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to command his return. The mule having stopped in a river, and refusing to go on, Ruggieri said she was like the person who gave her. Ruggieri being in consequence brought back to the capital, and his words reported to the king, he is introduced into the presence of his majesty, and asked why he had compared him to the mule; "Because," replied Ruggieri, "the mule would not stop where it ought, but stood still when it should have gone on; in like manner you give where it is not suitable, and withhold where you ought to bestow." On hearing this, the king carries him into a hall, and shows him two shut coffers, one filled with earth, another containing the crown and sceptre, with a variety of precious stones. Alphonso desires him to take which he pleases; and Ruggieri having accidentally fixed on the one with earth, the king affirms that it is bad fortune that has all along prevented him from being a partaker of the royal benefits. Then having presented him with the valuable chest, he allows him to return to Italy.'

The whole motive of this story is so different from that related by Barlaam, that it is difficult to see how Warton could have supposed them to have had the same origin. The next form in which it appears is given in the Gesta Romanorum, and in this we have a much closer approximation to that which Shakespeare followed in The Merchant of Venice. We quote from the old English version edited by Sir F. Madden for the Roxburghe Club. Ancelmus, emperor of Rome, having been long childless, has at length a son born to him. His great enemy, the king of Naples, to terminate their strife, proposes a marriage between his daughter and the emperor's

son.

The emperor consents, and in due time the princess is sent on board ship to be conveyed to Rome. A storm arises, and all perish except the lady, and she is only saved for a time, for a huge whale swallows both the ship and her. By dint of lighting a fire and wounding the whale with a knife, she kills the monster, which drew to the land and died. The lady is rescued, and tells the story of her misfortunes and her destination to her deliverers, who convey her to

the emperor. To prove that she was worthy of his son, 'The Emperour late make iij. vesselles, and the first was of clene goolde, and fulle of precious stonys owtewarde, and withinne fulle of deede bonys; and it hade a superscripcione in theise wordis, Thei that chese me shulle fynde in me that thei seruyde. The secunde vesselle was alle of cleene siluer, and fulle of precious stonys; and outwarde it had this superscripsione, Thei that chesithe me, shulle fynde in me that nature and kynde desirithe. And the thirde vesselle was of leed, and with inne was fulle of precious stonys; and with oute was sette this scripture, Thei that chese me, shulle fynde [in] me that God hathe disposid' (p. 241). In the end of course the lady chooses the vessel of lead and all terminates happily. The coincidences between this story and the casket scenes in Shakespeare are so striking that it is impossible to resist the conclusion that this is the form which he followed, from whatever source he may have immediately derived it. In his note to the above-quoted passage Sir F. Madden observes, 'The collateral and similar tale, in which pasties or loaves are substituted for caskets, is found first in the Latin printed edd. of the Gesta, cap. 109, then in the chronicle of Lanercost, MS. Cott. Claud. D. vii. fol. 176 (compiled about the year 1346), in the Cento Novelle Ant. Nov. 65. ed. 1572, and in Gower Conf. Am. f. 96b.' The story of the pasties in Gower immediately follows the one of which we have previously given the substance. In the Chronicle of Lanercost the device is attributed to the emperor Frederic (A.D. 1215) who employed it for testing two blind beggars (Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. Stevenson, p. 21; Maitland Club).

The incident of the pound of flesh appears to have been even a greater favourite with the old story-tellers than that of the caskets. It has an Eastern air about it and is found in an Eastern dress. Malone gives a translation of it from 'a Persian manuscript in the possession of Ensign Thomas Munro, of the first battalion of Sepoys, now at Tanjore,' in which it is told of a Jew and a Mussulman of Hems in Syria. In that most amusing book, The Autobiography

of Lutfullah (chap. v. ed. Eastwick), an Egyptian version occurs, substantially the same as the preceding, and narrated with true oriental elaboration. The scene is laid at Cairo, and the judge is the famous Kází Ratalbúk, who flourished, says Lutfullah, ‘as civilization began to dawn, in the third century of our blessed Prophet, about the time of Edward II. the martyr king of England.' In Gladwin's Persian Moonshee, story 13, it is again told, but without the same dramatic interest as in the version of Lutfullah. A person laid a wager with another, that if he did not win, the other might cut off a seer of flesh from his body. Having lost the wager, the plaintiff wanted to cut off a seer of his flesh; but, he not consenting, they went together before the Cazy. The Cazy recommended to the plaintiff to forgive him; but he would not agree to it. The Cazy, being enraged at his refusal, said, "Cut it off; but if you shall exceed or fall short of the seer, in the smallest degree, I will inflict on you a punishment suitable to the offence." The plaintiff, seeing the impossibility of what was required of him, had no remedy, and therefore dropped the prosecution.' Whether the incident may not have travelled from England to India, and thence have been adopted by the Persian story-tellers, is at least open to question. In its western form it can be traced with greater certainty. It is found in the great storehouse for such tales, the Gesta Romanorum (p. 130, ed. Madden), where the incidents of the bond, the forfeiture, the pound of flesh, and the artifice by which the penalty is evaded are all related. A Latin version of the same story is given in Mr. Thomas Wright's Selection of Latin Stories, edited for the Percy Society (pp. 114-121). It is there called, ‘De milite conventionem faciente cum mercatore.' The English version is apparently first given by Mr. Douce in his Illustrations of Shakespeare, from MS. 7333 in the Harleian collection. But, although it presents so close a resemblance to the story of the bond as told by Shakespeare, it is clear that this version of the Gesta was not the source from which it came to him, directly or indirectly. In a collection of tales called

Il Pecorone, written by Ser Giovanni, a notary of Florence, about the year 1378, we find, as in the Gesta, all the circumstances connected with the bond and its forfeiture, with the addition of others which show that it must have been consulted by Shakespeare or the author of the older play. The story forms the first novel of the fourth day, and the scene is laid at Venice. The residence of the lady who plays an important part in the narrative is called Belmont; it is she and not the judge, as in the Gesta, who devises the plan for avoiding the forfeiture; and finally we have here and nowhere else the incident of the ring, of which Shakespeare so skilfully avails himself for sustaining the interest of the fifth act. In discussing the origin of the story of the bond, Dunlop remarks that it was transferred into many publications intermediate between the Pecorone and the Merchant of Venice, by which it may have been suggested to the English dramatist. There was, in the first place, an old English play on this subject, entitled the Jew. It was also related in the English Gesta Romanorum, and the ballad of Gernutus, or the Jew of Venice. The incidents, however, in Shakespeare bear a much closer resemblance to the tale of Ser Giovanni, than either to the ballad or to the Gesta Romanorum. In the ballad there is nothing said of the residence at Belmont, nor the incident of the ring, as it is a judge, and not the lady, who gives the decision. In the Gesta the lady is daughter of the emperor of Rome, and the pound of flesh is demanded from the borrower, without the introduction of a person bound for the principal debtor' (History of Fiction, ii. 375, ed. 2).

Shylock's speech in the court may possibly have been suggested to Shakespeare by the 95th declamation in the 'Orator' of Alexander Silvayn, which was translated from the French by Anthony Munday in 1596. The title is, 'Of a Jew, who would for his debt have a pound of the flesh of a Christian.' It is printed at full length in the Variorum editions of Shakespeare, on the authority of Dr. Farmer, who was the first to call attention to it. The ballad of Gernutus the Jew

of Venice, mentioned above by Dunlop, may in like manner have supplied the incident of the whetting of the knife. We print it from the original in the Pepysian Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge. It is contained in Pepys's Collection of Ballads, vol. i. pp. 144, 145, and we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Roberts, Pepysian Librarian, for permission to collate it.

A new Song, shewing the crueltie of Gernutus a Iew, who lending to a Marchant a hundred Crownes, would haue a pound of his Flesh, because he could not pay him at the day appoynted. To the tune of, Blacke and Yellow.

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