Jusjurandum

AdulteryDeceptionGullible husbandDeceitful womanEvidenceFalse evidence of virtueMistaken or concealed identityJudgement

The Oath

A husband returns from a business trip to discover evidence (in some version, body fluids) indicating that his wife has committed adultery. When her denials prove futile, she offers to swear a holy oath affirming her fidelity, and her husband agrees to this. Secretly, she arranges with her lover that he should encounter them in the market on their way to the holy temple, and drop a clay pot just as they pass. When he does so, the wife trips over the broken pot, and her lover catches her in his arms, and sets her on her feet. When the husband and wife arrive at the temple, the wife swears on all that is holy that she has touched no man but her husband - except of course for the man who caught her as she fell in the marketplace. The husband is convinced of her honesty.

Note
Nishimura notes analogues, motifs, and references for this narrative: Motif and Type: TMI K1513, ATU 1418: The equivocal oath. Analogues: Jataka, 62 ‘Aṇḍabhuta-j.’; Ku Zo Hiyu-kyo, 25; Jinadāsa, Āvaśyakacūrṇi; Hemacandra, Parisishtaparvan, 2.8, 446-545 ‘The cunning woman with the anklet’; Seventy Tales of a Parrot, Textus simplicior 15; Mongolische Märchen, ‘II. Ardschi-Bordschi, IV. Vikramâditja’s Gemahlin Tsetsen Büdschiktschi – Der falsche Eid’ (see the story 'Abbas‘); Cardonne, ‘Die Geschichte von der gerechtfertigen Frau’ in Mélanges de littérature orientale; Aristainetos, Erotische Briefe, 1. 9 ‘Stesichoros an Eratosthenes’; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 46; Strapalola, Le piacevoli Notti, 4.2; Der persische Dekameron, 19 ‘Die Schelmin’. This motif is also found in the Tristan narratives, e.g. Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan and Isolde, 24; Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut (ed. Bédier), 12; Folie Tristan (Oxford, lines 824 -834); Béroul, Le Roman de Tristan (lines 3912-48, 4197-4213); Reference stories, etc.: Ramayana, vol. 6 ‘Yuddha-Khandha’; Héptameron, 33; Hagen, Gesamtabenteuer, 46 ‘Das heiße Eisen’; Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, 247 ‘A monk who had been brought up from childhood in a monastery…’; Sachs, nr. 3698, r. 38, ‘Das heiß eysen’; Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 62 (IX, p. 368); Born Judas, 123 ‘Gottes Gericht’. Additional Bibliography: Rohde, Der griechische Roman, p. 484; J. Meyer, Isoldes Gottesurteil in seiner erotischen Beziehung, 1914; Tanaka Otoya, ‘The Story of passing through the Crotch’ in India: The Structure of Love Affairs. Nishimura, Ku Zo Hiyu-kyo, pp. 163-164.

Critical Literature
Nishimura (2001), Epstein (1967)

Jusjurandum appears in the following versions and secondary versions

Jusjurandum is narrated in the following occurrences

Narrator	Pages
Seventh Master	Mishle Sendebar

Jusjurandum appears in the following manuscripts