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PR 1119
.A 2
no. 84 English Text Society.
Copy 2
SUPPLEMENT
TO
The Telright's Chaste life.
ORIGINAL SERIES, No. 12; 1865.
ADDITIONAL ANALOGS.
TO
The Wright's Chaste life
BY
W. A. CLOUSTON.
Publications : Original Series
30.84
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY
BY N. TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL.
-
MDCCCLXXXVI.
Price One Shilling.
GEN
1
Early huglien Text Society,
Publications:
Sexies
Original
PRI119
Aa
-0.0134
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
25
5
6
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2
1 ADDITIONAL ANALOGUES
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7 OF
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"THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE."
BY W. A. CLOUSTON.
THE numerous versions of this old and wide-spread story should
be divided into two groups: I. Those in which there is a test of
chastity, and the lovers are entrapped; II. Those in which there
is no such test, but the suitors are(a) entrapped, or (b) engaged to
perform unpleasant ordangerous tasks.
I. It is probable that some oral version of The Wright's Chaste
Wife suggested to Massingerthe plot of his comedy ofThePicture
(printed in 1630): Mathias, a Bohemian knight, about togotothe
wars, expresses to his confidant Baptista, a great scholar, his fears
lest his wife Sophia, on whom he doated fondly, should prove
unfaithful during his absence. Baptista gives him apicture of his
wife, saying:
66
Carryitstillaboutyou, andasoft
Asyoudesiretoknowhowshe'saffected,
Withcuriouseyesperuseit. Whileitkeeps
Thefigureithasnowentireandperfect
Sheisnotonlyinnocentinfact
Butunattempted; butifonceitvary
Fromthetrueform, andwhat'snowwhiteandred
Inclinetoyellow, restmostconfident
She'swithallviolencecourted, butunconquered;
Butifitturnallblack,'tisanassurance
Thefortbycompositionorsurprise
Isforced, orwithherfreeconsentsurrendered."
Onthereturn of Mathiasfromthewars, he is loaded with rich gifts
byHonoria,thewife ofhismasterFerdinand,king of Hungary; and
whenheexpresses hisdesire to return to his fair and virtuous wife,
Honoriaasks himifhis wifeis as fair as she, upon whichhe shows
her the picture. The queen resolves to win his love-merely to
gratifyher own vanity-and persuades him to remain a month at
court. She thendespatches two libertine courtiers to attempt the
virtue of Mathias' wife. They tell her Mathias is given to the
26 66THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE99:
society of strumpets-moreover, not young, but old and ugly ones;
so poor Sophia begins to waver. Meanwhile the queen makes
advances to Mathias,which atfirst he rejects; butafterwards, seeing
a change in his wife's picture, he consents, when the queen says she
will think over it and let him knowherdecision. Sophia, at first
disposedto entertain her suitors' proposals, on reflection determines
to punish theirwickedness; and, pretending to listenfavourablyto
one ofthem, she causes himto be stripped to his shirtand locked in
aroom, where heis compelled to spin flax (like the suitors in our
story), or go without food. The otherfares no better, and the play
concludes with the exposure of the libertines to the king and queen,
their attendants, and the lady's husband.
The69thchapter ofthe continentalGesta Romanorum (translated
bySwan) istothe following effect: Acarpenter receives from his
mother-in-law a shirt, having the wonderful quality of remaining
unsoiled so longas he and his wifewere faithful to each other. The
emperor, who had employed him in the erection of a palace, is
astonished to observe his shirt always spotless, and asks him the
cause of it; to which he replies, that it is a proof of his wife's
unsulliedvirtue. Asoldier,havingoverheard this,sets offto attempt
the wife's chastity, but she contrives to lock him in a room, where
shekeeps him onbread and water. Two other soldiers successively
visitheronthe same errand, and sharetheir comrade's fate. When
the carpenter has finished his job, he returns home and showsthe
unsullied shirt to his wife, who in herturn exhibitsto himthethree
soldiers, whomhe sets free ontheirpromisingto reform theirways.
The general resemblance of our story to this Gesta versiondoes
not, I think, render it therefore certain, or even probable, that the
latter is the source whence it was derived; since a test similar to
that of the Garland (for which a shirt is substituted in the Gesta)
occurs both in the Indian original and in an intermediate Persian
form, which is ofIndian extraction.
In the celebrated Persian story-book, Nakhshabí's Tútí Náma
(Tales ofa Parrot), written aboutA.D. 1306, thewife ofasoldier, on
his leaving home to enter the service of a nobleman, gives him a
nosegaywhich, she tells him, would remain in full bloom while she
wasfaithful to him. After some time, the nobleman inquired ofthe
soldierhowhemanaged to procure afresh nosegay every day inmid-
winter, and was informed that its perennial bloom betokened his
Here givensomewhatmorefullythaninthe additional postscript to the
PrefacetothesecondeditionofTheWright'sChasteWife,1869.
ADDITIONAL ANALOGUES. 27
wife's chastity. The noblemansends one ofhis cooksto try toform
anintimacy with the soldier's wife, but she craftily entraps him. A
second cookis despatched to learn the fate of the first, and meets
with a similar reception. At last the nobleman himself sets off
with his attendants-among whom was the soldier to visit the
chastewife. He isreceived by herwith great courtesy, and his two
cooks, dressed as female slaves, are made bythe wife to wait upon
him at supper. Thehappysoldierthen returns hiswifethe nosegay,
fresh and blooming as ever.
The oldest form of the storyyet known is found in the great
Sanskrit collection entitled Katha Sarit Ságara¹ (Book II., ch. 13) :
Amerchant named Guhasena is compelled to leave his wife, Deva-
smitá, for a season, on important business matters. The separation
isverypainful to both, and the pain is aggravated byfears onthe
wife's part ofherhusband's inconstancy. Tomakeassurancedoubly
sure,Sivawas pleased to appear totheminadream,andgiving them
two red lotuses, the god said to them: "Take each of you one of
these lotuses in yourhand; and if either of you shall be unfaithful
duringyourseparation, the lotus inthehand ofthe othershallfade,
but not otherwise." The husband set out on his journey, and
arriving in the country of Katáha he began to buy and sell jewels
there. Fouryoungmerchants, learningthe purport of his lotus and
thevirtueofhiswife,set offto put it to the proof. On reachingthe
city where the chaste Devasmitá resided, they bribe a female ascetic
to corruptthe lady,so shegoesto herhouse,and adopting the device.
ofthelittle she-dog-see ch. xxviii. of Swan'sGestaRomanorum,²-
which shepretends is herown co-wife in a former birth, re-born in
that degraded form, because she had been over-chaste, and warns
Devasmitá that such should also be herfate if shedid not "enjoy
herself"during her husband's absence. The wise Devasmitá said to
herself: "This isanovel conception ofduty; no doubt this woman
has laida treacherous snare forme," and so she said to the ascetic:
"Reverend lady,forthis long timeIhave been ignorantofthis duty,
so procure me an interviewwith some agreeable man." Then the
1 'Oceanofthe Streams ofStory,'writteninSanskritverse, bySomadeva,
towardsthe end ofthe 11th century, after a similarwork, the VrihatKahá,
Great Story,'byGunadhya, 6thcentury, ofwhichno copy has hithertobeen
discovered. Acomplete translation of Somadeva's work, by Professor C. H.
Tawney, withuseful notes ofvariants and derivatives of the tales, has lately
beenpublished, intwovols.,large8vo, atCalcutta.
2 TakenintotheGesta,probablyfromtheDisciplinaClericalisofP.Alfonsus.
The incident is also the subject of afabliau, and occurs in all the Eastern
versionsoftheBookofSindibád.
