[104] A similar story is told of Dante, who was a contemporary of Don John Manuel, by Sachetti, who lived about a century after both of them. It is in his Novella 114, (Milano, 1815, 18mo, Tom. II. p. 154,) where, after giving an account of an important affair, about which Dante was desired to solicit one of the city officers, the story goes on thus:—
“When Dante had dined, he left his house to go about that business, and, passing through the Porta San Piero, heard a blacksmith singing as he beat the iron on his anvil. What he sang was from Dante, and he did it as if it were a ballad, (un cantare,) jumbling the verses together, and mangling and altering them in a way that was a great offence to Dante. He said nothing, however, but went into the blacksmith’s shop, where there were many tools of his trade, and, seizing first the hammer, threw it into the street, then the pincers, then the scales, and many other things of the same sort, all which he threw into the street. The blacksmith turned round in a brutal manner, and cried out, ‘What the devil are you doing here? Are you mad?’ ‘Rather,’ said Dante, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘I,’ replied the blacksmith, ‘I am working at my trade; and you spoil my things by throwing them into the street.’ ‘But,’ said Dante, ‘if you do not want to have me spoil your things, don’t spoil mine.’ ‘What do I spoil of yours?’ said the blacksmith. ‘You sing,’ answered Dante, ‘out of my book, but not as I wrote it; I have no other trade, and you spoil it.’ The blacksmith, in his pride and vexation, did not know what to answer; so he gathered up his tools and went back to his work, and when he afterward wanted to sing, he sang about Tristan and Launcelot, and let Dante alone.”
One of the stories is probably taken from the other: but that of Don John is older, both in the date of its event and in the time when it was recorded.
[105] Of this manuscript of Don John in the Library at Madrid, I have, through the kindness of Professor Gayangos, a copy, filling 199 closely written folio pages.
[106] It seems not unlikely that Don John Manuel intended originally to stop at the end of the twelfth tale; at least, he there intimates such a purpose.
[107] That the general form of the Conde Lucanor is Oriental may be seen by looking into the fables of Bidpai, or almost any other collection of Eastern stories; the form, I mean, of separate tales, united by some fiction common to them all, like that of relating them all to amuse or instruct some third person. The first appearance in Europe of such a series of tales grouped together was in the Disciplina Clericalis; a remarkable work, composed by Petrus Alphonsus, originally a Jew, by the name of Moses Sephardi, born at Huesca in Aragon in 1062, and baptized as a Christian in 1106, taking as one of his names that of Alfonso VI. of Castile, who was his godfather. The Disciplina Clericalis, or Teaching for Clerks or Clergymen, is a collection of thirty-seven stories, and many apophthegms, supposed to have been given by an Arab on his death-bed as instructions to his son. It is written in such Latin as belonged to its age. Much of the book is plainly of Eastern origin, and some of it is extremely coarse. It was, however, greatly admired for a long time, and was more than once turned into French verse, as may be seen in Barbazan (Fabliaux, ed. Méon, Paris, 1808, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 39-183). That the Disciplina Clericalis was the prototype of the Conde Lucanor is probable, because it was popular when the Conde Lucanor was written; because the framework of both is similar, the stories of both being given as counsels; because a good many of the proverbs are the same in both; and because some of the stories in both resemble one another, as the thirty-seventh of the Conde Lucanor, which is the same with the first of the Disciplina. But in the tone of their manners and civilization, there is a difference quite equal to the two centuries that separate the two works. Through the French version, the Disciplina Clericalis soon became known in other countries, so that we find traces of its fictions in the “Gesta Romanorum,” the “Decameron,” the “Canterbury Tales,” and elsewhere. But it long remained, in other respects, a sealed book, known only to antiquaries, and was first printed in the original Latin, from seven manuscripts in the King’s Library, Paris, by the Société des Bibliophiles (Paris, 1824, 2 tom. 12mo). Fr. W. V. Schmidt—to whom those interested in the early history of romantic fiction are much indebted for the various contributions he has brought to it—published the Disciplina anew in Berlin, 1827, 4to, from a Breslau manuscript; and, what is singular for one of his peculiar learning in this department, he supposed his own edition to be the first. It is, on account of its curious notes, the best; but the text of the Paris edition is to be preferred, and a very old French prose version that accompanies it makes it as a book still more valuable.
[108] They are all called Enxiemplos; a word which then meant story or apologue, as it does in the Archpriest of Hita, st. 301, and in the “Crónica General.” Old Lord Berners, in his delightful translation of Froissart, in the same way, calls the fable of the Bird in Borrowed Plumes “an Ensample.”
[109] Cap. 2.
[110] Cap. 3.
[111] Cap. 4.