Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature

by Unknown

In “As You Like It,” act ii, scene 7, in the middle of Jaques’s first speech:

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe.

And then, from hour to hour, we ripe and rot.

And thereby hangs a tale.

And in the “Taming of the Shrew,” act iv, scene 1:

Grumio. First, know, my horse is tired; my master and mistress have fallen out.

Curtis. How?

Grumio. Out of their saddles into the dirt. And thereby hangs a tale.

DUO CHE INSIEME VANNO.—Dante.

In that collection of pleasant stories entitled “Count Lucanor,” whose composition enlivened the chivalric leisure of the Prince Don Juan Manuel, perhaps the pleasantest and certainly the quaintest, is that which tells how Don Alvar Fañez won his wife and how implicitly she obeyed him. The most noticeable feature in it, however, is the curious resemblance it bears to a scene in “The Taming of the Shrew,” as the reader will see from the following passages: