Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:40:23.594Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Cléomadès and Related Folk–Tales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

H. S. V. Jones
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Among the many baffling problems of Chaucerian scholarship are those connected with the Squire's Tale. To undertake a satisfactory solution of these is to court disaster. The attempt confounds us. One may, however, with all modesty endeavor to fix one's bearings in the area of story-land to which this poem belongs. To know where we are is almost as gratifying as to discover a source, and it is sometimes more instructive. If, then, I can do anything to further a survey of the narrative neighborhood of the Squire's Tale and its nearest analogue, the Cléomadès, my work may be serviceable. Perhaps, too, this paper may put in a clearer light the probabilities in regard to Chaucer's method and inspiration while at work upon one of his best known Tales of Canterbury.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , 1908 , pp. 557 - 598
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1908

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 557 note 1 It will be noticed throughout that I have found Mr. Clouston's Magic Elements in the Squire's Tale very serviceable. Professor Kittredge, too, has given me very great aid and comfort in the course of this investigation.

page 558 note 1 Cléomadès, ed. van Hasselt, 1843 ff.

page 566 note 1 Johann G. von Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, Leipzig, 1864, No. 68. On p. 286 Hahn quotes an interesting variant from Epirus, which has much in common with the Bluebeard type. The motive of the pursuit and wonderful objects obstructing the pursuer is wide-spread. See Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der Türkischen Stämme Süd-Sibiriens, iii, 383; Frere, Old Deccan Days, pp. 62 and 63; Captain T. H. Lewin, Progressive Colloquial Exercises in the Lushai Dialect of the Dzo or Kuki Language, with vocabularies and popular tales, Calcutta, 1874, p. 85; G. McCall Theal, Kaffir Folklore, 1882, p. 82; Folk-Lore Journal, 1883, i, 234; Jones and Kropf, Folk-Tales of the Magyars, p. 157; Folk-Lore Journal, 1883, p. 286. For other parallels see the voluminous note in Jones-Kropf, The Folk-Tales of the Magyars, London, 1889, 393 ff.—A story very similar to the one summarized from Hahn appears in Guillaume Spitta-Bey, Contes Arabes Modernes, Paris, 1883, 1 ff. The story of Hasan of Bassorah in the Thousand and One Nights is very similar to the Slavic tale but it lacks the magic horse.

page 567 note 1 Cosquin, Contes Populaires de Lorraine, i, 139 ff.

page 567 note 2 See Panzer, Hilde-Gudrun, 259 ff. Cosquin, Contes, i, 44 ff.; ii, 294 ff. The story of Ferdinand has been hospitable to magic articles of all kinds. See Cosquin, i, 32 ff.

page 567 note 3 A convenient summary is in Ashton, Romances of Chivalry, 305 ff. See Histoire littéraire de la France, xxii, 879. Cf. Emil Benzé, Orendel, Wilhelm von Orenze und Robert der Teufel, eine Studie zur Dcutschen und Französischen Sagengeschichte, Halle, 1897. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 107.

page 568 note 1 For further information upon the Goldenermärchen cycle, see Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, iii, 218 ff.; Köhler, Jahrbuch f. rom. u. engl. Lit., viii, 256 ff. (Kleinere Schriften, i, 330 ff.); Leskien und Brugmann, Litauische Volkslieder und Märchen, 537 ff.—A note of Grimm's about the service of the hero and his golden hair is interesting: “ Das märchen mag eine alte Grundlage haben und von einem höheren halbgöttlichen Wesen erzählen, das in die Gewalt eines Unterirdischen gerieth und niedrige Arbeiten verrichten musste bis es wieder zu seiner höheren Stellung gelangte; die goldenen leuchtenden Haare weisen darauf hin.” KHM., in, p. 219. Compare with the tales summarized in the text:—Müllenhoff, Sagen, Märchen, u. s. w., No. 12; Wolf, Hausmärchen, p. 269; Sommer, Sagen, Märchen, und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen, pp. 86, 133, 135; Zingerle, Tiroler Kinder- und Hausmärchen, No. 28; Vernaleken, Österreichische Kinder- und Hausmärchen, No. 8. The references might easily be multiplied. Liebrecht has shown that the type is widespread:—Volkskunde, pp. 106 and 107; Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1868, p. 1656, and 1870, p. 1417; Heidelb. Jahrb., 1869, p. 115.

page 570 note 1 For stories of this kind see, further, Cosquin, Contes populaires de Lorraine, ii, 89 ff.; Köhler, Kl. Schr., i, 432 ff.; Wollner, in Leskien-Brugmann, 524 ff.; Panzer, Hilde-Gudrun, 254-5 (Panzer furnishes a valuable list of tales); Garrett, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology, v, 162, No. 3.

page 571 note 1 Wenzig, Westslavische Märchen, p. 69. For some interesting observations upon this tale, see L. Sidney Hartland, The FolkLore Journal, iii, 193 ff.

page 572 note 1 Compare “ The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens,” Mijatovichs-Denton, Serbian Folk-Lore, 43 ff. See, too, “ Marya Morevna,” Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales, 85 ff.; Hartland, Folk-Lore Journal, iii, 200, cites a story from Árnason's Icelandic Legends, in which the heroine escapes from her giant-captor “ disguised with soot and ashes and riding on a joker witch-fashion.”

page 573 note 1 Tawney, Katha-sarit-sagara, i, 173.

page 574 note 1 For a careful investigation of this aspect of our subject, see Cosquin, Contes popul. de Lorraine, i, 123 ff., and especially, Chauvin, Bibliographie des Ouvrages Arabes ou relatifs aux Arabes publiées dans l'Europe Chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, Liège and Leipzig, v, 229-230.

page 575 note 1 See the important article on “ Seven-League Boots ” by Paul Sartori, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, iv, 284 ff.

page 575 note 2 Dunlop-Liebrecht, 491; Jahrbuch für rom. u. engl. Lit., iii, 147-148.

page 575 note 3 For other examples of the flying chariot see K. S. S., i, pp. 276, 278, 386, 396, 401, 440, 476, 494; ii, pp. 82, 146; Oesterley, Baital Pachisi, 69; Rev. d. Trad. pop., iv, 438; Chauvin, Bibliographie, v, 229. Macculloch thinks that “ the general belief in swift, bodily passage through the air was strengthened by the alleged phenomena of levitation, of which the Acta Sanctorum are so full.” “ Buddhist saints and neo-Platonist ecstatics, savage medicine-men and European witches, join hand in hand with mediaeval saints, Covenanters, and Irvingites, in this business of levitation.” The Childhood of Fiction, 222 ff.

page 576 note 1 G. A. Grierson, Indian Antiquary, 1885, p. 256; Clouston, Magic Elements in the Squire's Tale, p. 452.

page 577 note 1 Benfey, Pantschatantra, i, No. 5. See Benfey's important discussion of the story in his Introduction, § 56. For the hero's disguise, see Chauvin, Bibliographie, v, 233. Among the titles there given may be particularly mentioned Dunlop-Liebrecht, 231-232, 489, 497.

page 578 note 1 I follow Mr. Clouston's summary: Magic Elements, 426 ff. Clouston says, “ The story occurs in a collection of an author of whom nothing seems to be known, except that he was 70 years of age when he made it, and that his name was Muhammed Kazim bin Mirak Husain Muzaffari Sajavandi, poetically surnamed Hubbi. This collection which is described in Dr. Rien's Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. ii, pp. 759-760, 237, has no specific title, but is merely called Hikayat-i-Ajib u Gharib, Wonderful and Strange Tales, and it may have served as a model of the Turkish story-book, Al-Faraj ba'd al-Shiddab, Joy after Distress, many of the tales in both being identical, and the story in question being No. 13 of the Turkish ms. 375, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.” Magic Elements, p. 426.—It is hardly necessary to call attention to the striking similarity between the first part of this story and the earlier portions of the Cléomadès.

page 579 note 1 Keller, Li Roumans des Sept Sages, ccxx ff.

page 579 note 2 Benfey, Pantschatantra, i, 163.

page 579 note 3 For further illustrations of this very well-known group see, Katha-Sarit-Sagara, ii, 117 ff.; Histoire de Malik et de la Princesse Schirine, Les Mille et un Jours: Contes Persans, translated by Petis de la Croix, Paris, 1710-12; Clouston, Magic Elements, p. 421; Jonathan Scott, Tales, Anecdotes, etc., 1 ff.; Morlini, 69; Decamerone, iv, 2. For similar cases of disguise see Chauvin, Bibliographie, v, 232-233. Sometimes, as is well known, the lover gains access to his mistress disguised as a woman; see, Oertel, “Contributions from the Jaiminiya Brahmana to the history of the Brahmana literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, xxvi, First Half, 176 ff.—The lover disguised as a god appears in the story of Alexander's parents. See E. Talbot, Légende d'Alexandre le Grand, Paris, 1850, pp. 73-74; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, London, 1896, 10 ff. Compare Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Eistoriale, iv. Stories similar to this tale of Alexander are cited by Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae, ii, Q. xxvii, Sec. 1, p. 249 ff. Wright, No. 80, of “A Selection of Latin Stories,” vol. viii of the Percy Society Publications, tells of a lover who announces that the Messiah will be born of the young Jewess with whom he has been passing his nights. The child is, however, a daughter. The story comes from Caesarius of Heisterbach and Wright cites the following parallels:—Masuccio, Novellino, i, 2; Malespini, Ducento Novelle, nov. 80; Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, nouv. xiv; Facetiae Bebelianae, ii; Lafontaine, ii, No. 15.

page 580 note 1 Lane, i, 160 ff. Compare, K. S. S., i, 194 ff.; Scott, Tales, p. 117; Bytal Pachisi, p. 76; von Hammer, Geschichte der Schönen Redekünste Persiens, p. 115; Wilkins, Sitopadesa, p. 129 (Clouston, Book of Sindibad, p. 309); Benfey, Pantschatantra, i, § 52.

page 582 note 1 The Bibliography of Folk-Lore, Capt. R. C. Temple, Folk-Lore Journal, 1886, iv, p. 301; see, too, p. 306. Compare Clouston, Magic Elements, p. 282.

page 583 note 1 A. C. L. Brown, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology, viii 96 ff.

page 585 note 1 Cléomadès, 2821 ff.

page 585 note 2 For Benfey's celebrated article, see Kleinere Schriften, 94 ff. Convenient records of the following versions will be found there.

page 587 note 1 The Mongolian variant is as follows:—Once upon a time there were in a great kingdom a rich young man, an arithmetician, a carpenter, a painter, a physician, and a smith, who all left their parents and went into foreign lands. When they reached the mouth of a certain river, each of the companions planted a life-tree, and then went up one of the tributaries of the river to seek his fortune. Before parting, they agreed to meet each other again on the same spot. If the life-tree of any one of them had withered, then the others were to seek him in that country to which he had gone. With this agreement they separated. The rich young man, having reached the source of his river, found there a house at the door of which sat an old man and an old woman. When they asked whence he had come and whither he was going, he said that he came from a far land to seek his fortune. Then the aged couple gave him their daughter in marriage.

In this land there ruled a great khan. Having heard of the young man's beautiful wife, he commanded that she should be brought before him. When he saw her he exclaimed: “This is a Tangari maiden; compared with her my wives are as bitches and sows.” Later the khan had the young husband slain and buried by the river, and a stone placed upon his body. When the rich man's brothers return to the appointed place, they find his tree withered. Promptly the mathematician calculates where the body is; the smith breaks the stone and takes it out; the physician restores the dead man to life. The resurrected youth then tells what had happened to him. At this the carpenter makes a wooden Garuda, operated by pins; and the painter adorns it with mock plumage. The rich man then flies through the air until he comes to the khan's palace. There he alights on the roof. Naturally the khan's court is greatly astonished. The khan bids his wife go feed the bird. She goes and is carried away, overjoyed at her escape, by the rich man. But no sooner has the rich man returned to his brothers than they all lay claim to his wife, on account of the service they have rendered in restoring her. The conclusion of the whole matter is that they draw their knives and kill one another. Sagas from the Far East, 105 ff.; Kletke, Märchensaal, iii, 4 ff.

page 590 note 1 Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, 283 ff.

page 590 note 2 For further information upon the Skilful Companion cycle see, Köhler-Bolte, Ztschr. des Ver. f. Volkskunde, vi, 77, and Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, i, 192 ff., 298 ff., 389-90, 431, 544.

page 591 note 1 Swan, Gesta Romanorum, ii, 441-443. See further, Spitta-Bey, Contes Arabes Modernes, No. 9; Cosquin, Contes, i, 123-124; Busk, p. 129; Zingerle, ii, p. 142.

page 593 note 1 K. S. S., i, 13 ff.

page 595 note 1 Tawney, i, 498 ff.

page 595 note 2 Cléomadès, 1499 ff.

page 596 note 1 Grimm, K. und H., No. 129.

page 596 note 2 Cléomadès, 1843 ff.

page 598 note 1 In considering the question of special folk-lore influence upon the Squire's Tale, one should note carefully the nature of Chaucer's wonderful horse. It differs from Crompart's. For instance:—

“Or if yow liste bidde him thennes gon,
Trille this pin, and he wol vanishe anon
Out of the syghte of every maner wyght,
And come agayn, be it by day or nyght,
When that yow list to clepen him ageyn
In swich a gyse as I shal to yow seyn
Bitwixe yow and me, and that ful sone.
Ryde when yow list, ther is namore to done.“

And again:

“The brydel is unto the tour yborn,
And kept among his Jewels leve and dere
The hors vanisshed, I noot in what manere,
Out of her syghte; ye gete namore of me.“

If we put the two passages together, it becomes reasonably clear that the bridle may be used in summoning the horse. This detail, not found in the Cléomadès, suggests the wonderful horse of flesh and blood rather than the cheval de fust. May not the confusion mean that Chaucer was following no one source but working freely, with a knowledge of the Cléomadès and related folk-tales? If this be true, one may venture the guess that Chaucer's birds, like those in certain variants of the Skilful Companion cycle, are helpful animals, whether or no metamorphosized human beings. And just here would be the connection between the main plot and the sub-plot of the Squire's Tale.