Vidua
Critical Literature
No critical literature available
The inset story appears in the following manuscripts
The inset story appears in the following versions and secondary versions
The Widow
This popular antifeminist tale tells of a knight who 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.
As Nishimura points out (2001), this story closely resembles Petronius's narrative of the 'Widow of Ephesus' from the Satyricon. The motif of the 'soon-consoled widow' appears throughout European and Middle Eastern medieval literary culture.
