Aristoteles

Lecherous old manGullible (would-be) loverLesson: women’s cleverness and deceitDeceptionHumiliationDeceitful womanOld man

Aristotle

This story, revising the popular 'Aristotle and Phyllis' narrative, opens with a feast given by the king in Aristotle's honour. A princess, jealous at the display, demands to know why the philosopher should be favoured above any of the nobility, and the king explains it is because of Aristotle's superlative wisdom. The princess decides to test this, and approaches Aristotle, asking him why, when he is so tall, his wife is so petite. The philosopher replies that this is because he would rather have 'a small misfortune than a great one', and the princess is incensed while the court all laugh. Determined to humiliate him, the princess sets out to seduce Aristotle. She visits him daily until he is completely besotted with her, and agrees to do whatever she likes. At last, she contrives to have the king and court secretly observe the two of them together, while she sits upon Aristotle's back and rides him around the garden. Aristotle is humiliated, and his great wisdom found to be no match for women's allure.

Note
Nishimura (2001) notes connections between this story and the narrative of Aristotle and Phyllis, or Aristotle, Alexander, and the queen (TMI K1215, ATU 1501, TU328), and identifies several analogues and references: Analogues: Konponsetsu Issai Ubu Binaya Zoji, 22; Athenaios, Deipnosophistai, 13 (577d); Jahiz, Les Livre des Beauté et des Antithèses (Al-Mahasin wa’l-Addad); Panchatantra (Textus ornatior. Purnabhadra), 4.6 ‘Two henpecked Husbands’; Jacques de Vitry, Exempla (ed. Greven), 15, ‘De Aristotile et vxore Alexandri’; Fabliau MR 137 ‘Le Lai d’Aristote’ (Henri d’Andeli, ca. 1225); Hagen, Gesamtabenteuer, 2, ‘Aristoteles und Phyllis’; ‘Die kluge Phyllis’, in Liebe, Lust und Leid, 14; Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho, 1.17 ‘Cómo los Letrados pierden el saber por amar’; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 50 and 148; Hans Sachs, nr. 4265, ‘Persanes di künigin mit Aristoteles [The Queen Riding Aristotle the Philosopher]’, 1551 (Hagen, p. lxxix); Sabadino degli Arienti, Le Porretane, 35; Nasreddin Hoca Monogatari, p. 227, ‘A certain general governor’. Reference stories: Jataka 191 ‘Ruhaka-j.’; Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, A Fool’s Love, 3.

Critical Literature
Nishimura (2001), Steinmetz (1999)

Aristoteles appears in the following versions and secondary versions

Aristoteles is narrated in the following occurrences

Narrator	Pages
Bancillas	Hystorij von Diocleciano, Wien Schottenstift Cod. 33 (407)

Aristoteles appears in the following manuscripts