Inclusa
The Imprisoned Wife
A lord is fiercely jealous of his wife, and locks her in a tower, permitting no man to see her and carrying the keys with him always. Far away, a knight dreams of a fair lady, and sets out to find her (in some versions, the lord's wife simultaneously dreams of the knight). He comes to the lord's tower, and sees the lady at her window, and knows it is the woman from his dreams. He bursts into a song of love, and she drops a letter to him, explaining her circumstances. The knight enters the lord's service, makes himself invaluable, and eventually builds a home next to the lady's tower - and creates a hole or tunnel through which he can enter to be with her. She gives him a ring, but when the lord sees the ring on the knight's finger, he recognises it as one he had given to his wife. That night, he asks her for it - but the knight had already returned it to her secretly, and the lord is satisfied. Then, the knight tells the lord that he must return to his own country, and that his beloved has arrived - and introduces the lord to his own wife, dressed elaborately in exotic clothes, as this foreign lady-love. The lord is suspicious at how much this woman resembles his wife, but when he returns to his wife's chambers after the meal, he once again finds her there. So when the knight prepares to depart with his 'beloved' the next day, the lord gives the woman to the knight in marriage, and they sail away; he only later discovers that his own wife has disappeared.
(From Brunner, Middle English Seven Sages)
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Nishimura notes extensive motif types, analogues, and references: Motifs and Types: TMI H1381.3.1.2.2 Quest for girl hero has been seen in dream; K1523, ATU 1419E Underground passage to paramour’s house; T11.3 Love through dream. Analogues: Aristophanes, The Festival of the Women Only (around line 420); Plautus, Miles Gloriosus; The Book of Tales by A.B.C., 303 (235) ‘You’ll never learn a woman’s games:…’; Le Roman de Flamenca; Legrand d’Aussy, Anciens Fabliaux, 3.156-164 ‘Le Chevalier à la trappe’; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 143; Straparola, Le piacevoli Notti, 9.1; Der persische Dekameron, 19 ‘Die Schelmin’; Arabian Nights, Nights 963-978 ‘The Story of Qamar al-Zaman’ and King Shah Bakht and his Wazir al-Rahwan, 12.g ‘Tale of the Fuller and his Wife and the Trooper’; Das schwarze Dekameron, ‘The Apprenticeship of Ayni’. Reference stories, etc.: A. Blok, The Rose and the Cros; Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 5.3; Pentamerone, 5.6; Kathasaritsagara, ch. 71 (VI, pp. 37ff., in 163: 'Story of Mṛigankadatta and the man who was the gatekeeper’); Kalila and Dimna, Introduction, ‘The Water Bottle and the Lover’; The Story of the Four Mendicants, ‘The Journey of the First Mendicant’. The stories of seeing a woman in a dream and going to meet her include 'Zariadrēs and Odatis' (Ito Gikyo, Ancient Persia, pp. 323-325); Rosen, Das Papageienbuch, 26 Nights, 'Geschichte von der schönen Prinzessin von Griechenland’; Kathasaritsagara, ch. 122, (ed. Mehlig), 'Dei Geschichte von der die Männer hassenden Jungfrau Malayavatī'; and with the genders reversed, in Jāmī, Yusuf and Zulaikha. See also Les Cent Nouvelle Nouvelle, 1; Masuccio, Il Novellino, 14, 34, and 40. Additional Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 67, 233; IX 36; Landau 50; Krappe, 1935, pp. 213-226; Trenkner, pp. 131-133; Tsuji Naoshiro, History of Sanskrit Literature, 97; Maejima Shinji, The World of Arabian Nights, pp. 135-139; Nishimura, Disciplina Clericalis, pp. 293, 369. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Campbell (1907), Clouston (1884), Hilka (1917), Hoffman von Fallersleben (1838) |
| Inclusa appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Inclusa appears in the following manuscripts |
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