: Poésies Inédites du moyen áge; par Edélestand du Méril; 1854, p. 370. This is in seventy-two elegiac lines, and gives names to the personages mentioned. The husband and wife are Duke Decius and Lydia; her lover is Pyrrhus, and her maid is Lusca. Hence it is evidently the source of the similar story in Boccaccio's Decamerone, Day 7, Nov. 9, in which the husband and wife are Nicostratus and Lydia, and the lover is Pyrrhus, as before. In this third version of the story the husband is not blind, but the pear-tree is supposed to be enchanted, and to cause false illusions to appear. In the same Originals and Analogues, at p. 343, Mr. Clouston has collected several Asiatic stories of a similar character, including one in the Bahár-i Dánush, or Spring of Knowledge; a Turkish Version in the romance of The Forty Vazírs, about an enchanted tree which is supposed to cause illusions; and an Arabian Version found in the Breslau printed text of the Arabian Nights, ed. Habicht and Fleischer, and printed in English in Tales from the Arabic, by John Payne (London, printed for the Villon Society, 1884), vol. i. p. 270. Of a similar type is the story of The Officious Father-in-Law, occurring in the Persian Sindibád Náma (second tale of the Fifth Vazír), in the Túti Náma (eighth night, story of the Fifth Vazír), and in the Sanskrit Suka Saptati (fifteenth night). A similar story to that in the Bahár-i Dánush is current in Ceylon; and a translation of it is given in the Orientalist, vol. ii. (1885), p. 148, reprinted by Mr. Clouston. Other examples are added, which, however, bear but a remote resemblance to the Tale in Chaucer. I may add that I find a French variant of the story in the Poésies de Marie de France, ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820; 2 vols. It is the fortieth Fable in that work, and is headed, 'Dou vileins qui vit un autre Hom od sa femme.' But this version omits the husband's blindness and the pear-tree, and merely says that a thing is not necessarily true because you _see_ it. In conclusion, Mr. Clouston says:--'The model of both Boccaccio's and Chaucer's tales seems to have been the versi |