Gaza
The Treasure
A man falls deep into debt, and decides to rob the emperor's treasury with his son. They are successful, but when they return to steal for a second time, the man is caught in a trap made of tar, and is unable to escape. Rather than leaving his father to be discovered and identified by the authorities, the son cuts off his father's head, and escapes, leaving his father's body behind. In order to uncover the headless thief's accomplices, the emperor orders that the body be dragged through the city in humiliation, whereupon the man's daughters cannot contain their cries of distress. Quickly, to hide their guilt and explain his sisters' outcry, the son stabs himself in the thigh, and uses that as an excuse for their tears when they are questioned about their relationship to the unidentitfied thief. (In some versions, the emperor sets additional traps to try to expose the thief, but is repeatedly foiled; tricks sometimes include the replication of an identification-mark, a child revealing the true thief, and a thief dressed half in white, half in black to confuse guards dressed in either black or white.)
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Nishimura notes extensive parallels and analogues for this narrative, and its continuations in various versions. They include: Motifs and Types: J1142.4 Thief’s corpse carried through street to see who will weep for him; J1143 Thief detected by building straw fire so that smoke escapes through thief’s entrance; K315.1 Thief enters treasury through passage made by him as architect of the building; K407.1 Thief has his companion cut off his head so that he may escape detection; K407.2.1 Thief’s confederate cuts off own arm to furnish alibi for family’s grief; TU1996 Father and son rob king. Analogues: The earliest record is Herodotus, Historiae, 2.121; Pausanias, Greek Chronicles, 9.37.4-7; Fabliau MR97 ‘De Burat det de Haimet ou des trois Larrons [The Tale of the Three Thieves]’ par Jean de Boves; Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Il Pecorone, 9.1; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 88; Bandello, Le Novelle, 1.25; Grimm’s Fairy Tales, KHM, ‘Der Räuber und seine Söhne’; Kyoritsu Iso, 44.12; Ho’on Jurin, 31.25; Sho-kyo, 2.12. Konponsetsu Issai Ubu Binaya Hasoji, 12; Chu Ko Sen, 1.89; Konjaku Monogatari-shu, 10.32; Kathasaritsagara, ch. 64, 146; Saikaku, Saikaku Shokoku Banashi, 3.7; Shiefner, Tibetan Tales, 4 ‘The clever Thief’. Reference stories, etc.: Identification marks: Grimms, Deutsche Sagen, 400 ‘Agilulf und Theudelind’; Decameron, 3.2; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 103 (ink mark on neck); Ortutay, Hungarian Folktales, 19 ‘The Dreaming Youth’; Afanasjew, Russian Folktales, 315, ‘Baldak Borisjewitsch’. The motif of a child recognizing a parent is in Gesta Romanorum, 201 ‘Des heiligen Laurentius Entführung’ and 37 'Cygni’; Pentamerone, 1.3 and 3.2; Hundred Japanese Folktales, ‘Handless Girl’; Harimakoku Fudoki, ‘The county Taka and the village of Kami’. Additional Bibliography: Penzer, ‘The Origin of the Story of Ghata and Karpara’, in Tawney/Penzer, V, pp. 243-286. Takagi Toshio, A Study of Fairy Tales, pp. 34-37, 218. Tanaka Otoya, Drunken Flower Collection, ‘Setsuwa no Ruden (Diffusion of Narratives): Egypt to Japan’. Matsubara Hideichi, ‘Chinese and Japanese Versions of Gaza’. Matsubara Hideichi, ‘The Tale of the Treasure Breaker: The Treasure of King Rhampsinitus’, in Medieval European Narrative Stories. Matsumura Junko and Matsumura Hisashi, ‘The Structure and Genealogy of the Treasure Tale of King Rhampsinitos’ and ‘The Structure and Genealogical Addendum of King Rhampsinitos’. Tsukada Takao, Greek-Roman Thieves’ Kitan, pp. 147-157. |
| Gaza appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Gaza appears in the following manuscripts |
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