Imago
The Goldsmith and the Dancer
A Persian goldsmith becomes obsessed with the painted figure of a beautiful woman he sees in a friend’s house. He seeks out the painter to find the painting's model, and is told that she is a dancer in the household of a minister of Kashmir in India. The goldsmith sets out, and when he reaches Kashmir, he asks a Kashmiri merchant for information about the dancer, and also about the king. He learns where the minister lives, and learns that the king hates witches and magic-users, and that when he catches them, he throws them into a well to starve to death. One night, the goldsmith sneaks into the house of the minister, and finds where the dancer is sleeping. He approaches her, and makes a slight cut on her skin (either her hand, or her buttocks, depending on the version). When she wakes up, frightened, she believes he is a thief and offers him a piece of significant, recognisable treasure to bribe him to leave; he takes it and flees. The next day he visits the king, and tells him that the night before, he had been sleeping outside the gates, when four sorceress approached him, kicking and tormenting him. (In some versions, they are described as mounted upon a ram, a hyena, a black dog, and a leopard, repectively.) The goldsmith elaborates on this encounter, and says that he scratched one of them with a small sword as they departed, and that she dropped the piece of treasure as she escaped. When the king realizes that the treasure was a gift from him to one of his ministers, he calls the minister to come before him; the minister explains he gave the treasure to his favourite dancing-girl, and she too is summoned. Her wound is discovered, and the king, believing her to be a witch, has her thrown into the cell where all magic-users are left to perish. That evening, the goldsmith secretly goes to the cell with a purse full of gold, tells the guard what really happened, and explains the girl's innocence. He gives the guard the gold, and is given the dancer in turn, and he takes her back to his home.
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Nishimura notes the following motifs and analogues: Motifs: TMI H1381.3.1.2.1 Quest for unknown woman whose picture has aroused man’s love. T11.2 Love through sight of picture. Analogies: Daṇḍin, Daśakumāracarita, Part II, 6.4 ‘The Tale of Nitambhavati’. Twenty-five Tales of the Corpse, 1 ‘The Branded Girl’ (= Kathasaritsagara, Chapter 75, ‘163G(1)). Reference stories, etc.: Stories about falling in love with a painting and embarking on a journey of courtship: ‘Story of Sayf al-Muluk and Badia‘ al-Jamal’, in Arabian Nights, Nights 758-778; ‘Story of Ibrahim, son of al-Khaṣib, lord of Egypt’, Nights 952-959 in the same book; Kathasarittsagara, chapter 101, ‘163H. Sundarasena and Mandaravatī’; KHM 6, ‘Der treue Johannes’ in Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Choi In Hak, A Study on Korean Folktales…, 222, ‘Picture Wife: Wife Acquisition Type’; Rakugo ‘Uji no Shibafune’. Stories of a man who makes a false charge against a young woman for a thief and receives her as his bride is told in Yoshino Hidemasa Setsuwa Shu (Eighteenth Century) 1 ‘Issunbo no Choja Son-in-law’; Iki Shima Mukashibanashi Shu, 121 ‘Mamezo Banashi’; Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28 ‘Type Index’ 137B ‘Issun Boshi -- Cunning Man Type’, and 330 ‘E-on’na to Oni’. Bibliography: Chauvin VIII14. Landau 29. Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, ‘Kenkyu-hen 2’, 137B, 330. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Basset (1903), Clouston (1884) |
| Imago appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| This inset story appears in no versions of the database |
| Imago is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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| Imago appears in the following manuscripts |
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