A third Latin 'Pear-tree' story occurs in the Comoedia Lydiae, by Matthieu de Vendôme, and was printed from a MS. at Vienna, in Anecdota Poetica, &c.: Poésies Inédites du moyen áge; par Edélestand du Méril; 1854, p. 370. This is in seventy-two elegiac lines, and gives names to the personages mentioned. The husband and wife are Duke Decius and Lydia; her lover is Pyrrhus, and her maid is Lusca. Hence it is evidently the source of the similar story in Boccaccio's Decamerone, Day 7, Nov. 9, in which the husband and wife are Nicostratus and Lydia, and the lover is Pyrrhus, as before. In this third version of the story the husband is not blind, but the pear-tree is supposed to be enchanted, and to cause false illusions to appear.
In the same Originals and Analogues, at p. 343, Mr. Clouston has collected several Asiatic stories of a similar character, including one in the Bahár-i Dánush, or Spring of Knowledge; a Turkish Version in the romance of The Forty Vazírs, about an enchanted tree which is supposed to cause illusions; and an Arabian Version found in the Breslau printed text of the Arabian Nights, ed. Habicht and Fleischer, and printed in English in Tales from the Arabic, by John Payne (London, printed for the Villon Society, 1884), vol. i. p. 270. Of a similar type is the story of The Officious Father-in-Law, occurring in the Persian Sindibád Náma (second tale of the Fifth Vazír), in the Túti Náma (eighth night, story of the Fifth Vazír), and in the Sanskrit Suka Saptati (fifteenth night). A similar story to that in the Bahár-i Dánush is current in Ceylon; and a translation of it is given in the Orientalist, vol. ii. (1885), p. 148, reprinted by Mr. Clouston. Other examples are added, which, however, bear but a remote resemblance to the Tale in Chaucer.
I may add that I find a French variant of the story in the Poésies de Marie de France, ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820; 2 vols. It is the fortieth Fable in that work, and is headed, 'Dou vileins qui vit un autre Hom od sa femme.' But this version omits the husband's blindness and the pear-tree, and merely says that a thing is not necessarily true because you see it. In conclusion, Mr. Clouston says:—'The model of both Boccaccio's and Chaucer's tales seems to have been the version found in the Comoedia Lydiae, or one similar to it. The story may perhaps exist in some of the great medieval monkish collections of sermons, or of exempla designed for the use of preachers, such as the Sermones of Jacques de Vitry; the Liber de Donis of Étienne de Bourbon; the Promptuarium Exemplorum of John Herolt; the Summa Praedicantium of John Bromyard. In the absence of any Eastern version representing the cuckolded husband as being blind and having his sight miraculously restored to discover himself dishonoured, we must conclude that this form of the story is of European invention. It is needless to add that Chaucer's tale of January and May is incomparably the best-told of all the versions, whether Asiatic or European.'
One peculiarity of this Tale requires further notice, viz. the mention of Pluto. As to this, Tyrwhitt well remarks—'The machinery of the Faeries, which Chaucer has used so happily, was probably added by himself; and indeed I cannot help thinking, that his Pluto and Proserpina were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania.... In the rest of his Faery system, Shakespeare seems to have followed the popular superstitions of his own time.'
Group F.
§ 67. The Squire's Prologue. Ten Brink assumes that Groups E and F constitute but one Group; for which there is no certain evidence. Many MSS., including Pt., make the Wife's Tale follow the Marchantes Tale; and there is nothing in the text itself to shew that the Epilogue to the Marchantes Tale is inseparably connected with the Squire's Prologue. Nevertheless, many good MSS., including E., write that Epilogue and the Squire's Prologue continuously, and E. prefixes to the Epilogue a rubric—'The Prologe of the Squieres Tale'; see vol. iv. p. 460, footnote. The easiest way out of the difficulty is to adopt the arrangement in the Six-text edition, which separates Group E from Group F as to the numbering of the lines, but makes F follow E immediately.
The black-letter editions omit E 2419-2440 and F 1-8 altogether; so that Tyrwhitt was the first to print these lines. He says: 'The Prologue to the Squieres Tale [by which he means E 2419-40 and F 1-8] appears now for the first time in print. Why it has been omitted by all former editors I cannot guess, except, perhaps, because it did not suit with the place which, for reasons best known to themselves, they were determined to assign to the Squieres Tale, that is, after the Man of Lawes and before the Marchantes[[142]]. I have chosen rather to follow the MSS. of the best authority in placing the Squieres Tale after the Marchantes, and in connecting them together by this Prologue, agreeably, as I am persuaded, to Chaucer's intention. The lines which have been usually printed by way of Prologue to the Squieres Tale, as I believe them to have been really composed by Chaucer, though not intended for the Squieres Prologue, I have prefixed to the Shipmannes Tale, for reasons which I shall give when I come to speak of that Tale[[143]].'
In F 1, MSS. Hn. and Pt., and others, substitute Sire Frankeleyn for Squyer. This is obviously wrong, because it increases the number of syllables in the line from ten syllables to twelve, and the number of accents from five to six. Cf. § 69.
§ 68. The Squieres Tale. As to this Tale, Tyrwhitt remarks: 'I have never been able to discover the probable original of this Tale, and yet I should be very hardly brought to believe that the whole, or even any considerable part of it, was of Chaucer's invention.'
The general tone of it points to an Eastern, and especially to an Arabian origin. In this connection, it is worth remarking that there is at least one other case in which Chaucer is conected with an Arabian writer. I have shewn, in the Introduction to the Treatise on the Astrolabe, that a large part of it is immediately derived from a Latin version of a treatise written by Messahala, an Arabian astronomer, by religion a Jew, who flourished towards the end of the eighth century. So also in the case of The Squieres Tale, we may suspect that it was through some Latin medium that Chaucer made acquaintance with Arabian fiction. But I am fortunate in having found a more direct clue to some part, at least, of the poem. I shall shew presently that one of his sources was the Travels of Marco Polo[[144]].