Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/269

 9 s. xii. OCT. 3, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

261

LONDON, SATUEDAY, OC2OBEE 3, 1903.

CONTENTS. -No. 301.

NOTES : Analogues of a Syriac Apocrypb, 261 Jonson and Harvey, 26317, Dean's Yard, 265 Iron-making in America Dr. Halley, 268.

QUERIES : "Pantagruelism" History of Bookselling ' Baby- Land ' " Nothing" Monarchs Travelling In- cognito, 267 " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife " Golden Rule Anglo-Saxon Names and Titles Bastable Gage Spurious Antiquities Hawthorn Hamburg Brasenose Ale Verses 'The Spirit of the Woods.' 268 Latin Quotation " Mala stamina vitte " Churchwardens' Accounts Engraving of Cleopatra Pamela, Marchioness of Sligo Bishop in Chess Bull Plain Coon Song Gallini Cellini's Hammer, 269.

REPLIES : " Travailler pour le Roi de Prusse" Dun- calfe, 270" Wenthlok "Authors of Quotations Stafford De Bathe Doctor's Recommendation, 271 Bible "Clameur de haro" "Betwixt the devil and the deep sea" Coffee made of Malt Whitebait Dinner Richard Nash, 272 Authors of Books Aitken Shakespeare's Sonnets, 273 Translation " Zauber-Kessel " in Essex- Count de Bruhl Bacon on Hercules, 275 'Reskimer' Early References to 'N. & Q.' " Cavatina." 276-Bland, Edinburgh Actor Sworn Clerks in Chancery Mannings and Tawell ' ' Alias "Jonson and Tennyson, 277 " Dive " "Nitchies" Mineralogist to George III. Cardinals- English Grave at Ostend Remington Church Marco Polo's Portrait, 278.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Long's 'Discourses of Epictetus' 'The Chatelaine of Vergi' 'The Descent of the Sun' 'A Digit of the Moon' 'Sir David Wilkie' Biblia Cabalistica' 'The Silent Trade' The Countess of Winchilsea's Poems.

Notices to Correspondents.

ANALOGUES OF THE SYRIAC APOCRYPH OF APHIK1A, THE WIFE OF JESUS BEN SIRACH.

(See ante, p. 222.)

THERE is another version in the 'Arabian Nights.' This is the story of the king and his chamberlain's wife, which forms an epi- sode in the narrative of King Shah Bekht and his vizier, Er Rahwan. In this version there is no mention of the banquet of same- ness. The king desires the love of the lady, and, being refused, goes away full of wrath, leaving behind him his girdle, which the husband finds. Then follows the apologue of the * Lion's Track.'*

There is another version, in which the pro- cess of change is visible. A king in disguise stops at the door of a house to ask for a drink of water. The woman gives him a drink, and "when he looked at her he was ravished with her and required her of love." She brought him into the house and gave him a book in which to read until she should return to him. It was full of exhortations against adultery. Hereupon the king de-

cutta Edition of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,' by John Payne, vol. ii. p. 60.
 * ' Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Cal-

parted. The woman told her husband, but he became estranged. She complained to her kinsfolk, who then told the king a parable, not of a garden, but of a piece of land for tillage. The husband replied by the parable of the lion. Then the king said, " O fellow, the lion trampled not thy land, and it is good for tillage ; so do thou till it, and God prosper thee in it, for the lion hath done it no hurt."*

Yet another Arabic version is the story of Firouz and his wife. The king sees the lady by accident, and sends Firouz to a distant city. He then endeavours to seduce the lady from her allegiance, but she refuses his suit And whenas the dogs at a fountain have lapped, The lions to drink of the water forbear.

The king goes away abashed, and leaves his sandal in the house. Then follow the plead- ing before the king and the apologue of the 'Lion's Track.' Here also the banquet of sameness is omitted. t

The ' Libro de los Engannos de las Mugeros ' offers a definite date at which one version of the Aphikia story passed from Oriental to Occidental literature. The book was trans- lated from Arabic into Spanish, by the order of the Infante Don Fadrique, in the year 1291 of the Spanish era, or 1253 of the common era. Two years earlier his brother, King Alfonso, had caused a similar translation of the ' Calila and Dimna ' to be made. One of the stories in the ' Libro de los Engannos ' is a variant of the Aphikia story, and closely resembles the one translated by Payne, except that, instead of a signet ring, the monarch leaves his sandals behind him. Dr. Domenico Comparetti has shown that the ' Libro de los Engannos ' stands in close relationship to the ' Parables of Sandabar,' the * Seven Viziers,' and ' Syntipas,' in all of which the story of the ' Lion's Track ' is to be found 4 ' Syntipas ' was translated into Greek from Syriac at the end of the eleventh century.

Prof. Ryssel in the article already cited says that Mathieu de Vendome, who died in 1286, has a poem on the subject, ' Comedia Milonis,' in which the heroine is called Afra and the king is the sovereign of Constantino-

Ele. Mathieu is said to have taken this story rom ' Syntipas ' or some Oriental source.


 * Payne, vol. iv. pp. 259-60.

t Payne, vol. i. p. 210.

j See his 'Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad,' issued in English by the Folk - Lore Society in 1882. This contains as an appendix the Spanish text and an English translation of the 4 Libro de los Engannos.' The book is a remarkable contribution to the study of comparative literature. I have named only the part dealing with variants of the Aphikia story.