Abstracts

Mishle Sendebar

Natali Wienstein. “'Life and Death are in the Power of the 'Woman’: Parables of Sendebar, Version MS Vatican 100: Edition and Analysis.” M.A. Thesis. Tel-Aviv University 2009.

From the Abstract

In this thesis I suggest an interpretation of one of the versions of Mishle Sendebar, preserved in MS. Vatican 100. This version was written in Hebrew by an anonymous copyist in the 15th century, in South-East Europe or the Middle East (there are no inconclusive pieces of evidence). This unique text, which was rediscovered by Morris Epstein sixty years ago, is a cultural asset of the Hebrew storytelling art. It calls for a methodological perspective that incorporates tools of folklore and folktale research as well as the tools of comparative literature such as intertextuality and gender and feminist theory. My analysis suggests several analytical directions in understanding this work and points to some new conclusions.

In the first part of the thesis the text is deciphered and copied, in full, from MS. Vatican 100, held in the Apostolic Library. The text is clarified, corrected and compared with other versions of the work. The Vatican 100 version is unique in the Mishle Sendebar tradition and differs from the other Hebrew versions that are at our disposal. Many of the work's chapters are more elaborate here than in other manuscripts, and the language is more poetic. The preparation of this version included adding another apparatus that relates to the intertextuality of the work. I explain why this is an important enhancement of the artistic value of the Vatican 100 version. The copying and exceptionalness of the work is a central part of my research, since they point to creative innovation.

In the second part of my essay I analyze the text with a focus on three major themes:
A. The work in its cultural context: the time and place in which it was created, told and copied. Here the studies of Morris Epstein and Yossef Dan will be discussed. Furthermore, a part of this discussion will be dedicated to other elements of medieval folktale research.
B. A short discussion of the intertextual apparatus of the text, accompanied by examples from the text, and initial applications of modern narratological theories.
C. Discussion of the female characters.

The themes raise many questions concerning the poetics of the copyist-writer of MS. Vatican 100, since many factors – historical, literary, and inter-cultural – were involved in its creation. Although it is written in Hebrew, its essence and its origins come from non-Jewish folk literature. The work should be examined as a folk-creation of multiple authors as well as multiple origins. From a historical point of view, little is known about the "material life" in the Middle Ages. Researching aspects of popular culture, which had a profound influence on the work, proved difficult since, apart from the surviving texts, little evidence can be found. There is also the problem of understanding the medieval notion of subjectivity and the way the subject was constructed by writers and story-tellers of the time. Consequently, the text raises the problem of how to analyze pre-modern works using modern tools of analysis.

Since we have no concrete information about wheere and when it was copied, our reading of the work has a limited cultural context, and therefore is anachronistic and based on personal interpretations. During the last decades, there have occurred numerous feminist and gender readings of many of the canonized texts from various times. In the part dedicated to a gendered reading of the text, I suggest that reading it as a misogynist piece of writing will miss its poetic qualities, its grace, its importance and its female voice. All this, I think, is hidden in the work. This is why I choose to focus on an integrated perspective, and not just on the feminist one, a perspective that criticizes the misogynist aspect and examines rather both the male and the female characters.

The copyist-writer gave the work a whole new generic setting. By intensifying the tension and drama, he makes it slip from an exemplum-genre prose work to something resembling romance, with a more complex content that is not usual in a classic folktale. The distinctions between "good" and "bad", "positive" and "negative" are blurred in the characterizations. My reading is based, first and foremost, on the gap between the morality as stated by the male characters acting within the frame-narrative, and what is implied in the stories they tell. On the surface, the stories warn against women’s treachery and cunning, their lack of morals and wisdom. Whereas we learn from the stories about the wide verity of female ways and characters and that almost all of them are characterized by wisdom and wit, their motives are often different, even opposed to those stated by the men. The multiplicity of female representations allows deviation from the female stereotypes that were widespread in medieval Europe, and enables the creation of a complex female character, a character that can be greedy or cunning and at the same time humble and modest; a woman can be educated and knowledgeable and at the same time treacherous. The male characters, on the contrary, are not as well-rounded as the female ones; they are one-dimensional, designed according to culturally stereotypical codes, and cannot be contradictory.

Whether through the personal thematic and poetic choices made by the copyist-writer, or through the multiple representations that reflect the "multiple existence" of the folktale, MS. Vatican 100 exposes a wide diapason of voices and stands, which exceed the patriarchal misogynist cultural boundaries.

Versions of folktales are as abundant as their tellers. Each particular storyteller gets an opportunity to tell a known story within a new context. The repetition of the "old story" involves changes, additions, omissions. The " new story" can include the original "old" one and at the same time object to its content and themes and read them in a subversive manner. A retold story is always a "new story" and not an exact copy of the prior or popular version. MS. Vatican 100 contains traces of various connotations and unique voices (for example female voices), and their extraction is possible through the thematic elements and the structure of the work.

Assassinus:
John Mandeville's "Old Man of the Mountain"
(see also infra 1 and infra 2)

Versions:
1. Koran, surahs 18.30-31, 56.12-24, and 56.27-38.
2. Polo, Marco. The Travels. Trans. Ronald Latham. Penguin Books, 1958. And numerous other editions.

3. Pollard, A. W., ed. The Journal of Friar Odoric [da Pordenone]. 326-362 in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville [...]. London:Macmillan, 1900. Rpt. New York: Dover Publications, 1964.

4. Ibn Khallikan (13th cent.): 226-228 in Metlitzki, Dorothee [830-1977]. The Matter of Araby in Medieval England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
5. John Mandeville (14th cent.):

a. Kohanski, Tamarah, ed. The Book of John Mandeville: An Edition of the Pynson Text. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001.
b. Itinerarius domini Johannis de Mandeville militis, MS. Madrid, National Library I-381 (Vulgate version, Latin incunable, ca. 1485),
c. Four Spanish editions:
    i. Libro de las marauillas del mundo [...]. Valencia: Jorge Costilla, 1521.
   ii. Libro de las marauillas del mundo [...]. Valencia:, 1524.
   iii. Libro de las marauillas del mundo [...]. Valencia: Juan Navarro, 1540.
   iv. Libro de las marauillas del mundo [...]. Alcalá de Henares, 1547.
d. MS. London, British Library, Cotton Titus.c.xvi (15th cent.) (Pinto lists [p. 69] five editions from 1725 to 1967)
e. MS. Escorial M iii 7-115 iii-Est. 15.4 (14th cent.), ed. Pilar Liria-Montañés, Libro de las maravillas del mundo de Juan de Mandevilla, Saragossa:
Caja de Ahorros de Zaragoza, Aragón y Rioja, 1979. (Pinto lists [p. 70] one further edition from 2001)

Source:
Pinto (830-2005), Ana. Mandeville’s Travels: A Rihla in Disguise. Linea 300, 24. Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2005. 74 p. ISBN 84-7491-769-7.

Five Texts:

1. Marco Polo

(trans. Latham 70-72)

The Old Man [called Alaodin] gave his men to understand that this garden was Paradise. That is why he had made it after this pattern, because Mahomet assured the Saracens that those who go to Paradise will have beautiful women to their hearts' content to do their bidding, and will find there rivers of wine and milk and honey and water. [...] and the Saracens of this country believed that it really was Paradise. [...] And the Old Man kept with him at his court all the youths of the country from twelve years old to twenty, all, that is, who shaped well as men at arms. These youths knew well by hearsay that Mahomet their prophet had declared Paradise to be made of such a fashion as I have described [...] When the Old Man wanted emissaries to send on some mission of murder, he would administer the drug to as many as he pleased; and while they slept he had them carried into his palace. When these youths awoke and found themselves in the castle within the palace, they were amazed and by no means glad, for the Paradise from which they had come was not a place that they would ever willingly have left [...]. When he asked them whence they came, they would answer that they came from Para¬dise, and that this was in truth the Paradise of which Mahomet had told their ancestors […]. And the others who heard this and had not been there were filled with a great long¬ing to go to this Paradise; they longed for death so that they might go there, and looked forward eagerly to the day of their going.
When the Old Man desired the death of some great lord, he would first try an experi¬ment to find out which of his Assassins were the best. He would send some off on a mis¬sion in the neighbourhood at no great distance with orders to kill such and such a man [...]. Then, in order to bring about the death of the lord or other man which the Old Man desired he would take some of these Assassins of his and send them wherever he might wish, telling them that he was minded to dispatch them to Paradise: they were to go accordingly and kill such and such man; if they died on their mission, they would go there all the sooner. Those who received such a command obeyed it with a right good will, more readily than anything else they might have been called on to do.

(Pinto 60)

2. Odorico da Pordenone: Itinerarius de mirabilibus orientalium Tartarorum (1329-30)
(ed. Pollard 356-357)

Travelling on further towards the South, I arrived at a certain country called Melistorte, which is a very pleasant and fertile place. And in this country there was a certain aged man called Senex de monte, who round about two mountains had built a wall to enclose the said mountains. Within this wall there were the fairest and most crystal fountains in the whole world: and about the said fountains there were most beau¬tiful virgins in great number, and goodly horses also, and in a word, everything that could be devised for bodily solace and delight, and therefore the inhabitants of the country call the same place by the name of Paradise. The said Old Senex, when he saw any proper and valiant young man, he would admit him into his paradise. Moreover by certain conduits he makes wine and milk to flow abundantly. This Senex, when he hash a mind to revenge himself or to slay any king or baron, commandeth him that is governor of the said paradise, to bring thereunto some of the acquaintance of the said king or baron, permitting him a while to take his pleasure therein, and then to give him a certain potion being of force to cast him into such a slumber as should make him quite void of all sense, and so being in a profound sleep to convey him out of his paradise: who being awaked, and seeing himself thrust out of the paradise would come so sorrowful, that he could not in the world devise what to do, or whither to turn him. Then would he go unto the foresaid old man, beseeching him that he might be admitted again into his paradise: who saith unto him, You cannot be admitted thither, unless you will slay such or such a man for my sake, and if you will give the attempt only, whether you kill him or no, I will place you again in paradise, that there you may remain always.

(Pinto 60-61)

(Odoric was a Franciscan missionary who traveled by sea to Beijing from Padua [c. 1318] and returned by an overland route by 1330. His account of the Valley of the Assassins occupies ll. 2492-2500 of his Itinerarius. From Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson [830-2007], eds., The Book of John Mandeville. Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. P. 137-138)
(The Itinerarius was translated into French in 1351 by Jean le Long d'Ypres, Le yteneraire Odric de Foro Julii; edited in Les voyages en Asie au XIVe siècle du bienheureux Odoric de Pordenone, religieux de Saint-François, by Henri Cordier, Paris, 1891)

3. Ibn Khallikan
(ed. Melitzki 226-228)

He [the chief Ismail] divided the extreme ends of the garden into four parts, in the first there was a quince and pears and apples and figs and grapes and mul¬berry and prunes and crab-apple anf jujube and cherries and apricots and sycamore-figs and carobs. And in the second part citrons and oranges, and lemons and sour pomegran¬ates and sweet fruit and mastic, and in the third part watermelon and four sorts of cucumber and cabbage of all kinds and in the fourth part there were roses and jasmin and privet and palm-trees and narcissus and aromatic plants and violets and lilies and anemones and eglantine and camomiles. And rills of water meandered through the whole of the garden, and he laid around the pavilion meadows and pools, and he planted on its sites all kind of trees where he placed gazelle and ostriches and wild asses and wild cows and oxen, and wandering at random from the pools were geese and ducks and Ethiopean pheasants and quails and partridges and there were also hares.
When night came he looked around at the men and saw which of them possessed a steadiness that aroused admiration, and then said to him: «Oh So-and-So, come here and sit by my side», [...] and he bestowed the cup on him and he gave him to drink and he told of the virtues of the Imam 'Ali [..] and the chief Isma'il did not complete his narration until the one sitting by his side fell asleep and after a quarter of an hour, the drug began to work in the man and he fell down, and when he lay prostrate the Chief Isma'il [ ... ] carried him on his shoulders and put him in the subterranean passage leading to the garden, and [..] brought him to the pavilion in which he was received by the youths and young slave-girls [..1. When the young man awoke the youths who were at his service said: «And we are only awaiting your death and this is the place which is yours and this is the palace of the palaces of Paradise and we are, the houris and the children of paradise and if you were dead you would be with us, but you are sleeping and the hour has come for your awaken¬ing». [...] Then the Chief Isma'il took a goblet and put in it hashish and gave it him to drink, and when he fell asleep he took him up and carried him through the subterranean passage into the rooms in the mansion, and when he awoke he saw himself among the same companions in the place where he was before.

(Pinto 61)

(Ibn Khallikan's Kitab Wafayat Ulayn is a late 13th-cent. collection popularly known as The Obituaries of Eminent Men or The Biographical Dictionary. It includes a biography of Hassan ibn Sabbah (Catholonabeus), the master of the Assassins. From Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson [830-2007], eds. The Book of John Mandeville. Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. P. 140)

4. MS. Cotton Titus.c.xvi
(ed. Pollard, The Travels 183-184)

There was dwelling, sometime, a rich man; and it is not long since; and men clept him Gathonolabes. And he was full of cautels and of subtle deceits. And he had a full fair castle and a strong in a mountain, so strong and so noble, that no man could devise a fairer ne stronger. And he had let mure all the moun¬tain about with a strong wall and a fair. And within those walls he had the fairest garden that any man might behold. And therein were trees bearing all manner of fruits, that any man could devise. And therein were also all manner virtuous herbs of good smell, and all other herbs also that bear fair flowers. And he had also in that garden many fair wells; and beside those wells he had let make fair halls and fair chambers, depainted all with gold and azure; and there were in that place many diverse things, and many diverse stories: and of beasts, and of birds that sung full delectably and moved by craft, that it seemed that they were quick. And he had also in his garden all manner of fowls and of beasts that any man might think on, for to have play or sport to behold them. And he had also, in that place, the fairest damsels that might be found, under the age of fifteen vears, and the fairest young striplings that men might get, of that same age. And all they were clothed in cloths of gold, full richly. And he said that those were angels.
And he had also let make three wells, fair and noble and all environed with stone of jasper, of crystal, diapered with gold, and set with precious stones and great orient pearls. And he had made a conduit under earth, so that the three wells, at his list, one should run milk, another wine and another honey. And that place he clept Paradise.
And when that any good knight, that was hardy and noble, came to see this royalty, -he would lead him into his paradise, and show him these wonderful things to his disport, and the marvellous and delicious song of diverse birds, and the fair damsels, and the fair wells of milk, of wine and of honey, plenteously running. And he would let make divers instruments of music to sound in an high tower, so merrily, that it was joy for to hear; and no man should see the craft thereof. And those, he said, were angels of God, and that place was Paradise, that God had behight to his friends, saying, dabo vobis terramfluentem lacte et melle.
And then would he make them to drink of certain drink, whereof anon they should be drunk. And then would them think greater delight than they had before. And then would he say to them, that if they would die for him and for his love, that after their death they should come to his paradise; and they should be of the age of those damosels, and they I should play with them, and yet be maidens. And after that yet should he I put them in a fairer paradise, where that they should see God of nature visibly, in his I majesty and in his bliss. And then would he shew them his intent, and say them, that if they would go slay such a lord, or such a man I that was his enemy or contrarious to his list, that they should not dread to do it and C for to be slain therefore themselves. For after their death, he would put them into another paradise, that was an hundred-fold fairer than any of the tother; and there should they dwell with the most fairest damosels that might be, and play with them ever-more.
And thus went many diverse lusty bachelors for to slay great lords in diverse countries, that were his enemies, and made themselves to be slain, in hope to have that paradise. And thus, often-time, he was revenged of his enemies by his subtle deceits and false cautels.
And when the worthy men of the country had perceived this subtle falsehood of this Gatholonabes, they assembled them with force, and assailed his castle, and slew him, and destroyed all the fair places and all the nobilities of that paradise. The place of the wells and of the walls and of many other things be yet apertly seen, but the riches is voided clean. And it is not long gone since that place was destroyed.

(Pinto 62-64)

5. MS. Escorial M iii 7-115 iii-Est. 15.4
(ed. Liria-Montañés, Libro 126-127)

Alli solia aver un Rico hombre no a gaines de tiempo que clamavan Gathalonabes qui hers muy capteloso et avia un grant Castiello en una montaynna assi fuert et assi noble como ningun hombre podria devisar et toda la monaynna eill avia fecho en murar muy noblement. Et dentro estos couros el avia el mas bel gardin que hombre podiesse veer, do avia arboles portantes todas maneras de fruitas que hombre podria ninguna part trobar. Et si y avia fecho plantar todas yerbas e arboles bien odorantes qui trahen bellas flores. Et y ay muy bellas fuentes. Et avia fecho fazer cerca delas fuentes bellas salas e bellas cam-bas todas pintadas d'oro e d'azur. Et havia fecho fazer couchas e diversas colas e de diversas muserias d'istorias et de diverssas bestial et aves qui cantavan e movian por engenio assi como si fuessen todos bivos. Et si avia puesto en este gardin todas las maneras d' aves que el pudo trobar e todas las bestial en que hombre puede prender de puerto ni solaz agoardar. Et y avia puesto las mas beillas donzeillas de jus l'age de .xv. aynnos que el podia trobar e los mas beillps jovenes de tal age et todos heran vestidos de paynno d'oro e dizian que heran angeles.
Et avia fecho fazer tres fuentes beillas e nobles todas environadas de piedras de jaspre e de cristal orlados d'oro e de piedras preciosas e de perlas e avia fecho fazer con¬duites por de jus tierra si que aquellas .iij. fuentes quoando eill queria el fazia l'una correr de leche Potra de vino l'ocra de miel. Et este logar el clamava parayso.
Et quando algun buen cavallero qui fuese prez e hardido lo venia veer el los levava en su paradiso e lis mostrava las diversas cocas el de puerto e los diversos cantos d'avez e las beillas doncellas e las bellas fuentes de leche de vino e de miel. Et fazia sonar diverssos insturmentes de Musiqua en una alts torre sin veer los juglares. Et dizian que heran angeles de dios. Et que este hera el paradiso que dios avis prometido a sus amigos en diziendo: dabo vobis terrain fluentem lac melle.
Et de pues eill les fazia bever del bevrage de que heran luego Imbriagos. E de pues eill lis semblava en cors que mas grant d'eill lis dizia que si eillos querian morir por amor d'eill que eillos vendrian en aquel paradiso cmpues la muert e serian de l’age de sus don¬zellas et jugarian siempre con eillas e siem¬ire fincarian pucellas. Et -ncora eill los metria en un otro mas bel paradiso alli do eillos veirian vesiblement a lion de natura en su magestat e en su gloria. :à lora eillos se presentavan aeill afazer coda ;u voluntat. Et de pues eill lis dizia que fues¬;en amatar cal seynnor qui hera su contrario. Et que eillos no ouiessen pas miedo de se fazer matar por amor d'eill que eill los metria -mpues la muert en un otro paradiso .C. fezes mas beillo. Et alli fincarian con mas beillas donzeillas asiempre jamas.
Et assi fueron aquellos cavalleros, matar le grandes seynnores dela tierra e se fazian ,illos mesmos matar en esperança de yr enparadiso. Et assi aquel viellart se vengava le sus enemigos por sus captelas e por sus seductiones.
Et quoando el Rico hombre en estas comarquas fue apercebido enla cautela e malveztat e malicia eillos se asemblaron e fueron aassallir su castiello et mataron el vie¬Ilart e destruyeron todos los beillos logares e todas las noblezas que y heran en este paradi¬so; el logar delas fuentes e delas otras cosas y son encora; Mas las Riquezas no y son pas fincadas. Et si no ha pas grandament que el logar fue destruido.

(Pinto 62-64)

Canis: The Dog File

(see also infra)

Who?
- Étienne de Bourbon calls the dog Guinefort. (1)(2)(3)(11)
- The dog's master is the knight Folliculus in the Gesta Romanorum. (5)(6)
- The dog's master is a farmer in Aesop. (5)(7)
- In a Welsh version, Prince Llewellyn, son-in-law of King John, has a greyhound named Gellert. (5)(8)(18)
- In India, the dog is replaced by a mongoose whose master is the Brahman Devasarman (meaning "having the luck of the gods" or "blessed by the gods." (5)(9)
- In another Indian version, the animal is a mongoose, too, and its master is the very poor Brahman Vidyadhara. (5)(10)

Where?
- The story takes place, according to Étienne de Bourbon, in the diocese of Lyon, near the enclosed nuns' village called Neuville, on the estate of the Lord of Villars ("châtelain" of Villars-les-Dombes [13]), some 40 km north of Lyon (15). Étienne de Bourbon also mentions a nearby river, called the Chalaronne, a tributary of the Saône. (1)(2)(3)(11)(16)(18)
- In a Jewish tale, the events occur on a remote island. (4)(5)
- In a certain city in the Panchatantra. (5)(9)
- In another Indian version, on the banks of the Ganges, in a town named Mithila. (5)(10)

What happened later?
- The lord's people throw the dead dog into a well in front of the manor door, throw a great pile of stones on top of it, and plant trees beside it, in memory of the event (Étienne de Bourbon). (1)(2)(3)(11)(14)(18)
- Guinefort revered Dombe region. (11)

- Folliculus breaks his lance in three pieces and vows a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he spends the rest of his days in peace. (5)(6)
- people continue to visit Guinefort's grove up until the 1930s or 1940s, and there are ruins of a chapel dedicated to Saint Guinefort at Trevon in Brittany (Cotes d’Armor). (12)(18)
- Jean-Claude Schmitt discovered vestiges of the Guinefort cult and pilgrimage.. (17)
- Llewellyn buries the dog outside the castle walls within sight of Snowdon, and raises over the grave a great cairn of stones. And to this day the place is called Beth Gellert, or the Grave of Gellert. (5)(8)(14)(18)
- The Brahman's wife beats herself on the head, the breast, and her other body parts. She must now taste the fruit of her own tree of sin, the pain of her son's death (5)(9)
- In the Ganges version, the Brahman's wife puts an end to her life, and the Brahman first kills his child and then kills himself. (5)(10)
- The earliest text documenting the cult of Guinefort is recorded from the location of its actual shrine, a sacred grove in the woods near the small village of Sandrans, in Dombes, north of Lyon. (11)
- In accordance to ancient Celtic tradition, the father, along with the rest of the family, committed the dog’s body to a well, and planted a grove of trees around it. (12)
- in 1987 a movie was made about the dog and his cult called The Sorceress (France 1988). (12)
- the 1987 French film Le moine et la sorcière depicts the religious controversy over Guinefort as seen through the eyes of Etienne de Bourbon, a Dominican inquisitor. (14) The film is a historical drama, 97 minutes, written by Pamela Berger of Boston College, director: Suzanne Schiffman; with Tchéky Karyo and Christine Boisson. (16)
- the legend of Guinefort has a small but pivotal role in the novel The Stolen Child (2006) by Keith Donohue. (14)
- Guinefort venerated locally on August 22. (14)

Sources

(1) Étienne de Bourbon, "On the Worship of the Dog Guinefort," in "The Gift of Strength," in "Gifts of the Holy Spirit." A. Lecoy de Marche, ed., "De supersticione," Anecdotes historiques…d'Étienne de Bourbon, Paris: Renouard, 1877), 314-29; translated by Paul Hyams at http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/~prh3/262/texts/Guinefort.html

(2) Jean-Claude Schmitt, The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge, 1983.
(3) http://people.bu.edu/dklepper/RN242/guinefort.html
(4) Angelo S. Rappoport, The Folklore of the Jews, London: The Soncino Press, 1937, pp. 173-75.
(5) http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0178a.html#rappoport
(6) Charles Swan, transl., Gesta Romanorum; or, Entertaining Moral Stories, London: George Bell and Sons, 1877.
(7) The Fables of Æsop, Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall, New York and Boston: Books Incorporated, n.d., pp. 201-02.
(8) Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales, London: David Nutt, 1892, no. 21, pp. 192-94.
(9) Theodor Benfey, Pantschatantra: Fünf Bücher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen, Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1859, II: 326-27.
(10) Georgiana] Kingscote and Pandit Natêsá Sástrî, Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India, London and Calcutta: W. H. Allen, 1890, 162-64.
(11) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1759299/posts
(12) http://www.philosophising.com/dogpress/index.php/2006/01/31/sainted-dogs-saint-guinefort-the-greyhound/
(13) http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinefort
(14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort
(15) http://www.frenchtoutou.com/culture/hero1.php
(16) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/guinefort.html
(17) http://chosesvues.blog.lemonde.fr/2006/03/03/2006_03_saint_guinefort/
(18) http://scribalterror.blogs.com/scribal_terror/2008/01/saint-guinefort.html

Addendum

In her review of

Ritter, Erika 841-2009b). The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships. Toronto: Key Porter, 2009. 359 p.

Christine Sismondo writes: “There’s an old story about a greyhound left at home to care for his master’s baby. While the parents are out, a snake comes into the room. To protect his charge, the dog attacks and kills it but, in the process, also knocks over the cradle. When the parents return, they discover an overturned cradle and a blood-stained greyhound grinning up at them. Writ of habeas corpus suspended, the master shoots his best friend. Soon after, he discovers the baby -- still sleeping in the overturned cradle, and the snake’s de ad body behind it. This story -- and the many versions of it told from ancient Persia to medieval Europe --[...] captures some of the basic contradictions involved in human-animal relationships, in that the dog had built up a lifetime of trust and love, to the point that it was left to look after a baby. Despite this, one moment of doubt led to its human caretakers exacting a swift and merciless ‘justice’” (The Globe & Mail [Toronto] 28 February 2009, p. F10). See also <http://www.erikaritter.com/excerpt1.htm>.

Assassinus
(French Version M)
from MS. London, British Library, Royal 17.C.xxxvii, fol. 7r-61v (1366, R)
(The Book of John Mandeville)

[55r] In this lond was somtyme a ryche man that men called Catholonabeus, and he had a fayre castel uppon an hylle and a strong. And he had y-lete make a good walle all aboute the hille, and withynne was a fair gardeyn in which were many fair trees beryng all manner fruyt that he myghte fynde. And he let plante therynne of alle manner herbes and of good smel. And ther were many fayre [55v] welles therby, and by hem were y-maked many fayre halles and chambres, wel y-dyght with goold and asure. And he hadde y-leet make bryddes and beestis that turned aboute by gynne in an orlage, and songe as they had be quyke. And he had in his gardeynes maidens of 15 yer olde, the fairest that he myghte fynde, and knave children of the same elde, and they were clothed in clothes of goolde and he sayde that thay were angeles. And he had y-maked a condite under erthe so that when he wolde, that condyte shold renne somtyme mylke, somtyme wyne, and somtyme hony. And this place is called Paradis. And when any yong bacheler of that contré, knyght other squyer, cometh to hym for to solacy hym and disporte hym, he ledith hym into his Paradis, and showeth hym all these diverse thynges and his damyselles and hys welles, and he dyd smyte his instrumentz of musyke in a heye tour that may noght be seye, and he seyde they were angeles of God and that place is Paradys that God graunted to hym that beleved, when He sayde thus: Dabo vobis terram fluentem lac et mel. That is to say: “I shal gyve yow londe flowyng mylke and hony. ” (From MS. London, British Library, Royal 17.C.xxxvii, fol. 54r-55v).

(Quoted from Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson, eds., The Book of John Mandeville. Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58044-113-1. P. 86, ll. 2473-2491.)

Catholonabeus is also known as Hassan i Sabbah and “The Old Man of the Mountain,” For echoes of assassinus from Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone’s Itinerarius, Ibn Khalikan’s Kitab Wafayat ulAyn (The Obituaries of Eminent Men or The Biographical Dictionary), and others, see Warner, ed., The Buke of John Maundeuill (1889): 216n137; Deluz, Le livre de Jehan de Mandeville (1988); and Pinto, Mandeville’s Travels (2005): 60-64.

East and West

(from Newsletter 32 [December 2005]: 6-7)

Jacobs, Joseph. Indian Fairy Tales. New York: Putnam, 1912.

“There were probably other Buddhist collections of a similar nature to the Jatakas with a framework. When the Hindu reaction against Buddhism came, the Brahmins adapted these, with the omission of Buddha as the central figure. There is scarcely any doubt that the so-called FABLES OF BIDPAI were thus derived from Buddhistic sources. In its Indian form this is now extant as a Panchatantra or Pentateuch, five books of tales connected by a Frame. This collection is of special interest to us […], as it has come to Europe in various forms and shapes. I have edited Sir Thomas North’s English version of an Italian adaptation of a Spanish translation of a Latin version of a Hebrew translation of an Arabic adaptation of the Pehlevi version of the Indian original (Fables of Bidpai. Bibliothèque de Carabas. London: D. Nutt, 1888). In this I give a genealogical table of the various versions, from which I calculate that the tales have been translated into 38 languages in 112 different versions, 20 different ones in English alone. Their influence on European folk-tales has been very great: it is probable that nearly one-tenth of these can be traced to the Biddai literature. […]

Other collections of a similar character, arranged in a frame, and derived ultimately from Buddhistic sources, also reached Europe and formed popular reading in the Middle Ages. Among these may be mentioned THE TALES OF SINDIBAD, known to Europe as The Seven Sages of Rome: from this we get the Gellert story (cf. [canis in] Celtic Fairy Tales), though it also occurs in the Bidpai. Another popular collection was that associated with the life of St Buddha, who has been canonised as St. Josaphat: BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT tells of his conversion and much else besides, including the tale of ‘The Three Caskets,’ used by Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.

Some of the Indian tales reached Europe at the time of the Crusades, either orally or in collections no longer extant. The earliest selection of these was the Disciplina clericalis of Petrus Alphonsi, a Spanish Jew converted about 1106; his tales were to be used as seasoning for sermons, and strong seasoning they must have proved. Another Spanish collection of considerably later date was entitled El Conde Lucanor (Engl. trans. by W. York): this contains the fable of ‘The Man, his Son, and their Ass,’ which they ride or carry as the popular voice decides. But the most famous collection of this kind was that known as GESTA ROMANORUM, much of which was certainly derived from Oriental and ultimately Indian sources, and so might more appropriately be termed Gesta Indorum.
All these collections, which reached Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, became very popular, and were used by monks and friars to enliven their sermons as EXEMPLA. Prof. Crane has. given a full account of this very curious phenomenon in his erudite edition of the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (Folk Lore Society, 1890). The Indian stories were also used by the Italian novellieri; much of Boccaccio and his school being derived from this source. As these again gave material for the Elizabethan Drama, chiefly in W. Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, a collection of translated Novelle which I have edited (London, 3 vols., 1890), it is not surprising that we can at times trace portions of Shakespeare back to India. It should also be mentioned that one-half of La Fontaine’s Fables (Bks. vii-xii) are derived from Indian sources.” (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/ift/ift31.htm)

Aper

(from Newsletter 32 [2005], 7-8)

821-n.d. Anon. The Erl of Tolous. At www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/erltonts.htm

In The Erl of Tolous, “Syr Dyoclysyan probably refers to the third century Roman leader, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Diocletian rose through the ranks to become Emperor Numerian’s bodyguard. He distinguished himself initially by avenging Numerian’s death, striking down the praetorian prefect, Aper, a name which also means ‘wild boar.’ The naming of a boar may have particular intertextual significance since a companion text […], the Seven Sages of Rome, not only points to Dioclesian, but contains a short didactic narrative about a wild boar (‘Aper’ appears in the margin). But Diocletian’s most famous contribution to the Roman Empire was his establishment of a tetrarchy, a four-part joint rulership. He established himself Augustus in the East, took Galerius to be his Caesar, and elevated an old comrade who had proven valorous in combat, to Augustus in the West and assigned Constantius Chlorus to be his Caesar. The two Caesars were bound to their Augusti by marriage with their daughters…. Diocletian’s genius was as an organizer, and many of his administrative measures lasted for centuries. The tetrarchy was an attempt to provide each part of the Empire with a ruler and to establish an ordered, non-hereditary succession.
In [the edition by Thornton] the Erl of Toulous appears under the title heading, Romance of Dyoclicyane with the subtitle Erl of Toulous and the Empress Beaulibone while in [MS.] C [Cambridge] the title appears as an incipit: Here foloweth the Erle of Tolous.”

Canis

(from Newsletter 32 [2005], 4-5)

840-1910. Jacobs, Joseph. Celtic Fairy Tales. New York: Putnam, 1910.

“I have paraphrased the well-known poem of Hon. W. R. Spencer, ‘Beth Galert, or the Grave of the Greyhound,’ first printed privately as a broadsheet in 1800 when it was composed. […] It was published in Spencer’s Poems, 1811, pp. 78-86. […] Spencer states in a note ‘The story of this ballad is traditionary in a village at the foot of Snowdon where Llewellyn the Great had a house. The Greyhound named Gelert was given him by his father-in-law, King John, in the year 1205, and the place to this day is called Beth-Gelert, or the grave of Gelert.’ As a matter of fact, no trace of the tradition in connection with Bedd Gellert can be found before Spencer’s time. […] Borrow in his Wild Wales, p.146, gives the legend, but does not profess to derive it from local tradition.
The only parallel in Celtdom is that noticed by Croker in his third volume, the legend of Partholan who killed his wife's grey-hound from jealousy: this is found sculptured in stone at Ap Brune, co. Limerick. As is well known, and has been elaborately discussed by Mr. Baring-Gould (Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 134 seq.), and Mr. W. A. Clouston (Popular Tales and Fictions, ii 166 , seq.), the story of the man who rashly slew the dog (ichneumon, weasel, &c.) that had saved his babe from death, is one of those which have spread from East to West. It is indeed, as Mr. Clouston points out, still current in India, the land of its birth. There is little doubt that it is originally Buddhistic : the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest known version from the Chinese translation of the Vinaya Pitaka in the Academy of Nov. 4, 1882. The conception of an animal sacrificing itself for the sake of others is peculiarly Buddhistic; the ‘hare in the moon’ is an apotheosis of such a piece of self-sacrifice on the part of Buddha (Sasa Jataka). There are two forms that have reached the West, the first being that of an animal saving men at the cost of its own life. I pointed out an early instance of this, quoted by a Rabbi of the second century, in my Fables of Aesop, i. 105. This concludes with a strangely dose parallel to Gellert ; ‘They raised a cairn over his grave, and the place is still called The Dog's Grave.’ The Culex attributed to Virgil seems to be another variant of this. The second form of the legend is always told as a moral apologue against precipitate action, and originally occurred in The Fables of Bidpai in its hundred and one forms, all founded on Buddhistic originals (cf Benfey, Pantschatantra, Einleitung, 201). [It occurs in the same chapter as the story of La Perrette, which has been traced, after Benfey, by Prof. M. Mitiler in his Migration of Fables (Sel. Essays, i. 500-74); exactly the same history applies to Geltert.] Thence, according to Benfey, it was inserted in the Book of Sindibad, another collection of Oriental Apologues framed on what may be called the Mrs. Potiphar formula. This came to Europe with the Crusades, and is known in its Western versions as the Seven Sages of Rome. The Gellert story occurs in all the Oriental and Occidental versions ; e.g., it is the First Master’s story in Wynkyn de Worde’s (ed. G. L. Gomme, for the VilIon Society.) From the Seven Sages it was taken into the particular branch of the Gesta Romanorum current in England and known as the English Gesta, where it occurs as c. xxxii., ‘Story of Folliculus.’ We have thus traced it to England whence it passed to Wales, where I have discovered it as the second apologue of ‘The Fables of Cattwg the Wise,’ in the lob MS. published by the Welsh MS. Society, p.561, ‘The man who killed his Greyhound.’ (These Fables, Mr. Nutt informs me, are a pseudonymous production probably of the sixteenth century.) This concludes the literary route of the Legend of Gellert from India to Wales: Buddhistic Vinaya Pitaka - Fables of Bidpai - Oriental Sindibad - Occidental Seven Sages of Rome - ‘English’ (Latin) Gesta Romanorum - Welsh Fables of Cattwg.”
(http://www.classic-novels.com/author/jacobs/celtic_fairy_tales/fairytales049.shtml)

Diederichs, Ulf, ed. and trans. “Von der Verführbarkeit der Frauen oder Die treulose Witwe [Of Women‘s Seduceability or The Unfaithful Widow].” 261-63 (nr. 107) in Das Ma‘assebuch: Altjiddische Erzählkunst. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003. 845 p. ISBN 3-423-13143-8.

Mary B. Speer. "The Faithful Greyhound, the Feckless Knight, and the Good Mother: Mirrors and Marvels in the Dolopathos." Belfast: Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, 1995.

Following up on "Specularity in a Formulaic Frame Romance: ’The Faithful Greyhound’ and the Roman des sept sages," a talk presented at the 1992 ICLS meeting and published in the proceedings, this paper extends the inquiry into specular identification as a concept useful for interpreting tales in courtly frame romances. Here the focus is again on the story known to folklorists as "The Faithful Greyhound," but this time in the highly significant remaniements achieved by John of Hauteville in the Latin Dolopathos (late 12th century) and by Herbert in his French "translation" of that Dolopathos (early 13th century). John has recast the traditional story of the lord, the dog, and the baby in order to mirror the frame of his romance and to criticize irresponsible knightly behaviour. John’s clerical version is indeed "new," as the sage who narrates it claims. An original introductory section highlights the folly of a young knight who bankrupts himself to take part in tournaments and is then forced to go into exile. The equally innovative climax makes the knight’s wife an active partner in the family drama rather than a passive victim. The pragmatic moral that the tale usually illustrates--do not act in haste--is transformed by John into a deeper, more somber lesson that cautions against judging by appearance and calls into question the fundamental values of secular chivalry. Herbert, writing for a courtly audience, is obliged to attenuate John’s critique while retaining the "merveilles" of this richly specular tale.

Yasmina Foehr-Janssens. "Une recluse fort (peu) courtoise." Belfast: Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, 1995.

French Version M is unique among all Seven Sages versions in that it contains six non-canonic stories. These are translated here from MS. Florence, Ashburnham 52 (cat. Ashburnham Libri 125) of the fourteenth century, as edited by Hans R. Runte.

In the overall frame of the Seven Sages the six stories should present arguments against either the empress (Anthenor, Cardamum) or the emperor’s son (filius, nutrix, spurius, assassinus). That function they fulfill only imperfectly in most cases, leading us to hypothesize that the scribe(s), confronted with an incomplete or damaged model, did not understand the dynamics of the frame and filled the lacunæ before them with any narrative material immediately at hand. While the resulting flawed version of the Seven Sages has nevertheless been copied at least three times (MSS. Paris, Bibl. nat., Fr. 573 [formerly 7069]; Paris, Bibl. de l’Arsenal 2998 [formerly 232 B.L.F.]; Paris, Bibl. de l’Arsenal 2999 [formerly 233 B.L.F.]), it has not surprisingly remained without sequel.

Superficially aware of the eastern flavour of the Seven Sages, the scribe(s) of Version M expressly sought to situate the new exempla in “oriental”, Islamic locales from the time of Caesar to that of the crusades: the stories take place in Antioch (filius), Babylon (filius, spurius), Constantinople and Greece (nutrix), Araby (Anthenor), Persia (Cardamum), and an unidentified land of the Saracens (assassinus), and they pit Christianity against Islam (spurius, Cardamum, assassinus), either on the battlefield (spurius, assassinus) or by unabashed proselytizing (Cardamum). Despite their incongruousness, they thus lend a historical perspective to the Seven Sages and nudge the narrative intent from secular didacticism to (a degree of) religious militancy; they also point to the crusades and to crusaders’ accounts (from the ninth crusade [1271-1272] backwards) as possible sources for Seven Sages narrative materials, an aspect of research that has been totally ignored to date.

By [my] faith, said then the lady, it is true that once upon a time there was in Antioch a prince who had the name Belsasor. He loved much the intercourse with dames and damsels. And it came to pass that above all the others there was one beloved by whom he had a boy for a son whom he loved much, and so much did he invest his love in him that he lost a great deal of his worth in the process. So much did time go by that the boy was fourteen years old, and it was the mother’s fate to die and the prince was much affected by this, and it came to pass that he held the boy in very great love more after the mother’s death than before. And for [fol. 148a] [all] that it took not long at all before the prince was drawn to putting his heart upon another young lady who was the daughter of the sultan of Babylon. And she was so young that she was not ten years [old] when the prince first had her. Very strongly did he put his heart into the matter for she was [so] very beautiful [that] it was a great marvel, and with that she was so wise that in the entire country there was nobody who could take on her good sense. From that it came to pass that the prince’s son formed an evil plot, for because of the young lady’s love for her sire he took to [pursuing] the young lady with great love. And he who was an evil plotter beguiled her in such a manner that one day he came to where the young lady was and she welcomed him in very good humour, so that he said to her:

-- My sweet dear lady, it behooves me to tell you a thing that I wish to be very secret.

-- Certainly, she said, sweet friend, and I will very willingly do it [as long as] it is a thing that I must do.

-- You are very young and my father is old and frail, and I well know that you have little intercourse with him, wherefore I say to you that your beauty has led me to this: I want to kill my father and have you, whichever way the thing may go. And thus we will have as much intercourse with one another as we want, so I want you to consent to this thing.

When the young lady heard this she was much astonished and could not reply to his wish, and said:

-- Ha, sweet friend, for the grace of God, this thing would be too terrible to do, by your leave, because for nothing that there is would I agree to it.

-- Friend, she said, by your leave [fol. 148b] once more, I don’t believe that your father is destined to live long, for he has little health, and if he were to die a [natural] death, then [the situation] would be nicer and could not be better.

-- Friend, she said, may it not please God that I am such that this happens to me, but shut up now and never speak of it [again].

When he heard this he saw well that by his will he would not arrive at his aim, so he said:

-- Now I know well that you love my lord father much. And know for sure that I love you better than ever before, and I would not want that you do another thing about it. So make sure that this thing be hidden.

-- By [my] faith, she said, by me no word of it will be moved, but may it not come from you [either].

Then they ceased speaking about this thing, and [so it went] until the lady was in doubt about her lord whom she loved out of great love, and her heart told her that the father’s son persued his death and his destruction. So she did not know what to do nor what to say, except that [so it went] until one day they were together under the very great sign of love between the prince and the young lady, and it came to pass that the lady took to weeping very tenderly.

-- Ha, [my] lord, she said, for God’s mercy, I would not tell it to you for anything, for I know for sure that I would be blamed for it.

-- [My] lady, he said, try as you may, it behooves you to tell the reason wherefore this [feeling of] discontent comes over you, because for nothing [in the world] would I relieve you of [telling] it.

When the lady saw that it behooved her to tell that of which she could not excuse herself, she said:

-- In God’s name, sire, I suspect that those who must love you better [than anyone else] are pursuing your bad end before time and before the hour.

-- In God’s name, sire, she said, don’t [fol. 148c] ask me more about it, for you would dismember me before I [could] tell you more about it.

-- By [my] faith, [my] lady, he said, this looks like treason to me, when they should be my friends and are [in fact] my enemies.

--[My] lady, it weighs heavily on me when my enemies are around me and I cannot know [a single] one among them. Even if evil comes of it to me, I doubt that you are not at fault in it, for this [very] day I cannot know whether anyone loves me as much as you [claim]. And therefore I don’t know whom to love and whom to disbelieve.

-- By [my] faith, [my] lady, he said, since you told me that you would rather let [me] pull your limbs apart, I don’t know what to say about it.

-- In God’s name, so I will tell it to you, even if they were to burn me for it.

Then she told [him] exactly as his son had requested her [to act]. So when the prince had heard it, he began to smile and said:

-- By [my] faith, sire, she said, I don’t know, but because of the concern I have for you did I say as much. But he told me afterwards that he had done it to test me.

Then this matter remained thus until the prince’s son one day displeased his father, and it came to pass that [the latter] could not refrain himself from saying:

-- And you, how were you so bold that you dared seek out my wife with evil intention?

When he heard this he was so astounded that he did not dare excuse himself for it. But this [very] day he made his preparations and in the night murdered his father [where he was sleeping] beside the lady, whence it came to pass that the lady was put into the situation where she had to say that the prince had died of a grievous illness that he had. Thus the son killed the father in such a manner that nobody [fol. 148d] knew it except a [patricidal] knight and the lady who did not dare speak about it, but he put her under his will despite all those whom it could annoy.

Filius may be seen as a simple and not very subtle inversion of the framing Phaedra theme. An analogue story, entitled “De la bonne impératrice”, can be found in the French fabliaux tradition (Legrand d’Aussy, Fabliaux ou contes, fables et romans […] V.125-129).

Already in 1876 none other than Gaston Paris found this story to be “almost unintelligible.” Even some massaging of the original can only partially render the text less opaque:

Unlike the burgher and his wife, who like crazy nurses uselessly mutilate themselves rather than their supposed son in order to prove, to no avail, their parenthood and thus prevent the lord from appropriating their otherwise heirless land, the child’s real mother, caring more for herself than for her illegitimate son, refuses three times to mutilate herself but under the threat of death clings to the child, thus betraying her motherhood, confirming physical resemblances and ensuring that the lord will “inherit” the childless couple’s land.

In the empress’s arsenal of arguments against power-hungry sons the central attempts at proving motherhood must seem rather ineffective; the son’s eventual slide into tyranny may serve the empress’s objective better but feels artificially added on.

At the time of the emperor Constant[ine] of Constantinople there was a prince in Greece who had his land entirely free as far as all those [who lived] in the country were concerned, for there was such a custom that all those who would die without a male heir of their flesh [their] land fell to the prince. Wherefore there happened a great marvel in this country. There was a burgher who was staying in a good town and so [it went that] he was so rich that he surmounted his lord in treasure. It came to pass that the burgher could not have an heir of his flesh who after him would have his domain, and so [it went until] the burgher called one day on his wife and said:

-- [My] lady, it seems well to me that we will no longer have a child who could hold our land, for you have already passed the natural term for having children.

-- Sire, she said, God could still well do it, if He wanted to, [fol. 150bisb] but I have little confidence.

-- In God’s name, said the lady, sire, if you wanted to believe me, I thought up a thing that we could do. I have a sister of mine who has recently become pregnant,
and I would do as if I were it, too. And when it would come to giving birth to [her child], we would act in such a way that people would believe that it was ours.

-- In God’s name, [my] lady, said the burgher, quite similarly do I have a sister who has recently become pregnant whom I want to have the advantage in this matter.

-- So, she said, I see well how the thing will go. It will thus be that [instead] we will seek a woman who is not of my lineage nor of yours.

So they seek a poor girl who was pregnant from a man of the Church. And that [girl] they cause to be guarded so secretly that nobody ever had any suspicion of it. The lady on the other side conducts herself very carefully according to what she wanted to achieve. Time went by until the child had to come forth. So you can know [perfectly] well that it was watched over carefully [by the burgher’s wife]. And it came to pass that the true mother had to feed it. So much did she put her heart into it that people talked much about it. And it came to pass that news came to the lord of the town that [the burgher] had a son to whom one had said that he would have [the burgher’s] possessions. Then a man came to [the lord] and said to him:

-- Sire, if I suspect that that burgher and his wife want to deceive you, you will doubt this [news] at your risk.

-- By [my] faith, went then the newscarrier, I believe that the burgher’s wife has passed the right term for having children.

So he put himself to the task of knowing the age of the burgher[‘s wife] and it was found that she had passed the age of having children. Then people began to murmur that the [fol. 150bisc] lord had had it researched in order to have the burgher’s land. So the news came to the burgher and his wife and they had much doubt. It was not long before the lord came to the town. Then he asked for the burgher and his wife. They came before him and he put it to them and said:

So he asked for the child. And the real mother, when she heard this, was very astonished and believed that they were to destroy the child, so she began to cry most pitifully and said that nobody except herself would carry the child. So she took it in her arms and carried it before the lord. When the lord saw it he looked at its nurse [and mother] and then at the child and realized that they resembled one another in all ways. And the burgher[’s wife] took the child in her arms and said:

-- A very great sin commits he who has said to my lord that you [, child,] are not mine.

Then he took the child, who was already three years old, and put an iron pick in its hand and said to it:

-- Go to your mother and say to her: Mother, it is necessary that you make an eye fly from the head of whoever of the two of us pleases you better, for thus commands it our lord.

The child, who had more understanding than anyone of his time, came to the lady [the burgher’s wife whom it thought to be its mother] who believed that she was its mother and spoke to her exactly as one had told it to speak. When the lady heard this she was much astounded and said:

-- Handsome son, you will have no culpability in this game, I prefer the crime [to fall] on me rather than on you.

So the false mother took the pick [that was] in the child’s hand and in front of all [present] made one of her eyes [fol. 150bisd] fly from her head [because as a mother she would rather injure herself than her child]. When she had done this she said:

-- [My] lord, now you have seen that I would not have done this if I were not a mother.

-- By [my] faith, he said, exactly the same must be done to him who says that it is his son.

Exactly as the lady had done, so did her husband [the burgher who needed the child in order not to lose his property to the lord]. And when this was done the lord said to [the poor girl and ] the true mother:

-- May it God, she said, not please that I have two such crimes [on my conscience].

-- By [my] faith, he said, I believe that the two crimes are such that the first one is the [child’s] birth and the other the loss of the eye.

-- By my head, the lord said, it can well be [thus], and we will know it [for sure] in [the fullness of] time.

-- [My] lord, she said, if you do not tell me the reason why I would commit such a folly, it would be an outrage to go through with it.

-- I will tell you, he said, according to my understanding. If indeed the child were the burgher’s and his wife’s, they have committed a great folly in poking out their eyes according to [the fact] that no force has made them do it. And if [the poor girl] were to poke out hers as well without any force [having been] applied, then she would have committed an outrage.

-- Go to your [other] lady and tell her to lead you to your mother, or else I will have her head cut off.

The child came to the girl and told her accordingly. When he had told her, [as] the true mother [she] took him by the hand and said to him while kissing him:

-- Sweet friend, they make you say what they want.But for [all] this the truth will not stir.

-- Now you will see that she will not change her mind [and pretend not to be his mother] despite whatever you have told her.

-- Did you not see, he said, that when the child had said what you had ordered him to say, she took him by the hand and pulled him toward her saying that the truth did not change at all [simply] because he had not understood [that the woman who had led him was his mother] [and had therefore] erred? That was to say that she was his mother, nor would anybody but herself lead him [to herself], out of the fear [all] had of your threat.

-- By [my] faith, he said, willingly. You will keep this thing aside [for now] and you will pretend as well that you don’t know the truth about it, for you cannot [yet] take [possession of] your claim [to the burgher’s and his wife’s property]. And furthermore you have nothing as long as anyone of them is alive, instead they will enlarge [their property] before they reduce it. And if you call their bluff regarding their malice, it could definitely not be that you don’t err in this case. But let them now [be] and tell them this proverb: “[She] who loves [her child] more than a mother is [like] a crazy nurse” [“The burgher’s wife who pretends to love ‘her’ child more than its real mother is like a crazy nurse”].

-- “Crazy is the nurse who [like you] loves [her child] more than the mother.” Just as much can I tell you, says the lord to the burgher and to his wife, if you had not loved [or pretended to love] your child too much, [this situation] would definitely not have befallen you [and you would have prevented me from getting your property].

-- Ha, [my] lord, they say, for the grace of God, if we had acted differently, you would never have believed that [the child] was ours.

Then they departed [fol. 151b] from there and went back to their house in this manner.

When the burgher and his wife had returned to their house they believed well that their lord had noticed nothing, and so it was that they felt themselves much diminished [in] that each one had thus lost an eye, but this they could not reverse, so it had to be suffered. It came to pass that the child grew and developped until he came to the age of fifteen years, and the story said that he was so wise and [so] full of very great cunning concerning the enemy that he knew where he had come from and how the lord of the land would dispossess him of what he was to have. So he did so much by [means of] his gifts and by intrigue that he was entirely lord over him. And so long did he go on that he put him to death by poisons that he gave him. And when he had done this he acquired so many friends through the great presents that he gave [out] that he put the entire country under his control. In that he was thus lord of the country, he thought to himself that he was too dependent and [that] the burgher and his wife held great power over him, so he gave them [some] of his poisons to drink and put them to death before time and before hour. And then he went and rose so far [fol. 151c] through his malice that he was entirely lord of the empire of Constantinople.

It is impossible to see how the empress can use this story as an argument against her supposedly power-hungry and therefore patricidal stepson. The proverb summing up what Le Roux de Lincy has called “une imitation assez curieuse du jugement de Salomon” (Le livre des proverbes […], p. xviii), namely “Crazy is the nurse who loves [her child] more than the mother”, is attested in numerous medieval proverb collections.

Jesse’s story partially mirrors the frame narrative: the emperor there and king Anthenor here have remarried; both have a child from their first marriage, a son in the frame, a daughter here, against whom each one’s second wife spins her intrigue; the (step)son is used as a warning against an heir usurping his father’s power, the (step)daughter is simply an obstacle in the wife’s socio-political ambitions. In the overall scheme of the frame it is Jesse’s turn to demonstrate the evil that is woman. Anthenor’s second wife fits this objective moderately well in that she plots to have the emperor marry her daughter from a previous marriage instead of Anthenor’s daughter from his first wife. She succeeds by spreading the rumour that her stepdaughter is frigid and by convincing her that the emperor is impotent. But irony wills that her daughter does not bear the emperor an heir and that her stepdaughter is happily married to the king of Greece. And injustice wills that Anthenor suffers the emperor’s wrath, while nothing is said about his wife’s fate, whereby the persuasive force of Jesse’s story is considerably lessened.

Anthenor was king of Araby at the time of Caesar who conquered that empire. He had had a wife, from her he had a young [fol. 152a] lady as daughter. Much did the father love and cherish her for her [good] sense and her beauty, for in all the kingdom there was no one as beautiful or as wise. And with all this the country loved her much, for when[ever] a disturbance happened in the land and in the country, she was had the means and put things [back] in order, wherefore her [good] sense was much praised. It happened as it had to happen that Anthenor heard [people] talk about the queen of Armenia who was [almost] too beautiful, and the talk went so [far] that the one had the other by marriage. Now then this lady had a very beautiful daughter, too, whom she loved like a mother [should]. Caesar, the emperor of Rome, was these days without a wife, and the princes came to him and convinced him that he should get married. And he said that in that case they should seek him a wife. And they had the agreed-upon view that they knew no one as wise and as beautiful as the daughter of Anthenor, the king of Araby. So Caesar ordered [that people] be sent to seek her out. So the most praised [men] of the empire got ready and came to Araby. But before they talked to the king they had their arrival made known. When king Anthenor knew this news he was very joyful about it. Then he let his barons know that they should all come to him in order to honour the princes of Rome more [than was customary]. It came to pass that the queen knew [about] this thing [and] that she very much had a great desire to confirm this marriage for her [own] daughter, [a marriage] that she would otherwise have [already] well pursued. Then came the night when Anthenor was with his wife who knew very well [how] to attract him and said:

-- [My] lord, one thing I know well to tell you, [namely] that if you do not have good [fol. 152b] advice about this marriage that you want to make, you can come to great confusion because of it.

-- [My] lord, she said, no man can have her as a [sexual] companion, and she does not have it in her power [to do anything about it].

-- By [my] faith, Anthenor said, about this I am very angry and I have given it bad consideration.

-- [My] lord, she said, I will advise you well. I have here my daughter with me, who is very refined and wise, you will say to the princes of Rome that she is your daughter and that you love her much [to be] with my lord the emperor, and they will well believe that it be she whom they ask for.

-- [My] lady, said then Anthenor, you speak well, and I will do it upon your advice.

Thus the night went by and it came to the next morning when the princes of Rome had come and made their message to the king who knew [how] to make them very welcome and made for them great festivities and said that he was very glad that the emperor wanted to have his daughter who was very beautiful and marvelously wise. Then Anthenor took his council aside and said to them:

-- Handsome lords, see here these princes of Rome who have come for my [very own] daughter, this you see well. But now it is thus that one has let me know that it is not in her power to be with a man, so I am very disturbed by it. And because I do not want at all to do this thing without your advice, I have made you come to me.

-- By my head, he said, as late as last night I did not know anything about it. But [fol. 152c] her stepmother has given me to understand it.

-- How little wise you are, that one said, to believe her stepmother about a matter with respect to which she would want to advance herself before anybody else.

-- By my head, you have spoken the truth. It behooves [us] therefore to find out first of all from my daughter how things stand in his matter.

-- You speak the truth, that one goes, let’s go speak to her in council and privately.

So Anthenor put himself between [the wise man] and [a] young knight [of his council] and [together] they came to the young lady who had already been taught what her stepmother wanted to work toward [, namely that the emperor was impotent]. Then the father reasoned with her and said to her:

-- Daughter, tell me how it suits you that my lord the emperor wants to have you for [his] wife?

-- I know for sure that things are as I told you [: my daughter does not want the emperor].

-- By my head, said the knight, I will not believe it, rather [I think] that her stepmother has arranged this.

So it came to pass that Anthenor believed his wife about what she made him understand, and [he believed] the young girl about the other thing, [namely] that it was not in Caesar’s power to have a woman’s company by which he might procreate. Thus treated [Anthenor’s wife] the father and the daughter, whence it came to pass that in this malicious situation the barons of the kingdom recommended to their lord that, since it was thus that the girl did not want the emperor, he did not send him anything else but a wise excuse. This thing he did not at all want to do without the opinion of his wife. Therefore he came to her and told her how his barons advised him what to do.

-- [My] lord, she said, this you will not do at all. But the emperor would greatly despise your ex- [fol. 152d]cuse, and he would not at all believe that the thing went differently. You will send him my daughter instead of yours, and thus through the will of mine you will have love and confederation with Caesar who is very vainglorious and proud.

So it came to pass that Anthenor against the opinion of his barons sent his stepdaughter instead of his daughter to the emperor. Thence it then happened to him that this young lady was with the emperor for a long time without any child being able to be born of this [union]. On the other side Anthenor’s girl [and] daughter was sought by the king of Greece. The father came to her and said:

-- Concerning what I have heard about [the fact] that it is not in your power to know [in the biblical sense] [a] man.

-- You have had, she said, poor understanding, for I don’t know at all that this is true.

-- Because, she said, I heard that he himself does not have the power [to do] what you are putting onto me.

Then Anthenor knew how his wife had deceived her/him. Thence it happened to him afterwards that his daughter wants to have the king of Greece and had from him in the first year a very handsome son. Treason which cannot at all be hidden all the time obliged Caesar to know this thing. Because of which he was so [much] out of his mind that he had Anthenor destroyed without any counterforce that he [, Anthenor,] might have been able to have from [any] man who could have helped him.

Cardamum
[Lentulus’s, the sixth sage’s story]

[fol. 154c] This is the exemplum of Cardamum the senechal

[fol. 154d] It is an honourable thing to comport oneself wisely in this century according to the adversities and the tribulations that God consents to exist in this mortal life, as did once Cardamum the senechal of Persia. For as we find in our writings, Barbarus was king of Persia. He had had a wife, and from her he had a young girl for a daughter whom he loved as much as you will hear henceforth. And it came to pass that a great problem arose for this Barbarus outside his land where it behooved him to go with all his might. He loved much his senechal because of [his] very great intelligence and the knighly quality that was in him. Now he did not know which [option] to carry out: either take his senechal with him to [solve] that problem, or leave him in his land to protect it and his daughter, about which [choice] he had the greatest doubt as to the thing he would have to do. It came to pass that the love he had for his daughter surpassed everything else [and] made him leave it to Cardamum to protect his daughter and his land. He had his men assemble and started out to where he had [his] problem. Cardamum remained [fol. 155a] with the girl who was but eleven years old and had the name of Caradiane from her mother. The senechal looked at her and saw [that she was] very beautiful, and with that he knew that she was wise for her time. So he said within himself that very great treason would commit he who would treat the girl badly while she was charged to him. Therefore he reflected in which manner he could make for better protection [for her]. He who paid attention to the good [in the world] saw within himself that he could not offer [her] better protection than to teach her [how to do] good works and [how] to be carefully close [to him], whereby no man nor any woman could say or do a thing to her that was not good. So he said to her one day:

-- My very dear girl, much you must love the god who has made you so beautiful that all those who see you fill with joy about your beauty.

-- Verily, sire, she said, if [only] he had given me [good] sense whereby I [could] know [how] to know and love him, whereby I would do his work on earth in order to have the reign of heaven which lasts for all days!

When the senechal heard her say this he was very joyous and said to her:

-- My very dear girl, I will have you have a master who regarding this will teach you what it is about.

-- Well have you spoken, she went then.

So the senechal had a good cleric and expert in the Saracens’ law come [to her]. This one began to teach the girl about the law [and] what it was about. But she into whom the Holy Ghost had descended took his speech away from him and made him convinced of everything [s]he said, so that by the power of grace and wisdom he converted to what she said. When the senechal knew this, he himself could not [do] better than to agree with her. Then she acted [further] until she [came to] know a holy man [fol. 155b] of the law of the Christians. This one came before her and then looked at her and saw that she was enlightened by the beauty of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. So he spoke to her and she to him and they agreed fully that the holy man found more good in her than she in him. Thus these three [Caradiane, Cardamum and the cleric] were converted with the help of God’s misericord, and to the good happiness of the senechal and of the girl. So it came to pass that the senechal had this thing done so secretly that there was nobody who paid any attention to it.Thence it came to pass that when the father [Barbarus] had returned [from abroad], he had contracted the marriage of the girl and the one with whom he had had to deal. Then he had her come before him and said to her what agreement he had negotiated between her and him. So the girl replied to the father and said to him:

-- Father, this thing cannot be done without my agreement and accord.

-- And in that case I cannot prevent, he said, my war[like problem] to begin again.

-- Handsome father, she said, I have no misgivings about your peace [with your adversary],yet I like the war between the two of you better than my not having to keep toward my God what I have vowed to Him.

-- What thing, he said then, have you vowed to Him?

-- Father, she said, myself wholly, that is body and soul.

-- Because of this, he said, you will not in the slightest fail in [your promise]?

-- No, she said, if it pleases Him.

-- It behooves you to have the one I tell [you], goes the father.

-- Never will I have him, she said, [not even] for the [greatest] thing that there may be. For I like much better that you break your agreement than I mine.

What would I tell you? So long went the things of this affair that it behooved the girl’s father to learn how she had been converted and had vowed her virginity to our Father Jesus Christ. When the father heard this he was very angry, and so [it went] until in the end he knew how the senechal had agreed to it. And so this Barbarus does not want, out of the love he had for his daughter and for his senechal, that the two be martyrized and put to death. Whence it came to pass that this Barbarus became enraged and died a vile [and] ugly death.

Assassinus
[The empress’s seventh and last story]

This is the story of “The Old Man of the Mountain,” literature on which fills whole libraries. In the empress’s scheme of arguments against patricidal sons the story has little value, unless one argues that the frame’s (step)son resembles one of the children being raised as future assassins. Its inclusion merits attention for another reason: while the story was known at least since Marco Polo (1298), its particular combination of the motif of the paradisiacal garden with the motif of the underground education can be traced back to Odorico da Pordenone (1286-1331), a missionary to the Middle and Far East (India, China) who wrote about his travels; Version M can thus be dated fairly safely to the beginning of the 14th century.

[fol. 156b] The exemplum of the Hakesin who kills man

[fol. 156c] It is true that there are some great lords in the land of the Saracens who have small children one half year old taken and and have them raised by a woman in cisterns where they cannot see any distraction nor any amusement. And when they are so big that they know well [how] to understand what one says to them, then one has lodgings made in such a manner that they are inside the earth and that one can see from them other manors which are noble and full of all [kinds of] distractions like meadows and gardens and noble orchards. And then there are ladies and damsels and knights who distract and amuse themselves and sing and create the greatest joy[ful environment] that one can create. And so those children whom one raises in those cisterns see them. So they ask what [kind of] people they are whom they see comport themselves so nobly. Then those who initiate them tell them that they are those who have killed the Christians. And then they have the very great [desire] to know in which manner [fol. 156d] they can come to such joy that everyone covets by nature. Then their masters tell them that nobody can come to that before they have killed some Christian. And so they have the very great desire to do [just] that, so that, when it comes to pass that they are adult and fully grown up, one helps oneself to them in such a way as I will tell you. When it comes to pass that a great pack of Christians comes into the land of Jerusalem and there are some who are feared by the Saracens, they take these Hakesins of whom I have spoken above and send them as messengers to the Christians, and one tells them whom they must kill. And thus they have the Christians murdered by those unfortunate ones of whom I have told you here.

1. souffres vous [back]
2. vous souffres [back]
3. ne vous vaut [back]
4. vous me tenres cesti chose en respit [back]
5. se vous leur faisies ja sages de leur malisse [back]
6. il se tinrent mout a dechiut [back]
7. il orent conseil [back]
8. meute [back]
9. Runte, Hans R. Li Ystoire de la male marastre: Version M of the Roman des sept sages de Rome: A Critical Edition [...]. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1974. lxii + 117 p. ISBN 3-484-52046-9. [back]
10. Le Roux de Lincy, Antoine-Jean-Victor. Roman des sept sages de Rome en prose [...]. Paris: Techener, 1838, p. xviii. [back]
11. Paris, Gaston-Bruno-Paulin. Deux rédactions du Roman des sept sages de Rome. Paris: Didot, 1876, p. XXVI. [back]

too literally translated by
Hans R. Runte
(from [AB 516] Palermo, Joseph, Le roman de Cassidorus, 2 vols., Paris: A. & J. Picard, 1963, 1964)

In the first part of the Cassidorus Continuation (comprising twenty-four stories), Rome’s twelve nameless princes are duelling against the empress Helcana on whether the emperor Cassidorus should or should not marry. The princes’ stories are meant to advise against marriage (which, according to the stars, would hasten their death), whereas Helcana’s stories want to entice Cassidorus to marry her (which he does in the end)

Helcana’s sixth and eighth rebuttals recall the stories inclusa and Virgilius in the Seven Sages canon.

In the second part (comprising fourteen stories), after Helcana’s death and Cassidorus’s marriage to the empress of Rome, Rome’s seven sages are duelling against Helcanus, Cassidorus’s and Helcana’s son, on whether the twelve princes should or should not be executed for having conspired against Helcana and her marriage to Cassidorus. The sages’ stories are meant to defend the princes and their stance against marriage and women, whereas the intent of Helcanus’s stories is to have the princes convicted of treason and executed (which they are).

Helcanus’s seventh and concluding rebuttal recalls the story nutrix in French Version M of the Seven Sages.

In the Seven Sages, inclusa is told by the seventh sage against the empress as a cautionary example of a craftily unfaithful woman. Helcana’s story goes up against the princes’ opposition to marriage and celebrates woman’s persistence and faithfulness. If there is an echo of inclusa in Cassidorus, it is a very faint and much simplified one.

[MS. Paris, Bibl. nat. f. fr. 22548, fol. 197r^a] There was once a king in Frisia who could not [fol. 197r^b] have a wife who would be able to please him. So it came to pass that as soon as he had one of them [women] in his bed and she did not please him, he had her killed the next day, as noble a woman as she may be, and [this went on] until he was renowned for it everywhere. It came to pass that he heard speak of a lady, daughter of one of his country’s princes. He had her summoned by a knight of his. This [latter] did not dare contradict [the king] in this matter, and he saw the girl and told her that such was [the king’s wish]. The girl said that she is much delighted by it, for she could not apply herself [to anything] better than to having in her lord a friend, and [that] he was doing her a very great honour. When the father heard her speak thus, he had very great pity for her, when she had thus replied, for there was not a [single] woman in the entire country who dared having [the king] for her husband. And he knew that his daughter was the most beautiful and the most wise [woman] he knew, and he feared death so little. The father had his daughter prepared as very nobly as he could, and he himself had her put on a horse and led her to his lord, and he said to him that he was giving him as a gift the most beautiful jewel that he had. The king looked at the girl, who was marvelously beautiful, and in addition she was cheerful, and so she pleased him much. He addressed her and said to her:

-- Damsel, it seems to me that you are not astounded. Know that, if you do not please me, I must do to you what I have done to the others.

She began to smile and said:

-- Sire, I do not doubt that, if you are not worse than another man, I will please you reasonably [enough]. And if things were such that all this is true, I would con- [fol. 197r^c] sider myself well done by, if you had had me, and then I would die by my lord’s will.

And when the king heard her speak thus, he felt very pleasant and said:

-- Damsel, because of the word[s] you have spoken to me I assure you of my love, and you will have no concern, whatever may have to come to pass.

Thus the damsel won her lord’s love, and it came to pass that they were so much together that the damsel was pregnant and delivered a very beautiful girl. To the king she was almost too dear. And so it came to pass that because of the great love he had for the girl, he had her kept so carefully that he did not want anybody to go near her that could harm her. When she was fifteen years old, he had her kept in a tower and put a young lady with her to watch over and teach her. It came to pass that she grew in understanding and in beauty, and was everywhere talked about, because of which the king had a marvelous custom, for there was no one, not even a nobleman, to whom he wanted to show her, if he did not serve him one year. Several served him much because of this custom. It came to pass that the son of the duke of Athens heard [people] talk about this, and it pleased him much to see her. He put himself on the move and did not finish until he came to Frisia, and he did his service very well and very beautifully. He came to the king and said to him:

-- Sire, I have served you a year. I want to have my wage[s].

The king told him [that] whatever wages he was asking to receive he would receive, for he had served him very well.

-- Sire, he said, you cannot pay me better than [to allow me] to [fol. 197v^a] see your daughter.

The king took him by the hand and led him into the tower and said to him:

-- Here’s the beautiful jewel.

[T]he [duke’s son] saw the girl and and she [saw] him, and so much did the one please the other that the fire of love ignited within them. The young man was pensive and made a sign to the girl that she had his heart entirely [and] excessively. She heard him well enough and in turn signified immediately that she too gave hers over to him. The king did not notice this thing but said:

-- [My] girl, adieu.

Then they departed from there and came to the palace. The young man took his leave from the king and now put himself on the move to go to the country whence he was. The girl remained in such a state [that she was] like the one who thought often of the young man. Time passed and the king wanted to marry his girl during his lifetime. The girl was much sought after by one and all. The king of Hungary heard [people] talk about her and had her requested. When the king of Frisia learned it, he was very pleased by it. He came to the girl and told her that thus it was. And now the king of Hungary wanted to have her.

-- Sire, she said, he is wrong, I do not care for him and never will he have me for [his] wife.

When the father heard it, he was much angered by it and said:

-- Damsel, you will do it, for I do not know right now where you could better plan [for your future].

-- If you do not know it, said the girl, it does not follow that somebody else does.

-- So you will tell me [when] it [happens], said the king.

-- Never, by God, said she, will you know it from me ahead of time.

The king could not know whom she wanted, nor could anybody render her reasonable. He put the damsels under torture, [to find out] if they knew anything about it. There was not one [fol. 197v^b] who said anything about it, like [all] those who knew nothing about it. What did the king do? He had his daughter so restrained that she did not see the light [of day] for ten years, however much one managed to say to her, she did not want to say anything about what she wanted. [Her] renown went very far and so [far] that the young man [and son of the duke of Athens], who was already a knight, heard [people] talk about it and thought well that this was for him. He took to his route in the noblest manner he could and did not stop [until] he came to Frisia. The king was in the country, and this [young man] spoke to him and said:

-- Sire, I ask you for your daughter, for she must have none other than me.

When the kinghears him he said:

-- Friend, I do not know whom she wants. What is your name?

-- Sire, he said, I am the duke of Athens and my name is Scalibor.

Then the king took him by the hand and led him before his daughter and said:

-- Is this the one whom you want to be king after me?

-- Father, she said, He is truly it. Never will I have anybody else but him.

So Scalibor had the girl thanks to her [good] sense, nor does she find it worthwhile to love anybody else but him.

In the Seven Sages, Virgilius is the empress’s fifth story told as an example of male plotting and power-grabbing. Helcana’s story, though less developed, echoes this message.

[MS. Paris, Bibl. nat. f. fr. 22548, fol. 200r^b] It is true that in the city of Rome, where your ancester was born, there once was an emperor who was very little loved by the barons of the country. There was in the city a mirror like there still is. It was high on top of a great marble tower, and one saw [in it] throughout the entire country those who wanted to do harm to the city. It came to pass that there was a rich prince in the city who at that time waged war against Rome. He thought to himself that as long as the mirror was whole, he would not have power in the city. But this mirror was protected so well that nobody who would want to do harm to it could touch it, and if he did it, he was immediately destroyed. The prince who waged war against Rome thought of a great ruse, for the emperor’s senechal was well disposed toward him. He did so much that he talked to him and told him a thing that you will hear [and] that he did. The emperor of Rome had a very handsome son, and he was only five years old. The emperor loved him as his child. The senechal took the [fol. 200r^c] child in his arms and, under the very great semblance of love, carried him into the tower with the mirror, and there were several knights with him. They began to play here and there in the lower part of the tower, and then the senechal came and carried the child before the mirror. The child looked at the mirror and saw in it him who held him and also himself. He began to laugh and stretches his little hands toward it, and the senechal pulls him back and then puts him close to [the mirror] in order to warm him. And when he saw that he was eager to touch it, he put him so close that the child strikes with the fist and felled and splintered the mirror, and huge pieces of it came down, and thus the whole light of the mirror goes out. When the senechal has done what he pursued, he shouted and made noise. Those who were close enough came there and said:

The senechal said that the child broke it. News if it came to the emperor, and he asked who had done this. One told him, his son. The emperor does not want to kill his son. And therefore it did not take long for him to be shamed and destroyed. When he who had thought up the treason learned [what had happened], he fitted himself out, himself and his people, and they entered Rome and took the emperor and his son and put both of them to the sword.

How the child [Helcanus] told his father [Cassidorus]
a story about Vaspiour who begot a son with his daughter

[MS. Paris, Bibl. nat. f. fr. 22549, fol. 66v^b] In this country there once was a man, sire, said the child, who had the name of Vaspiour. He had taken a wife [and] from this wife he was left with a lovely damsel for a daughter. But then it was customary at that time that certain people were vassals and [that] those who were vassals could not have but one wife in their entire life, and [that,] if there was no male heir of one’s [own] flesh, [one’s] land remained with the lord from whom one held it. This Vaspiour was such that he could not have from his wife any [male] fruit who could hold his land. He was very sad, as someone [should] who had surpassed all his neighbours in possessions. When he realized this, he envisaged a proud stratagem, for his daughter was lovelier than all the ladies of the country. The father said to her:

-- Beautiful daughter, I am very sad about the fact that after [fol. 66v^c] me you will have nothing of my land.

She replied very wisely:

-- Father, I will have what I should have.

-- By my head, said the father, so this thing will go differently.

Whereupon they did so much to one another that the damsel was left pregnant by [her] father. When he learned this he was overjoyed and came to his daughter and said to her:

-- Pay close attention that no one will know that you are pregnant, except your mother, and she will never know by whom this was, unless I let myself be led [to tell her] about it.

And she said that she would act thus. Vaspiour said to his wife that she was highly unrealistic to be so hard toward [t]he[i]r daughter that…

… -- she told me her private matters before [she told them to] you.

So he told her that she was, to his great sadness, pregnant by a man who was not from the[ir] country. And when the mother learned it, she was very angry and said:

-- Can this be true?

-- True, he said, but do you know what I have been thinking? I have been thinking that you, too, will act as if you were pregnant, as she is, and [that,] when she will be at the point where she must give birth, you will pretend that the child is yours and mine, and if it is male, then that will be better. And so we cannot better safeguard the honour of our daughter and [of] her [gentle]man.

-- Well you speak, she said, but I am passed the natural term beyond which I can reasonably no longer have child[ren].

-- Let it not bother you, he said, for there will be nobody to notice it.

Thus was this stratagem well built. The damsel delivered a handsome son at the point where she had to, and one believed [fol. 67r^a] that [Vaspiour’s wife] was his mother. The child developed and grew. His rightful mother made no fuss about him. [Instead] she who had nothing [to do] with the matter [i.e. Vaspiour’s wife] except what you have heard, showed him such a sign of love that soon she turned up with him in whatever place where the child was going. So many hardly believable signs of love did she show him that it came to pass that the[ir] reputation went to the sovereign lord under whom they were living.

The lord, who was subtle and malicious, wondered how a woman of such an age could have [a] child, because of whom he could lose such riches as [the child’s father] had gathered together. Therefore he had inquiries made about her age, and the whole truth was told him; and so he ordered to look for wise educated men who could know the truth about this [matter]. They told him that it was against nature for her to have delivered [her son], if what one had made them understand was true. When the lord learned this, he had Vaspiour come before him and said to him:

-- Tell me the truth [in response] to my question.

-- Sire, he said, what is it?

So the lord told him that he knew [full] well that the child he took for his [own] from his wedded wife wasn’t it at all. When Vaspiour heard his lord, he thought indeed that [t]he [lord] knew the whole truth about it [all], so he said:

-- Ha! sire, by God’s mercy, what then have you heard, [you] who say such a thing?

-- I have heard a thing such, he said, [as to make me say] that if you do not tell me [the] truth, I will have you destroyed.

-- Sire, he said then, if I knew that in exchange for telling the truth you were to assure me that [fol. 67r^b] in the process I would have no misfortune [befall me], I would tell you the whole truth.

--- By my head, said the lord, never because of me will you lose in the process.

So Vaspiour told him the whole truth, how he had been tempted by his daughter, and he excused himself, for his honour and hers, for having done in part in this matter what had been done there. And he said to his lord that his wife did not at all know that the child was his, but [that] he had made her understand that it was [the child] of a foreign man. When the lord had heard these words, he was much moved and said:

-- By my head, crazily did you think taking away my right [to your riches]. So now I forbid you on your life to act similarly with my knowledge toward your wife, and [I order you] absolutely not to tell her but to let me deal with it.

Vaspiour was overjoyed when [he realized that] he could to this point get away with [his stratagem]. The lord had his [i.e. Vaspiour’s] wife and his daughter come before him. He first argued with the lady and said to her:

-- Is this child yours?

-- And whose would he be, she said, if not mine?

The lord replied:

-- Your daughter’s who is of a better age than you.

-- Sire, she said, my daughter never had a child, rather it is mine.

-- And do you love him as [much as you love] yourself?

And the lady answered him that she loved him more than herself.

-- You are a deceitful nurse, the lord said then, and this [whole affair] I will understand in [the fullness of] time.

Then the lord came to the damsel and said to her:

-- One has made me understand that this child is yours. Tell me the truth about it.

-- Sire, she said, if he we- [fol. 67r^c] re mine, it would be against what is right and against what is reasonable.

When she had said this, there was no one who understood her to be right, except the lord who for her answer [privately] praised her greatly in his heart, for he understood [full] well that she told the truth [about her not wanting to be known as an incestuous, unmarried mother] and [in public] he considered her honour before those who heard her. Afterwards he asked still another question:

-- Is the child nothing to you?

-- Sire, she said, he is my brother [as well as my son, Vaspiour being our common father].

-- Well I believe, said the lord [, lying], that you tell the truth. So tell me now how much you love him.

She said:

-- I wouldn’t know how to tell you the truth about it, for I have never put myself to the test about it.

When the lord heard her, her answer pleased him a good deal. Then he shouted for the child and said to him:

-- Go and take this brooch to your mother and tell her: Mother, let the one between the two of us whom you love more [keep] both eyes in the head, and tear the third [eye] from the other head, for so it behooves [us] to act.

The child who had not yet at all a very great understanding came to the old woman whom he believed to be his mother and told her everything in such a manner as the lord ordered him. She was entirely astounded by this thing and looked at her lord and said:

-- Sire, by God, why do you say such a thing?

-- Because, he said, I want to.

She suspected worse [to happen]; on the other hand she knew perfectly well that she was being tested [regarding the stratagem] according to which she [and Vaspiour] would be able to deceive him. And still she loved the child so much and had her heart put into it so much that she rather had a misdeed and an evil thing [done to herself] than [to] him. And so she [fol. 67v^a] took the brooch [that was] in the child’s hand and, in [plain] view of all those who were there, made one of her eyes fly from her head, and then she said to him:

-- Sire, she said, I fulfilled your wish, but I have very dearly paid for it. Sire, you can well see it.

Thereupon the lord said:

-- Even if you had loved [him] more [than usual] as a mother, such [a sacrifice] was never my intention.

And when she heard the explanation, she truly realized that misplaced love and false greed had deceived her. Now she went to the lord, at [his] feet, and said to him [and asked] that she receive mercy from him according to the misdeed that she had done. And then the lord had pity on her and said to her:

-- As much you let others enjoy their mercy, as much may you have yours.

-- Sire, she said, great thanks.

And it came to pass then that the child was grown up, and he and his [biological] mother were hated by those of the town, so that by necessity it was appropriate to empty the house of the damsel and her son. So it came to pass that the child, when he saw this, took leave of his mother and said that he would go outside the region until this thing had blown over. Such as he planned it, so he carried it out. The old lady who took to hating her daughter and her husband who had persuaded her to do this, said to herself that just as she had bought so she would resell. […]

[Vaspiour’s wife falsely accuses her daughter of theft; the latter is incarcerated: fol. 67v^a-68r^a]

[fol. 68r^a] […] [A]nd it came to pass that the daughter’s son came [back] from foreign lands, [he] who like those [others] had become a great learned man. There was nobody in the city who recognized him, nor did he want to let himself be known. He inquired about his mother as if he knew nothing about her. It was told him that she had been put in prison, such as you have heard. When he learned this he was altogether astounded, and he did not know for anger what he could do. In this rage he did not say anything that one could have noticed, rather he waited until he came to a wise man and had thought about his business. He asked him about certain things concerning his mother’s rights, and he [i.e. the wise man] told him that it was true that the lord, to whom it fell to take the law [and apply it], would not have had her judged of his [own] authority.

-- By God, sire, he [i.e. the son] said, well do I believe you in this, but [fol. 68r^b] one thing I would like to ask of you.

-- Which one? he said.

-- That you let the lady [my mother] have [a judgment under] the law, and as such you would grant her a great advantage.

Then the wise man looked at him and said:

-- How wise are you to say this? Do you want then to put the damsel to death?
-- Sire, no, but I will rather save her.

-- If you can through so much save her, the wise man said, that would be a beautiful masterpiece.

-- Sire, yes, [and] rightfully [so].

So he said and did so much that the wise man came to the lord and asked him on behalf of the damsel that she have [a judgment under] the law, and that he let her have [it], for in prison she did not want to be day after day. The lord replied that, since his/her request was such, he did not want to refuse her/him this. The day was chosen for the damsel to be saved or destroyed. When her mother learned this, she was very angry, for she knew perfectly well that her daughter was to be put to death on the ground of the [false] proof that had been established [that she was a thief], yet she had not deserved it. And the [state of] rage in which she had been, had passed; she was rather very repentant [about the time] when she had pursued her; and [yet all] this was too late, for it behooved her to continue her complaint [against her daughter], if she did not want to be herself in her [daughter’s] situation. But this she would not do at all, for, since [things] were thus, she would not be so crazy as to lose her life, as she had been [when she lost] her eyesight. The day came when one was to judge the dam- [fol. 68r^c] sel. The lord had those come who had to judge her, and the old lady [, her mother] was called, and one asked her, concerning the [allegedly stolen] cup which had been found in the straw of her daughter’s bed, if it was hers.

-- Sire, said then the old lady, truly it is mine.

-- Who knows this? said then the lord.

So she could not by herself prove that it was hers, nor could [her husband] Vaspiour prove it, nor did he want [to prove] any day of his life that he wanted to rescue the damsel from death. When the provost saw this, he was all astounded. And he asked the damsel whose cup it was. She said that it was not hers.

-- Whose then? the provost said.

-- Sire, she went then, several times I saw it at my father’s, as far as I know.

When he heard this, […] they began to look at one another. Then the [son who had become a] learned man came forward and said:

-- Handsome sires, by what are you astounded? By hearing the truth?

When they had heard him, they were still further astounded than before, when he undertook to speak to such a thing. The lord called him and asked him from where he was. He replied to him:

-- Sire, I am he who knows the truth about this thing.

-- By my head, said the lord, you we well need. So now make us wise [and enlighten us] about it [all].

So it came to pass that the [son and] learned man, who knew the truth about this thing, according to what his fate and his experience had taught him, said to the old lady who had for many a day raised him:

-- Woman outside nature, where reason fails and has been in you diminished a good deal, why have you pursued your [own] death [fol. 68v^a] before natural death summons you?

Then she looked at him and now recognized him by certain things and was [so] astonished that she did not know what to do or say, except that at last she said [and asked] why he was saying it.

-- Because, said he, you yourself have lit the fire by which you will be burnt.

And the learned man said then that, if she were to exculpate the other, whom she had accused, she would do well, for she had wrongly done it, and that, if she were not exculpate her, he would tell the whole treason such as she had perpetrated it. She did not want to acknowledge this at this time, and when the learned man saw it, he told the lord and the provost the whole affair such as it had gone [and] that he did not want to lie about anything [connected] with it. The lord and the others who had heard this did not know whether this was true, so they said:

-- Master, how will we be able to know [whether] this [is true]? If we are not otherwise [made] wise about it, this [our current understanding] is not enough.

Thereupon the learned man put the old [lady] under oath, such that she could not deny it but acknowledged that everything had happened as he had said.

When the judges heard this, they marvelled greatly as to why she wanted to rob her daughter of her life without reason. Then a fire was lit and the old [lady] was thrown into it. When Vaspiour saw this thing, he did not know how to counsel himself, when because of him [fol. 68v^b] wife was destroyed. Consequently he was [something] like totally desperate. From now on he emerged from his house and went away into exile.

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