Vidua – The Widow

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The Widow

A knight loves his wife to distraction, and is so upset when she receives a minor injury (often from a knife he had given her) that he dies of grief (or kills himself). The newly widowed woman refuses leave his gravesite, and builds a fire there to warm herself. A man charged with guarding a nearby gallows, where the bodies of three convicted thieves hang, sees the fire and asks to be allowed to share its warmth. The two speak, then flirt, and the widow is impressed by his honour; in some texts they begin a sexual relationship, in others she asks him to take her to wife. The guardsman checks the gallows and is horrified to discover that the body of one of thieves has been stolen while he was distracted. The widow offers to help: she tells him he may hang the body of her erstwhile husband in place of the missing thief’s corpse. Repulsed, the guard will not do it, so the widow does it herself. To complete the illusion that her husband’s body was that of the missing thief, she then mutilates his head, and knocks out his front teeth. In many versions, this show of faithlessness causes the guardsman to abandon her.

From Middle English Version A

[Added by Jane Bonsall]

Note

A note on different versions: in Latin H, the knight kills the wife; in Welsh, the husband sees the blood spurting from his wife’s hand and stabs himself to death in the chest; in Bohemian, the young knight has had feelings for this wife from long before the story begins. As Nishimura points out, this story closely resembles Petronius's narrative of the 'Widow of Ephesus' from the ''Satyricon''. The popular antifeminist motif of the 'soon-consoled widow' appears throughout European and Middle Eastern medieval literary culture. Nishimura tracks relevant motif types, analogues, and reference stories: Motifs and Types: TMI H466, H1556.1: Feigned death to test wife’s faithfulness. K2213.1, ATU 1510, TU5262, TU5263 Matron/widow of Ephesus. T231.2 Faithless widow betrothed anew at husband’s funeral. T231.4 Faithless widow’s heartlessness repels the new suitor. ATU1350 The Soon-Consoled Widow. AT 1352* The woman’s coarse act. Analogues: The Petronius type in which the husband dies: Petronius, Satyricon, 111-11; Phaedrus, The Aesopic Fables, App. 15 ‘The Widow and the Soldier’; Novellino, 59 ‘Von einem Edelmann, den der Kaiser hängen ließ’; Fabliau MR 70 ‘De Celle qui se fist… [The Story of the Woman who sinned at her Husband’s Grave]’; Vincentius Bellovcensis, Speculum Morale, 3.9.5 (p. 1396BC. Marriage); Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, 232 ‘There was once a woman…’; Sercambi, Il Novelliere, 12; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 751 ‘Eyn Frau vertraurt iren Man bald‘ (abridged) and 752 ‚Eyn andere Histori von Frawentreu‘; Steinhöwel, Äsop, 3.9 (the woman and her deceased husband); Caxton, Fables of Aesop, 3.9 (the knight and the widow); La Fontaine, Contes (Contes du Recueil de 1682), 1 ‘La Matrone d’Ephèse’; Brantôme, Les dames galantes, Lecture 7 (pp. 688-690); Der Born Judas, 177 ‘Die treulose Witwe’. In the Chinese type where the husband pretends to be dead and tests his wife (ATU1350): Kinko Kikan, 20 ‘Soshi-kyu (Zhuangzi)’; Wesselski, Mönchsltein, 72; Voltaire, Zadig, 2 ‘The Nose’; Tsuzoku Kokon Kikan, 1, ‘Soshi (Zhuangzi) strikes the tray and understands’; Espinosa, Cuentos Populares Españoles, 36 ‘The Lying Wife’ (original story 93); Sho-fu, 9 [423] ‘Fanning the Corpse’; Choi In Hak, A Study on Korean Folktales…, 383 ‘The Magician’s Wife’. Reference stories, etc.: The Life of Aesop, 129; Aesop’s Fables, 388 ‘The widow and the Ploughman’;. Bukhari, Al-Ṣaḥiḥ, ‘Funeral’, 62; Behrnauer, Die vierzig Wesire, ‘Die Geschichte von einem Schneider und seinem Weibe’ (pp. 712-718); Murgui and Milos, 16 ‘The Virtuous Husband and the Unfaithful Wife’; Arabian Nights, Night 344, ‘The Story of the Police Commissioner of Old Cairo’; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 144 ‘Einer het gern gewißt, wie sich sein Frau wolt halten nach seim Dot’; Ibn Battuta, Travels, chapter 16. Stories about staying upon/near a loved one's grave: Nizami’s Laila and Majnun (ch. 51); Gesta Romanorum, 272 ‘Die gestörte Totentrauer’; Twenty-five Tales of the Corpse, 2; Kathasaritsagara, ch. 76, ‘163G(2): The Three Young Brahmans who restored a Dead Lady to Life’; Grimm’s Fairy Tales, KHM80, ‘Von dem Tode des Hühnchens’. On mourning periods: Sacchetti, Trecento Novelle, 47; The Book of Tales by A.B.C., 368 (312).2 ‘An honest woman, and a chaste,…’; Andreas Capellanus, On Courtly Love, 1.6.H, ‘Dialogue between a man of great nobility and a woman of great nobility’, states that the period of mourning for a deceased husband is two years. Japanese meditations on faithfulness to the dead: Kokin Waka-shu (Anthology of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry), 18.938, a poem by Ono no Komachi; Karukuchi Ōwarai, 5.11; the last story, ‘A stray child’, in Omoshiroshi Hana no Hatsu-warai, (The First Laughter of the Amusing Flower)’; ‘Jomae (The Lock)’ of Otoshi-banashi Hesokuri-gane. Additional Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 254. Landau 45. Grisebach, Die Wanderung der Novelle von der treulosen Witwe durch die Weltliteratur, 1889. G. Huber, Das Motiv der <Witwe von Ephesus> in lateinischen Texten der Antike und des Mittelalters, 1990. Matsubara Hideichi, Medieval European Narrative Stories, p. 296. Nakatsukasa Tetsuo, The World of Aesop’s Fables, pp. 78-81. See several studies by H.R. Runte, 'The Matron of Ephesus: The Growth of the Story in the Roman des Sept Sages de Rome'; ‘“Alfred’s Book”, Marie de France, and the Matron of Ephesus’; ‘Variant Widows: On Editing and Reading Vidua’; ‘Translatio Viduae: The Matron of Ephesus in Four Languages’.

Critical Literature
Nishimura (2001), Clouston (1884), Campbell (1907)

Vidua appears in the following versions and secondary versions

Has Language Of Version Has Branch Of Tradition Is Adapted From A (Seven Sages) Old French Seven Sages of Rome V (Lost metrical Old French Sept Sages) Anonymous Verse Version German (High and Low German) Seven Sages of Rome German Version H, Versfassung / Verse Version, Latin Version H Bühnenfassung / Stage adaptation: Sebastian Wild, Tragedj German (High and Low German) Seven Sages of Rome Redaction G C (Sept Sages de Rome) Old French Seven Sages of Rome   Continental Group w   Seven Sages of Rome   Continental Group x   Seven Sages of Rome   Czech Version H: Kronika sedmi mudrců Czech Seven Sages of Rome   D (Sept Sages de Rome) Old French Seven Sages of Rome   Dutch Verse Version: Van den seven vroeden van binnen Rome   Seven Sages of Rome   Dutch Version A Dutch Seven Sages of Rome French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages Dutch Version H   Seven Sages of Rome   Early Modern and Modern Welsh Version A Welsh Seven Sages of Rome Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein English Erasto English Seven Sages of Rome French Erasto, Italian Erasto English Version H   Seven Sages of Rome   Erastus, or, The Roman Prince English Seven Sages of Rome Francis Kirkman, Prince Erastus Francis Kirkman, Prince Erastus English Seven Sages of Rome French Erasto French A/L Overlap Old French Seven Sages of Rome L (Sept Sages de Rome), French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages Old French Seven Sages of Rome A (Seven Sages) Gaelic Version A Gaelic Seven Sages of Rome Latin Version A German Version A: Allegatio/Libellus German (High and Low German) Seven Sages of Rome Latin Version A German Version H German (High and Low German) Seven Sages of Rome Latin Version H

Vidua is narrated in the following occurrences

Narrator Pages Caton Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 2.83 (RMWL MS 6), Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 3.4 (RMWL Cardiff MS 5), Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanover MS 13075B, Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 117, Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 171, Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 2., Early Modern and Modern Welsh Version A, Middle Welsh Version A, Oxford Bodleian Library Jesus College MS. 111, Oxford Bodleian Library Jesus College MS. 20, Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Fourth Master Czech Version H: Kronika sedmi mudrců Iesse Midland Version Jesse A (Seven Sages), Bern Burgerbibliothek Cod. 388, Brussel Koninklijke Bibliotheek 9245, Brussel Koninklijke Bibliotheek II 1171, C (Sept Sages de Rome), Cambridge University Library MS Dd.1.17, Cambridge University Library MS Gg.6.28, Chartres Bibliothèque municipale 620, D (Sept Sages de Rome), Dutch Verse Version: Van den seven vroeden van binnen Rome, Dutch Version A, Edinburgh National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 19.2.1 (Auchinleck Manuscript), Florence Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Gaddiano 166, Florence Biblioteca nazionale centrale, Palatino 680, French A/L Overlap, French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages, Italian Prose (V), Italian Version A, K (Sept Sages de Rome), Libro dei Sette Savj (A), London British Library Add. MS. 27429, London British Library Arundel 140, London British Library Cotton Galba E IX, London British Library Egerton 1995, Middle English Version A, Old Swedish Version A: Sju vise mästare, Oxford Balliol College Library MS 354 (Richard Hill's Commonplace Book), Oxford Bodleian Library Rawlinson poet. 175, Padua Biblioteca Civica C.M. 304/6, Paris Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 3516, Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 95, Storia di Stefano (R), Storia favolosa di Stefano (S), Uppsala Universitetsbiblioteket Cod. C 7, Venice Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana It. IX 621 (=10697) Joachim Anonymous Verse Version, Bühnenfassung / Stage adaptation: Sebastian Wild, Tragedj, Colmar Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 55, Dutch Version H, English Version H, German Version H, H (Historia Septem Sapientum), Hans von Bühel, Dyocletianus Leben, Hungarian Version H: Pontianus tsaszar historiaia, Hystorij von Diocleciano, Prosafassung / Prose Version, Spanish Version H: Los Siete Sabios de Roma, Swedish Version H: Sju vise mästare, Versfassung / Verse Version, Wien Schottenstift Cod. 33 (407) Lentulus Cambridge University Library MS Ff. 2, 38, M ('Male Marastre'), Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 573 Leuco Erastus, or, The Roman Prince Seventh Master Berlin Staatsbibliothek Ms. theol. lat. qu. 272, Continental Group x, Dresden Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Mscr. Dresd. F 61a, Latin Version H, Polish Version H, Scots Version H: Rolland, Seuin Seages, Thystorye of ye vii wyse Maysters of rome (English, 16th c.) Sixth Master Chantilly Musée Condé MS 683, Dublin Trinity College Library Ms 667, Edinburgh National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 72.1.39, Gaelic Version A, German Version A: Allegatio/Libellus, Latin Version A, Latin Version A: Allegatio / Libellus, London British Library Additional MS 15685, Madrid Biblioteca Nacional de España 6052 (ant. Q.224), S (Scala Coeli), Spanish Version S: Diego de Cañizares, Scala Çeli, St. Florian Stiftsbibliothek Cod. XI 92 B, Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L), Wien Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 2937

Vidua appears in the following manuscripts

Has Language Has Siglum Of The Version Of The Seven Sages Has Language Group Within Version Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 2.83 (RMWL MS 6) Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Cardiff MS 3.4 (RMWL Cardiff MS 5) Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanover MS 13075B Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 117 Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 171 Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Aberystwyth National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 2. Latin, Middle Welsh A (Seven Sages) Welsh Version A: Chwedleu Seith Doethon Rufein Berlin Staatsbibliothek Ms. theol. lat. qu. 272 Latin H (Historia Septem Sapientum) Latin Version H Bern Burgerbibliothek Cod. 388 Old French A (Seven Sages) French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages Brno Moravská knihovna RKP-0048.042 (Rkp 84) German (High and Low German) H (Historia Septem Sapientum) German Version H Brussel Koninklijke Bibliotheek 9245 Old French Overlap of Versions A and L French A/L Overlap Brussel Koninklijke Bibliotheek II 1171 Dutch A (Seven Sages) Dutch Version A Cambridge University Library MS Dd.1.17 English A (Seven Sages) Middle English Version A Cambridge University Library MS Ff. 2, 38 English A (Seven Sages) Middle English Version A Cambridge University Library MS Gg.6.28 Old French Overlap of Versions A and L French A/L Overlap Chantilly Musée Condé MS 683 Latin A (Seven Sages) Latin Version A Chartres Bibliothèque municipale 620 Old French C (Sept Sages de Rome) French Version C Colmar Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 55 German (High and Low German) H (Historia Septem Sapientum) German Version H Dublin Trinity College Library Ms 667 Latin A (Seven Sages) Latin Version A Edinburgh National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 19.2.1 (Auchinleck Manuscript) English A (Seven Sages) Middle English Version A Edinburgh National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 72.1.39 Gaelic A (Seven Sages) Gaelic Version A Erlangen Universitätsbibliothek Ms. B 11 German (High and Low German) H (Historia Septem Sapientum) German Version H