Zelus

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AdulteryChastityDeceptionRemorseEvidenceFalse evidence of unchastity/criminalityGullible husbandJealous husbandMarriageRevengeSlander: wife falsely accusedSuicideViolenceMurderUnjust executionDeathGriefJealousyMisinterpretationPoison(Threat of) bodily mutilationBeating

Zeal

An upstanding nobleman named Cleander inherits all his father's wealth, and shortly thereafter is wed to a young woman named Beatrice. The two are very happy together, and Beatrice takes charge of the household. One day, she catches a maidservant sleeping with one of the other servants. She is furious at the disgraceful behavious taking place under her roof, and plans to tell Cleander, but thinking that he might be too severe (or even kill the young lovers) she refrains. Instead, she beats the maidservant soundly but does not dismiss her. The maid grows resentful of Beatrice, but she conceals her ill-will. Eventually, she contrives to speak to Cleander alone, and she feigns reluctance but at last tells him that his wife is having an affair with a member of his staff. He believes her, and assumes that the man in question must be his manservant Henry, a handsome young man who had served him since he was a child. Both Cleander and Beatrice love Henry for his diligence and loyalty, but now Cleander begins to wonder if it is more than that, for his wife. Observing the care with which Henry serves Beatrice at table, he imagines that he observes their secret affection, reading into every smile and every gesture the betrayal that the maid had intimated. At last, he speaks to the maid again, asking if she can provide him with solid proof. She agrees, and tells him report to his wife that he is leaving, but to stay close by. Once he is outside, the maid rushes to Henry's room, telling him that Beatrice has fallen ill and that he must go to her at once; he does so, but when he arrives, he finds her well, and she suggests the maid must have been drunk. He turns to go, but meets Cleander, who the maid had summoned, on the stairs outside of the bedchamber. Convinced that Henry has just left a liaision with Beatrice, Cleander stabs him with a poisoned dagger. Raging, he storms into the bedchamber, where he beats Beatrice bloody. He hits her mouth rather than hear her protests, and at last tells her that she must die, and offers her the choice of a poisoned goblet of wine or the poisoned dagger. She drinks poison, and he drags her to Henry's body, where she bewails Cleander's sins and protests their mutual innocence, claiming the maid had set them up, before she dies. He tricks the maid into confessing her actions, then kills her, ripping her heart from her chest. Overcome by remorse, he kills himself.

From the English Erasto.

[Added by Ava Byrne and Jane Bonsall]

Note

An Italian version of this story was published separately as the Compassionevole avvenimento di Cleandro gentiluomo padovano. Nishimura notes a similar narrative in Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 10.23-28 (the story of a wife who kills her husband’s sister, thinking she is his lover, and in the end poisons her husband, her daughter, and the doctor and his wife). The story of a woman who is angry because the man she has wooed rejects her and sends him and his lover to their deaths is in La Châtelaide de Vergi, = Heptaméron, 7.10 = Bandello’s Le Novelle, 4.5.

Critical Literature
Wikeley (1983), Nishimura (2001), Chauvin (1892-1922)

Zelus appears in the following versions and secondary versions
Version Original Language Branch of Tradition Adapted from Erasto I (Versio Italico) L'Amabile di Continentia

Zelus is narrated in the following occurrences
Narrator Pages Enoscopus L'Amabile di Continentia

Zelus appears in the following manuscripts
This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database