Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/385

Rh ventionem faciente cum mercatore. The version given in this Latin collection seems to have inspired an English drama of the pre-Shakespearian period. This drama is called, The Jew showne at the Bull, and is mentioned by Stephen Gosson in his School of Abuse. The old ballad of The Jew of Venice, by Gernutus (Percy, Reliques; Child, English and Scottish Ballads, vol. 8), is derived from the same source. The Cursor mundi, that comprehensive English poem of the early thirteenth century, contains a tale similar to that given in the Gesta Romanorum. In his biography of Sixtus the Fifth, translated into English in 1754 by Ellis Farneworth, Gregorio Leti relates an incident which, he affirms, actually took place in 1585 and which is identical with the story of Shylock. Dolopathos, the old French novel in verse, written about 1210, contains a passage which is like Shakespeare's plot. There also exists a French version and a Danish version of the legend. The oriental versions are more numerous. There is a Persian MS. mentioned by Malone, and a Persian tale given by Gladwin. Thomas Munro has likewise translated a similar tale from a Persian MS. The British Magazine of 1800 (p. 159), quotes an Oriental tale, and in his work, The Bond Story, Conway mentions yet another six versions.

Which of all these could have been the source that influenced the Serbian and Southern Slav tales? Certainly from this point of view preference must be given to three, to wit, the Pecorone, the Gesta Romanorum and the Dolopathos.