For the tricks of the two other ladies, and for many other equally diverting tales, I refer the reader to Mr. Arbuthnot’s pleasing and instructive little book, which is indeed an admirable epitome of the history and literature of Persia, and one which was greatly wanted in these days, when most men, “like the dogs in Egypt for fear of the crocodiles, must drink of the waters of information as they run, in dread of the old enemy Time.”
I have discussed the question of the genealogy of this tale elsewhere, but, after a somewhat more minute comparative analysis of the several versions, am disposed to modify the opinion which I then entertained. I think we must consider as the direct or indirect source of the versions and variants the “Miles Gloriosus” of Plautus, the plot of which, it is stated in the prologue to the second act, was taken from a Greek play. It is, however, not very clear whether Berni adapted his story from Plautus or the “Seven Wise Masters”; probably from the former, since in both the lady is represented, to the captain and the cuckold, as a twin sister, while in the S. W. M. the crafty knight pretends that she is his leman, come from Hungary with tidings that he may now with safety return home. On the other hand, in the S. W. M., as in Plautus, the lovers make their escape by sea, an incident which Berni has altered to a journey by land—no doubt, in order to introduce further adventures for the development of his main plot. But then we find a point of resemblance between Berni and the S. W. M., in the incident of the cuckold accompanying the lovers part of their way—in the latter to the sea-shore; while in Plautus the deceived captain remains at home to prosecute an amour and get a thrashing for his reward (in Plautus, instead of a wife, it is the captain’s slave-girl). It is curious that amidst all the masquerade of the Arabian story the cuckold’s wife also personates her supposititious twin-sister, as in Plautus and Berni. In Plautus the houses of the lover and the captain adjoin, as is also the case in the modern Italian and Sicilian versions; while in Berni, the S. W. M., the Arabian, and the Persian story cited in this note they are at some distance. With these resemblances and variations it is not easy to say which version was derived from another. Evidently the Arabian story has been deliberately modified by the compiler, and he has, I think, considerably improved upon the original: the ludicrous perplexity of the poor fuller when he awakes, to find himself apparently transformed into a Turkish trooper, recalls the nursery rhyme of the little woman “who went to market her eggs for to sell,” and falling asleep on the king’s highway, a pedlar cut off her petticoats up to the knees, and when she awoke and saw her condition she exclaimed, “Lawk-a-mercy me, this is none of I!” and so on. And not less diverting is the pelting the blockhead receives from his brother fullers—altogether, a capital story.
TALE OF THE SIMPLETON HUSBAND.—Vol. I. p. 239.
The “curious” reader will find European and Asiatic versions of this amusing story in “Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,” published for the Chaucer Society, pp. 177–188 and (in a paper contributed by me: “The Enchanted Tree”) p. 341–364.
TALE OF THE THREE MEN AND OUR LORD ISA. Vol. I. p. 250.
Under the title of “The Robbers and the Treasure-Trove” I have brought together many European and Asiatic versions of this wide-spread tale in “Chaucer Analogues,” pp. 415–436.
THE MELANCHOLIST AND THE SHARPER. Vol. I. p. 264.
A similar but much shorter story is found in Gladwin’s “Persian Moonshee,” and story-books in several of the Indian vernaculars which have been rendered into English:
A miser said to a friend, “I have now a thousand rupees, which I will bury out of the city, and I will not tell the secret to any one besides yourself.” They went out of the city together, and buried the money under a tree. Some days after the miser went alone to the tree and found no signs of his money. He said to himself, “Excepting that friend, no other has taken it away; but if I question him he will never confess.” He therefore went to his (the friend’s) house and said, “A great deal of money is come into my hands, which I want to put in the same place; if you will come to-morrow, we will go together.” The friend, by coveting this large sum, replaced the former money, and the miser next day went there alone and found it. He was delighted with his own contrivance, and never again placed any confidence in friends.