Caupona
The Tavern
Note: This is the third of three stories about married women competing to see who can torment their husband the most, told in sequence by the sage Machidas in the Storia di Stefano (R). It follows Tergi and Pirus incantata.
While her husband is away, a wife decorates her house like a tavern. She hangs a tavern's sign out front, sets up tables and long benches, hires waiters and bar tenders, and turns the front room into that of an inn full of patrons and guests. When her husband returns, he opens the door to find his house overflowing - and in the next room, his wife in bed with a stranger. He begins to shout, but three of the patrons grab him and drive him from the building. The husband goes to his wife's family to complain, and while he is away, the wife quickly sets all the rights - the guest leave, the front room is returned to normal, and all looks as it should. When her husband returns, with her parents in tow, they all are faced with an ordinary home, and a confused-seeming wife, who acts shocked and offended by his claims. Both the husband and the parents eventually decide he must have been mistaken, and have entered the wrong house by mistake.
[Added by Jane Bonsall]
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Nishimura notes the following: Motifs and Type: TMI J2316: Husband made to believe that his house has moved during his absence. K1545: Wives wager as to who can best fool her husband. ATU 1406: The three clever Wives Wager. Reference stories: Stories about three wives who make fun of their husbands and their bets include Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, 231 ‘A man who hated her husband made him drunk…’ and 248 ‘A wicked woman,…’; Fabliau MR 138 ‘Des III dames qui troverent l’anel au conte’ (par Haisel); Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 866 ‘Drei Weiber machten ire Männer zu Thoren’; La Fontaine, Contes, 2.7 ‘La Gageure des trois commères’; Ortutay, Hungarian Folktales, 32 ‘Who pays the Check?’ and others. Bibliography, M. Liebrecht, 'Von den drei Frauen'. |
| Critical Literature |
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| Nishimura (2001), Rajna (1880), Rajna (1878) |
| Caupona appears in the following versions and secondary versions |
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| Caupona is narrated in the following occurrences | ||||
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| Caupona appears in the following manuscripts |
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| This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database |