Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/114

lxxxviii CHAP. XLVIII.

"Selestinus reigned, a wise emperor, in Rome, and he had a fair daughter."

[It is needless to transcribe this tale (which is the origin of the bond story in Shakspeare's "Merchant of Venice,") because it is to be found prefixed to all the editions of the drama itself, from the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, an Italian Novelist, who wrote in 1378. It occurs also in an old English MS. preserved in the Harl. Collection, No. 7333, evidently translated from the Gesta Romanorum, [] which Mr. Douce has given in the 1st volume of his very entertaining "Illustrations of Shakspeare," p. 281. But as the Tale of the Three Caskets has not been made so public, I insert it in this place, although it forms the XCIX Chapter of the MS. Gesta. See also Note 16. Vol. 2.]

"Some time dwelt in Rome a mighty emperor, named Anselm, who had married the king's daughter of Jerusalem, a fair lady, and gracious in the sight of every man, but she was long time with the emperor ere she bare him any child; wherefore the nobles of the empire were very sorrowful, because