her good counsel. In accordance with this, she sends word to Hogier (for this was the host's name) that she is ready to do his will; that he must send the money, and come to her secretly in the night; but she changes clothes with her maid Amelin, whom she puts off in her stead upon Hogier. When the night is past, and Hogier wishes to depart, he asks for a token; but this being refused, he cuts off a finger of Amelin, whom he takes for Irmengart, and takes it with him. Bertram, however, will not be convinced of his wife's dishonesty, and both travel back to Verdun, where Hogier promises to show the proof that he has won his wager. When they arrive there, Bertram prepares a great feast, and invites all his relatives to it. Irmengart remarks his grief, and asks the cause he confides to her the story of the wager, when she comforts him, and says-" His arts shall avail him nothing; all he has is ours." When the feast is over, Hogier relates the story to the assembled guests, and maintains that he has won the wager, showing as proof the cut finger. Irmengart now confesses her fault, but excuses herself by saying that all her relatives had counselled her to earn the money. When she has shamed them by this, she shows both hands, on which there is no finger wanting, and at the same time comes Amelin, and complains of her misfortune. Hogier now confesses that he has lost both the wager and his fortune; but Amelin is given him to wife, with a dowry of a hundred marks. At the conclusion of the piece, the author gives his name, Ruprecht von Würzburg. A modern Greek ballad in Bartholdy's "Fragments for the Knowledge of Greece,” (Berlin, 1805, 430-440, reprinted in the "Old German Forests," ii., 181) tells the same story; but here the brother lays a wager with the King on the chastity of his sister; and the King, in conclusion, is claimed by the sister as her servant : "So open now your eyes and see, both lords and lowly born, My fingers are in number full, my head is all unshorn : As with my servant he hath lain, therefore is he my knave; And on thine ass from yonder wood fetch fuel for our fire." Finally, the often-mentioned old Welsh story of Taliesin ("Old German Forests," i., 70) contains the same fundamental features. It will readily be remarked, that in the old German poem, the wager brings no shame to the bridegroom; for he does not wholly deny his confidence in the chastity of his wife; instead of this, the parents and relatives are put to shame, who have counselled Irmengart to earn the gold; so that here also the story sets the main idea in the clearest light, by the contrast between the greedy relatives and the high feeling of the woman. This, however, does not happen immediately through the bet, which, therefore, is not so intimately connected with the story as in Boccaccio's relation. For this reason, we prefer the latter. The connexion, moreover, with Giletta di Narbonne is shown even in the names. The father of Irmengart is called Gilot, her father-in-law Gillam; neither of them differing much from Giletta. Her husband is called Bertram; the husband of Giletta is Beltram, which is the same name. On the other side, Bernabo, Ginevra's husband, as Grimm has already remarked, reminds us also of Bertram; and Ambrogivolo of the Ambrosius of the German popular tale. This interchange can only be explained by the relationship of the two stories. The former story does not confine itself closely to the common idea; but this idea develops itself in both cases in the same manner; the deceit by the substitution of a false bride is common to the two stories. In Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," the substitution of Mariana for Isabella, if we look at the relation of the latter to Angelo, is like that of Amelin for Irmengart, in the old German poem; but if we look at the relation of Angelo to Mariana, to whom he has promised marriage, it is the change of Giletta di Narbonne against the gentlewoman's daughter. In conclusion, we should mention the novella of Bandello, i., 21, which commences also with the same wager, but afterwards takes quite another turn. The lady entices both the false lovers who have wagered with her husband into a tower, and obliges one to spin and the other to wind thread, if they do not wish to perish. The husband has a magic glass, which informs him from a distance of his wife's behaviour. Connected with this is a story in the German Gesta Romanorum, where the husband's shirt remains white so long as his wife keeps her faith to him. The rest of the story is very similar to Bandello. This latter has also furnished Massinger with material for his drama, "The Picture." Compare Valentine Schmidt's contributions to the History of Romantic Poetry, 14, where also are given the later modifications of Boccaccio's story.1 1 Daubing with honey, and exposing to the wasps and flies in a burning sun, is an old punishment. Compare Grimm's German Legal Antiquities. The passage there quoted should also be mentioned (Apuleius, Asinus Aureus, lib. viii., p. 180, ed. Bipont). The incident here referred to concludes the tale in the Decameron. VII. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. The first sketch of this play appeared in 1602,1 soon after the poet remodelled it into the form in which we now possess it. If Malone's conjecture be correct, that this had been done in 1603, though it was not printed in the new form till 1623, then Shakespeare cannot have made use of the first story in "Westward for Smelts," which did not appear till 1603. We are sorry that we have been unable to procure this book. It might have given us information on the witch of Brentford, of which, it is said, the first story treats. The English illustrators of Shakespeare assume that he obtained his materials from the following pieces: 1. The Two Lovers of Pisa, in "Tarleton's News out of Purgatory," 1590. This has been reprinted in the edition of Johnson and Steevens, and is evidently taken from the story of The Ring, in Straparola. 2. The first story in "The Fortunate, the Deceived, and the Unfortunate Lovers." Steevens, it is true, had seen no earlier edition of this work than that of 1632, in 4to; but Malone asserts that the stories which it contains had already This story is, as the been published in Shakespeare's time. extract in Malone shows, only an imitation of the story of Giovanni. 1 Reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, 1842. At the end of that reprint, I have given a collection of the tales on which this play has been supposed to be founded, including the story from "Westward for Smelts," which gives no information of the kind supposed by M. Simrock.-ED. Steevens has already remarked, that stories i., 2, of Giovanni, and iv., 4, in the Notti Piacevoli of Straparola, bear a great resemblance to Shakespeare's comedy. Both, without doubt, treat of the same incident; and, indeed, it seems clear that Straparola, whose novellino appeared for the first time at Venice in 1550, must have borrowed from the Pecorone, which is a much older work. Our second story' then shows the passage between Shakespeare's representation and that of the other novels; for in this the three women play only one trick with the student, as Shakespeare's merry wives do with Falstaff; whilst in the other stories, and in the English tales derived from them, it is rather the husbands who are bandied about. Filenio also makes propositions of love to all the three ladies, which they confide one to another, and resolve to avenge themselves upon him, just as Falstaff sends the same love-letter to Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, for which they conspire against him. It would not have been sufficient, however, to give this second story only, inasmuch as Shakespeare borrowed from the two others the relation of Falstaff to Ford, who, in his disguise as Brooke, learns from Falstaff all that has happened to the latter with his wife-a feature of the story which evidently has its origin in the first and third of our stories.2 The history of the minstrel and the dealer in herbs, in the story translated by Dr. Maximilian Habicht, from an oriental MS., (Arabian Nights, Breslau, 1827, xiv., 18) is either the source of Giovanni and Straparola, or the Arabic tale has 1 The author here alludes to the tale of Straparola. The points of resemblance with Shakespeare's plot are neither numerous nor striking, chiefly consisting in the plurality of lovers, and the ladies communicating to each other the addresses of the same gallant.-ED. 2 Referring here to the tale of Giovanni Fiorentino, and the second story from Straparola.-ED. |