Iuvenis Femina
The Lover Disguised as a Maiden
A man falls sick with love of a married woman, whose husband keeps her under lock and key. An old crone asks the man what ails him, and she offers to help, telling him to shave his face and dress in women's clothing. She then approaches the jealous husband, and asks if her young daughter might stay safe with his virtuous wife. The husband agrees, and dressed as a maiden, the would-be-lover gains access to the wife's bedchamber and body.
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The motif in this tale has obvious parallels to the inclusion of the empress's disguised lover in many versions of the frame story. Nishimura notes additional motifs, analogues, and reference stories: Motif: TMI K1321.1 Man disguised as woman admitted to woman’s quarters: seduction. Analogues: Twenty-five Tales of the Corpse, 15 ‘Muladeva and the Secret Pill of Sex Change’; Kathasaritsagara, ch. 89, 163 G (15), 'The Magic Pill’; Kathasaritsagara, Chapter 7, 3, 'Story of Pushpadanta’, and chapter 64, (ed. Mehlig) ‘Die Geschichte von Eheweib des Rudrasoma’; Nakhshabi, Tales of a Parrot, 35 ‘The Story of the Brahman’s falling in Love with the Daughter of the King of Babylon'; Qadiri, The Tooti Nahmeh, 23; Arabian Nights, ‘The Story of Ni‘ma ibn al-Rabi‘ and his female slave Nu‘m’ (night 243) and ‘The Story of Taj al-Muluk and Princess Dunya’ (night 134) and ‘The Love of Azdashir, Prince of al-Sayf al-A‘ẓam Shah, and Princess Ḥayat al-Nufus, daughter of King ‘Abd al-Qadir’ (nights 732-733), in all of which a man enters the harem disguised as a woman; Born Judas, 176 ‘Das kluge Bauernmädchen’; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 4; Kokon Chomonju, 16.25.44; Der persische Dekameron, 25 ‘Der schöne Kadi’. Further analogues include: Hagen, Gesamtabenteuer, 14 ‘Der Schüler zu Paris’; Les Cent Nouvelle Nouvelle, 45; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 30 and 50; Masuccio, Il Novellino, 7; Sabadino degli Arienti, Le Porretane, 55; La Fontaine, Contes, 2.7 ‘La Gageure des trois commères’; Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 9.4; Balzac, Les Contes Drolatiques, 3.4 ‘The Penitent Flower’; Ferdousi, Šāhnāme (Ito Gikyo, Ancient Persia, p. 264); Pétis de la Croix, Les mille et un jours, ‘Die Geschichte von Abu al-Qasim aus Bassorah’, pp. 7-72. Reference stories, etc.: According to the Kāmasūtra, 5.6 (48), “In general, the queen-mistresses of the rear court let the playboys dressed in women’s clothes sneak into the rear court with their servant-girls”. Gesta Romanorum, 156 ‘Achilles unter Mägden’. Additional Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 37. Landau 36. Hagen, I, pp. cxxviif. Tanaka Otoya, ‘Laughing Fish’ in Drunken Flower Collection and in India: The Structure of Love Affairs. |
Critical Literature |
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Nishimura (2001), Clouston (1884), Epstein (1967) |
Iuvenis Femina appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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Iuvenis Femina is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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Iuvenis Femina appears in the following manuscripts |
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