Curiositas
Curiosity; or, The Man who Never Smiled Again; or, The Young Man Who Was Taken to the Land of Women
A young man spends all of his large inheritance on luxuries, and is obliged to look for work to earn his keep. An old man offers him employment, on one condition: he must not ask any of the ten old men whom he will serve the cause of their sorrow, should he see them lamenting. The young man agrees, and for the following three years, he lives in a palatial mansion while caring for ten venerable men, who spend their days surrounded by luxury but endlessly sighing and weeping. One by one, the old men die, until at last the only survivor is the young man's original employer, who tells him that, after his death, he should inherit the palace. Consumed by curiosity, the young man asks the reason for the lamenting. The old man, with his last breath, tells the young man that he can avoid the grave punishment he and the others had suffered if only he swears never to open 'that door yonder', pointing to a door in his bedchamber. After his death, the young man opens the door, and passes through a long tunnel until he emerges by the seaside. He is suddenly seized by a monstrous eagle, who carries him away to an island in the ocean, then drops him. The young man then sees a beautiful boat full of lovely maidens in rich silks, who approach and take his hands, telling him that he was to be the ruler of their country and the husband of their queen. He is taken to their city, which is the heart of the kingdom of women - governed, protected, and led by a queen, until such time as a man should arrive to marry her. She asks for his hand, on the condition that he swear never to open a specific door in the castle. He agrees, they are married, and he lives in the epitome of bliss. However, he thinks of the great fortune that came to him from opening an earlier, also forbidden door, so one day he ignores his promise, and opens the door. He enters a passageway, and immediately the same eagle swoops down, and carries him away, depositing him back where he started. He tries and fails to return to the kingdom of women, until at last he gives up, and spends the rest of his life in lamentation and weeping.
(From Clouston and Basset)
Note |
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Nishimura notes the following motifs and analogues: Motifs: TMI C498 Speaking tabu: the one forbidden expression. C611.1 Forbidden door. Analogies: Nizami, Tale of the Seven Queens, 25 ‘The Story of the Queen of the First Zone'; Rosenöl, II, no.106; Galland, Les mille et une Nuits, ‘Histoire du troisième Calender, fils de Roi’, Nights 57-62. See ‘33. corbicula’. Reference stories, etc.: Stories with taboo themes such as “Do not open this door” and “Do not enter this room” are found in Jacques de Vitry’s Exempla, 13 ‘A Hermit was indignant…’; Perrault’s Fairy Tales, ‘Bluebeard’; Grimm’s Fairy Tales, KHM3 ‘Marienkind’ and KHM46, ‘Fitschers Vogel’; Espinosa, Cuentos Populares Españoles, 33 ‘The Lying Girl’ (original story 89); Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28 ‘Type Index’, 86 ‘Uguisu no Jodo" (The Pure Land of the Warbler); Kathasaritsagara, ch. 26, (ed. Mehlig) ‘Ende der Geschichte vom Vidyadhara-König Śaktivega’ and Ch. 108, (ed. Mehlig) ‘Die Geschichte Nagasvamin und den Hexen’; Hitopadesha, 2.5 ‘Our Faults redound on us (The Story of the Fairy and the traveling Monk)’; Arabian Nights, Nights 14-16 ‘The Story of the Third Traveling Monk’, and Nights 499-531, ‘The Story of Janshah’ (Night 508). Bibliography: Chauvin VIII15. Landau 30. Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, Kenkyu-hen 2‘, 86. |
Critical Literature |
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Clouston (1884), Basset (1903), Nishimura (2001) |
Curiositas appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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This inset story appears in no versions of the database |
Curiositas is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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Curiositas appears in the following manuscripts |
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