Translatio Viduæ: The Matron of Ephesus in Four Languages

Hans R. Runte

Dalhousie University

Translating in the Middle Ages was a multifarious enterprise which, defying any modern attempt at categorization, invites instead ever new explorations of its countless “tricks” in an ever expanding corpus of texts which have been medievally adapted, paraphrased, imitated, approximated, glossed, explained, commented upon, shortened, lengthened, reinterpreted, and often indeed translated. The foregoing terms, together with many similar ones, occur regularly in Jeanette Beer’s Medieval Translators to the mission of which the following case study may be yet another contribution.

The case in question is uncommonly alluring to students of translation in that it not only concerns a literary text as (in)famous as it is short, but involves also translations from Latin to German to French to English. In 1476/77 Johann Zainer was printing in Ulm an unusual book by a municipal physician (“Stadtarzt”), Hainrico Stainhöwel (Heinrich Steinhöwel), who had studied in Vienna and Padua and had compiled and translated a collection of Aesopic fables (Österley). Steinhöwel’s Latin-German Esopus was a great success.^[1] In 1480 an Augustinian monk and doctor of theology in Lyon, Julien Macho, interrupted his religious writing and translated Steinhöwel into French (Hecker); his Esope was printed in Lyon by Nicolas Philippi de Bensheym and Marc Reinhardi de Strasbourg and had sixteen re-editions^[2] to 1662 (Lyon, Paris, Antwerp, Rouen). Another four years later William Caxton based his Subtyl historyes and Fables of Esope (Lenaghan) on Macho, and the rest is history.

That history, however, has largely forgotten the pivotal role Brother Julien (and Dr. Steinhöwel) played in the translatio of a Romulean fable into an English tale. What kind of “accidents” of translation determined the evolution of the easily consoled widow commonly known as the Matron of Ephesus?

Steinhöwel copied his Latin source as competently as can be expected, changing nothing of import and adding only a contextually natural “anxius” (see [Appendix] A [sentence] 48) to the description of the soldier whom thieves had relieved of the hanged man he was guarding. Compared to his German translation (Appendix B), however, the Latin text appears as riddled with holes (the largest ones being A 2–7, 45–47, 53–55 and 57–60) as befits this traditionally bare-bone version. What did Steinhöwel add and where did he add it from?

Macho’s “Fable . . . du cheualier et de la femme vesue” (Appendix C) follows Steinhöwel fairly closely, but which version? He may have used the Latin text in at least thirty instances (not counting the transfer of “holes”), but in fully twenty-seven of them he could also have chosen either the German version (twenty-five times^[3]) or an altogether different, documentable source; that source competes with Steinhöwel’s German translation an additional eight times and is Macho’s only possible model in four instances (C 10, 13, 51, 62). He demonstrably does not translate one Latin and six German passages; in the remaining fifteen omissions he rejects any or all of his models. Already mere counting reveals Steinhöwel and Macho as typical medieval translators: as faithful as necessary but not necessarily literal; imitative and inventive; eclectic; sometimes befuddled and ultimately agenda-driven.

In comparison, Caxton follows Macho slavishly: half of his eight additions to the traditional story-line are Macho’s, and whenever Macho omits passages, so does Caxton (nineteen occurrences). Of his grand total of four deviations from Macho, three could have come from one or more of the other sources (D 47, 62, 64), and only once is he truly (and inconsequentially) original (D 7).

Where and how did the successive translators, Steinhöwel chronologically and qualitatively first among them, flesh out the Latin widow and twist her to their purposes?

The one addition from which flow all subsequent reinterpretive modifications occurs immediately after Steinhöwel’s promythium. “Femina que ammiserat virum” (A 8) would seem to be too laconic and nondescript a characterization to set the widow up properly for her plunge into reprehensibleness: instead of stumbling from bereavement into easy consolability she must fall into monstrous depravity from the acme of marital bliss; accordingly, she and her late husband are said to have “held one another overly dear” (B 2), to have “loved one another marvelously” (C 2), to have “loved moche eche other” (D 2). Innocuous on the surface, the banal detail is the stroke of a master moralist, but is it Steinhöwel’s? Or had he read this passage: “Quidam miles erat, qui vxorem pulchram habebat, quam miro modo dilexit, in tantum quod presencia sua bono modo carere non potuit” [There was a certain knight who had a beautiful wife in whom he delighted marvelously, so much so that he could not readily do without her presence]^[4]? Similarly, when the hanged-body guard and future widow-seducer discovers the theft of his dead charge, Steinhöwel makes him out to be “upset” and “bilious” (B 45), echoed by Macho’s “esbahy” and Caxton’s “abasshed,” unless he rendered thus the wonderful phrase: “Commota sunt omnia viscera eius” [All his guts are in an uproar]. Steinhöwel (followed closely by Macho and Caxton) fills the gap between the widow’s commiseration (A 52) and the exhumation of her husband (A 56) with banter (B 53–54) like this:

Verumtamen fac post meum consilium et nichil de bonis perdes nec de vita timebis . . . Dominus meus, qui moriebatur pro amore meo, hesterna die . . . erat sepultus. Illum de sepulcro extrahe et in loco latronis suspende.

[Really now, act according to my advice and you will lose none of your possessions nor have to fear for your life. My husband, who died out of love for me, was buried [only] yesterday. Pull him out of the grave and hang him in the thief’s place.]

Finally, and crowningly, Steinhöwel pushes his vilification of the widow to where Macho and Caxton elect not to tread, and in the process leaves no doubt as to his non-Romulean source: the widow’s mutilation of her husband’s corpse (B 59–60) is indeed the hallmark of the Matron story in the far-flung tradition of The Seven Sages of Rome (see Buchner 64–68):

Ait miles: . . . Latro . . . duos dentes amisit . . . vulnus in capite habebat et duas aures amisit . . . duobus testiculis carebat . . . Illa . . . lapidem accepit et eum in dentibus percussit . . . Accepit gladium, eum in capite percussit et plagam magnam fecit; deinde aures eius abscidit . . . Statim testiculos eius abscidit; hoc facto canibus ad commedendum proiecit.

[The guard said: Two of the thief’s teeth were missing, he had a head wound and both ears were gone, he was missing both testicles. The widow took [a] stone and struck [her dead husband] in the teeth. She took the sword and struck him on the head, making a huge wound; then she cut off his ears. Presently she cut off his testicles; this done, she threw [them] to the dogs to eat.]

In having the widow merely tear out her husband’s hair with her hands and teeth (for the thief was bald [B 60]^[5]), Steinhöwel reveals himself, here as well as in less scabrous situations, to be a judicious and economical adapter. He omits to mention, for example, that the husband had died of grief for having nicked his wife’s hand with a whittling knife, and when he spells out the husband’s actual death, he squeezes all the commotion^[6] the dying causes in the household into three words: “der man starb” (B 5). Or, on the occasion of the guard’s frequent pre-theft visits to the widow, when her attraction was not yet merely that of a last-ditch rescuer, Steinhöwel eschews “Domina, tu pulcra, tu generosa, tu graciosa, iuuenis et diues es” and opts for the blander “he spoke consolingly to her [B, C, D 37] in order to gain her favor” (B 38 only). Steinhöwel also cuts through the clumsy legal explanations^[7] in which The Seven Sages version entangles the guard in order to give the widow a reason to save him: all stipulations concerning lands, land or “mobilia et immobilia”^[8] are summed up in the succinct “by dem houpt,” “sur paine de la mort,” “vpon peyne to be hanged” (B, C, D 46).

Did Macho ever do any comparative editing of either or both of Steinhöwel’s texts by consulting The Seven Sages, of which he could have had, like Steinhöwel, a Latin version or, again like Steinhöwel, a version in his own vernacular, including one that had been translated from the original French into Latin and back into French (see Runte 1989)? He edits out his immediate source eighteen and the Latin fable seven times; he does not avail himself of The Seven Sages in fourteen instances. On the other hand, he demonstrably edits in four passages from The Seven Sages (C 10, 13, 51, 62); he is independently creative seven times (C 4, 6, 15, 42, 63, 70, 72). Except for one trivial filler,^[9] his Seven Sages borrowings are moderately significant. The first one (C 10) adds the graveyard hut, house, mausoleum (A 9) or lodge^[10] in which the immovable widow dispenses warmth (B 24) and/or water (A 29) and advice; Steinhöwel, interestingly, has a hut, too (“huot” [B 32]), but it is the guard’s. The second one underscores the widow’s initial determination to resist those who beg her not to let herself waste away in her hut: “pour beau parler ne pour prieres ne pour dons ne pour menasses de ses parens” (C 13) “de celle loge ne se voulut onques partir” (C 11).^[11] Lastly, while the repetition of the legalities concerning the guard’s duties (see note 7) are initially avoided by both Steinhöwel (B 19) and Macho (C 19), the latter revisits the clause in C 51 (there is no A or B 51), with a view perhaps to giving the widow a stronger excuse for what she is about to do in order to save the guard from the death penalty. Two of Macho’s more important omissions tend toward a similar reading: not only does he not adopt the mutilation scene from The Seven Sages, he even rejects Steinhöwel’s soft-core rendering (B 59–60); and he refrains from Steinhöwelian moralizing (B 65–68) and from the ultimate atrocity in The Seven Sages: “Gladium extraxit et vno ictu caput eius amputavit” [(The guard) drew his sword and in one stroke chopped her head off] (corresponds to the mild B 67).

Macho’s seven independent additions are narrative and moralistic fillers whose only interest lies in the fact that Caxton repeats them all: e.g. “Et quant l’on le portoit en terre”  [And as men wold have borne hym in to his graue . . . there to be buryed] (C, D 6); the guard shuttles between the widow’s hut and his station “et de nul il ne se doubtoit”  [doubtynge hym of no body (no pun intended?)] (C, D 42); after the mutilation, the widow says: “Mon amy, ie te prie qu’il soit bien celé”  [My ryght dere frend I pray the that this be kept wel secrete] (C, D 63); the dead may have mourners “mais le dueil est tantost passé” [but that sorowe is gone and passyd] (C, D 70), while the survivors live with those who fear them “mais leur crainte est a leur mort” [but theyr drede wantith and faylleth whan they ben dede] (C, D 72), which makes no more sense in English than it does in French. Only Macho’s very first addition, dealing with the husband’s death, is truly curious in that it introduces a learned reference to the cutter of life’s thread in Greek mythology: “Or aduint que par les effors de Atropos,^[12] lesquelz il nous fault tous souffrir et passer, le bon homme alla de vie a trespas” [It happed thenne by the effors of Atropos or dethe the whiche we al must suffre that the sayd man deyde] (C, D 3–5).

Caxton strays from Macho’s text no more than three times. He is environmentally correct and for once original in specifying that the husband’s grave “was withoute the toune” (D 7). When the guard realizes his dilemma, Caxton prints: “This knyght thenne seynge his iugement” (D 47), for which the only extant model is provided by The Seven Sages, which he could have known in Latin or English: “[Miles] intra se cogitauit . . . vbi consilium queram. . . ? Uadam ad eam et consilium queram” [The guard thought to himself: Where can I look for advice? I might go to (the widow) and ask her for advice]. And perhaps he knew Steinhöwel’s work as well, for if he did not invent the guard’s “galhows ward,” he could only have taken it from the German’s German (B, D 32).

On the level of the Matron story’s micro-texts there are still a few translational incidentals worth noting. The nature of the hanged man’s crime remains imprecise: in the Latin fable he is simply a “sinner” or “transgressor” (A 16) whom Steinhöwel, perhaps influenced by The Seven Sages’ “latro,” makes into a thief (B 16, 43, 46, 58–59); Macho and Caxton remain vaguer: he is a “malfacteur” (C 16), “larron” (C 51) or “pendu” (C 44) for the former, and a “mysdoer” (D 16) or “dede man” (D 44) for the latter, although Caxton does later translate “larron” by “theef” (D 51, 54). Whether Steinhöwel and/or Caxton appreciated the fine ironic point of a “stolen thief” is hard to say. . . .

The reason for which Steinhöwel has the guard seek out the widow initially, i.e., a bad case of thirst (A, B, C, D 21), is badly contaminated by his freezing “tantum . . . quod videbatur militi spiritum emittere, nisi posset se ad ignem calefacere” [so much that the guard was to be seen giving up his ghost if he could not warm himself at some fire] in The Seven Sages, which fire Steinhöwel gratuitously supplies in B 24 (omitted in C, D 24). It is tempting to toy with the thought that this addition set the good doctor off on a path of pyrogenous rhetoric: having met the widow, the guard’s “heart was inflamed” (“sein hercz entzünt was” [B 36]), and the widow’s former love for her husband ends up being “totally extinguished” (“gancz verloschen” [B 66]); both formulations are exclusively Steinhöwel’s.

More importantly, perhaps, the translators differ in assigning the exhumation and body-substitution tasks, thus spreading or focusing the attending blame. In Steinhöwel and Caxton, the widow alone opens the grave (B, D 55), whereas The Seven Sages has “sepulcrum apperuerunt.” In the Latin fable, in Steinhöwel and in Caxton, the widow alone “maritum de loco levavit” (A 56), while Macho seems to harken back to The Seven Sages: both members of the team “militem extraxerunt” (“dester-rerent” [C 56]). But when it comes to stringing the corpse up, the configuration of moralists changes: fable, Macho and Caxton each has the widow do the work alone (A, C, D 61); guard and widow cooperate in The Seven Sages (“corpus defuncti . . . suspenderunt”); and Steinhöwel not only deviates from the Latin text he has just edited (“Illa . . . suspendit” [A 52/61]) but botches the story’s climax by having the guard do the hanging (B 61 [Then the knight (guard) took him and hung him on the cross (gallows)]). Was he retreating from the terrible mutilation scene (B 59–60) and from the fact, exclusive to him, that the widow had single-handedly wound the rope around her husband’s neck (B 57)?

Steinhöwel’s translation of the body-snatchers (“ne a suis noctu subtraheretur” [A 19]) as the thief’s friends (“von synen fründen” [B 19]) rather than as his relatives (“sui”) recalls the crucial importance of this detail in Marie de France’s courtly reinterpretation of the story (Runte “‘Alfred’s Book’”) in which the hanged man’s body was removed and buried not only by a family member but by none other than the knightly guard himself. Yet courtliness is obviously no longer a concern of Steinhöwel’s, nor of Macho’s or Caxton’s who express the removal in the passive voice (C, D 19).

Finally, and incidentally, the almost Cæsarean ring to the fabular triads “accessit . . . accepit . . . bibit” (A 26, 28, 29), or “accepit . . . bibit . . . abiit” (A 28, 29, 31), being a blow-by-blow account of the guard’s first visit to the widow, may not have escaped Steinhöwel who translates just as rhythmically “er kam . . . sie gab . . . er trank” (B26, 28, 29) or “sie gab . . . er trank . . . er . . . schied” (B 28, 29, 31) [He came, she gave (him water), he drank, he left]. Macho and Caxton bury the stylistic feature under a mountain of words (C, D 28, 29). On the other hand, thanks to the “génie de la langue française,” Macho coins, albeit unwittingly, “il auoit perdu son pendu” (C 44), compared to which Caxton’s “he had loste his dede man” (D 44) is deadly flat; if there is a “génie de la langue anglaise,” it shines when widow and guard replace the thief “theefly” (D 64).

A doctor, a monk, a printer, competent translators all, in the medieval sense of the term, even if, serendipitously bound to one or two isolated sources and more or less intent on more or less radical personal reinterpretations, none of them could have been aware of the greater scheme of matters Ephesian. They worked, separated from the Matron tradition represented by Petronius, John of Salisbury, and Marie de France, in the world of the Romulean fable where they (or rather Steinhöwel) operated a singular conflation of its two hemispheres: that of the Romulus Nilantii, of The Seven Sages of Rome, of a fabliau, of Jean Le Fèvre’s translation of the Liber lamentationum Matheoluli, of the Ci nous dit; and that of the Romulus ordinarius, of the Isopet I, of the (very fragmentary) Isopet de Lyon, of Eustache Deschamps. The contaminations or cross-fertilizations they caused were not unique (e.g., elements of the Nilantius had already flown into the Ordinarius in Nevelet’s [once known as Walter l’Anglais] collection, and MS. Arsenal 3142^[13] of Marie de France’s fables shows traces of The Seven Sages), but the printed book was to guarantee them an immeasurably more illustrious afterlife, from Macho to Brantôme to La Fontaine to the innumerable Matrones and Veuves of the Enlightenment (Fuselier, La Motte, Restif de la Bretonne, Le Gay, Radet, etc.) and beyond, to speak but of France.

Brantôme offers a perfect closing example of the extraordinary convolutions of the Matron’s (hi)story. During a dinner party at Dorat’s, Brantôme had heard the host tell what he called a “conte de Lampridius,” which found its way into Brantôme’s Vie des dames galantes. There, the guard “jouyt [de la veuve] par deux fois, la tenant couchée sur le cercueil mesme du mary; puis après se jurèrent mariage” (212); later on it is discovered that “le pendu de devant avoit une oreille coupée . . . [la veuve] en fit de mesme pour représenter mieux l’autre” (213). Dorat’s “Lampridius” was quickly identified as none other than Petronius in Claude Guichard’s Funérailles (1581), which makes Brantôme’s anecdote a rare cocktail of Classical literature with a twist of Seven Sages.

Appendices

(Numbers cross-reference translation units)

A. Steinhöwel’s “De muliere et

marito mortuo” (Österley 152)

(1) Casta est illa mulier (ut puto) que importunum non patitur. Sicut auctor huius tituli prosequitur fabulam. (8) Femina, que ammiserat virum, (9) contulit se ad mausoleum, ubi maritus erat positus, (12) ut lugubres ibi ageret dies. (14) Contigit ut (16) aliquis pecasset (17) et de lege accepit sententiam et suspensus est in cruce, (18) custos illi ponitur miles, (19) ne a suis noctu subtrahetur. (20) Qui cum eum observaret (21) siti fatigatus, (23) post voces (26) accessit ad mausoleum (27) aque pusillum rogans. (28) Accepit, (29) bibit (31) et exinde ipse abiit. (33) Et quia illic viderat feminam (35) rediit (37) et consolatur eam. (40) Iterum id fecit et tertio, (41) et dum sepe convenit (43) subtrahitur ille, qui pendebat in cruce. (44) Miles rediens non inveniebat cruciatum. (48) Confugiens ad pedes mulieris anxius volutare se cepit. (49) Que illic sic ait: Quid agam? quid vis, faciam. (50) At ille: Subveni, inquit, mihi, a te quero consilium. (52) Illa misericors facta est militi. (56) Maritum de loco levavit (61) et in crucem nocte suspendit. (64) Celatur furtivum facinus, (65) misericordia pro tanta militi oportuit officiari mulierem. (66) Mulier non erubuit obsequi officioso, (67) et que iam dudum caste fuit, scelus utrunque admisit. (69) Habent ergo mortui, quod doleant, (71) et vivi quod timeant.

B. Steinhöwel’s “Fabel von der frowen

und ierem toten man” (Österley 152–53)

(1) Küsch ist dise frow, die von nieman gebetten und ernstlich angestrenget würt. Darvon der maister dies büchlis ain sölliche fabel seczet. (2) Ain man und syn wyb hettent ainander über lieb, (3) und füget sich, daz (5) der man starb, (8) drumb syn wyb so laidig ward, (9) daz sie von dem grab ieres lieben mannes (11) nümer me komen wolt, (12) sonder mit truren, laid und klagen iere übrigen tag des lebens by im und synem grab vertryben. (14) In kurcz darnach beschach, daz (16) ain dieb (17) durch das recht zuo dem tod ward verurtailet, an das krücz ze henken. (18) Den gehenkten ze behütten ward ain ritter geseczet von dem künig, (19) daz er von synen fründen nit ab dem krücz gestolen und hin getragen würde. (20) Und die wyl der ritter also hütet (21) ward in über ser dürsten (22) und bedacht sich, wa hin er sölte, (23) und er höret die frowen klagen by dem grab ieres lieben mannes, (24) und sach das füwer. (25) Dar durch er bewegt ward, da hin ze gaun den durst leschen. (26) Er kam da hin (27) und bat die frowen umb ain wenig waßers; (28) sie gab im, (29) er trank (30) und tröstet er die trurigen frowen mit senfften schmaichenden worten (31) und schied wider hinweg (32) an syn huot. (34) Aber er belib nit lang, (35) sonder kam er wider zuo der frowen, (36) von der sein hercz entzünt was (36) und sprach ir zuo (38) umb ieren gunst ze erwerben, (39) und gieng dann wider an syn huot. (40) Daz beschach so offt, (43) das im der dieb von dem krücz ward gestolen. (45) Er ward über laidig und billich, (46) wann im by dem houpt von dem künig befolhen was, den dieb ze bewaren, (50) und klaget es der frowen bittend umb ieren trüwen raut. (53) Die frow sprach: Gehab dich wol, ich hab ainen weg funden, durch den du von truren wurdst erlediget. (54) Wir wellen mynen man an syn stat henken. (55) Da mit öffnet sie das grab und (56) nam den man dar uß und (57) band im den strik umb synen hals und (58) gab in dem ritter an daz crücz für den verlornen dieb ze henken. (59) Do sprach der ritter: O frow, unser fund ist nit guot, wann der dieb was glaczot. Wann man dann den hangen sähe, so würd unser list gemerket. (60) Do sprach die frow: Dem kan ich wol tuon, und ze hand rouffet sie im uß syn har mit henden und mit dem mund, und macht in kal, als der dieb was. (61) Do nam in der ritter und henket in das krücz. (65) Umb die underdienst gegenainander verbunden sie sich selber zuo früntschafft des gemahel bettes, (66) und ward die nüw früntschaft für die alte erwelet, die nun gancz verloschen was. (67) Und fiel die küsch frow umb klaine bewegnüß des bitters in zwifach übel. (68) Dar uß merk klaine trüw und stätikait der frowen, wa sie hart an gestrenget werdent, (71) und machent den lebenden angst und sorg, (69) und pyn den toten.

C. Macho’s “Fable . . . du cheualier

et de la femme vesue” (Hecker 106–07)

(1) La femme est grandement a louer qui vit sans reproche en cestui monde, dont Esope recite une telle fable d’(2)ung homme et d’une femme qui se entra-moyent merueilleusement. (3) Or aduint que (4) par les effors de Atropos, lesquelz il nous fault tous souffrir et passer, (5) le bon homme alla de vie a trespas. (6) Et quant l’on le portoit en terre (8) sa femme en demenoit grant dueil et si en crya et pleura piteusement. (9) Et quant il fut enseuely, (10) elle voulut demourer sus sa fosse, sus laquelle elle fit une petite loge, (11) et de celle loge ne se voulut onques partir (13) pour beau parler ne pour prieres ne pour dons ne pour menasses de ses parens. (14) Or aduint le cas que (15) en la ville d’icelle femme (16) ung homme malfacteur (17) fut condempné a estre pendu, et (19) affin qu’il ne fust osté du gibet (18) fur commandé a garder a ung cheualier. (20) Et ainsi que le cheualier le gardoyt, (21) grant soif luy print. (24) Et quant il vit la loge de ceste femme, (26) il vint a elle (27) en luy priant qu’elle luy donnast a boire. (28) Et elle luy en donna tres-uoulontiers et de bon cueur. (29) Et le cheualier beut de grant appetit comme celluy quiu auoit grant soif, et quant il eust beu, (31) il s’en retourna. (35) Et une aultrefoys reuint a la femme (37) pour la consoler et conforter (40) et vint iusques a trois foys. (41) Et ainsi qu’il alloit et venoit (42) et de nul il ne se doubtoit, (43) son pendu fut osté du gibet. (44) Et quant le cheualier fut reuenu a son gibet, voyant qu’il auoit perdu son pendu, (45) il fut grandement esbahy et non sans cause, (46) car on lui auoit baillé en garde sur paine de la mort. (48) Et alors il s’en retourna a la femme et se iecta a ses pieds comme mort. (49) Et [elle] luy demanda: Mon amy, que veulx tu que ie te face? (50) Helas! m’amye, ie te prie que tu me conseilles et secoures a mon besoing, (51) car pource que ie n’ay pas bien gardé mon larron que l’en m’a desrobé, le roy me fera mourir. (53) Et elle luy dist: N’ayes paour, mon amy, car ie trouuerai bien façon et maniere de toy deliurer, (54) car nous mectrons mon mari au lieu de luy. (56) Et desterrerent son mary et (61) de nuict elle le pendit en lieu de l’aultre. (62) Et puis la femme dit au cheualier: (63) Mon amy, ie te prie qu’il soit bien celé, (64) car nous le faisons larrecineusement. (69) Et pourtant les mors ont qui les plaignent et en maynent le dueil, (70) mais le dueil est tantost passé. (71) Et les vis ont qui les creignent, (72) mais leur crainte est a leur mort.

D. Caxton’s “Fable . . . of the knyght

and of the wydowe” (Lenaghan 111–12)

(1) The woman whiche lyueth in this world without reproche or blame is worthely to be gretely preysed. Whereof Esope reherceth suche a fable of (2) a man and of a woman whiche loued moche eche other. (3) It happed thenne (4) by the effors of Atropos or dethe the whiche we al must suffre that (5) the sayd man deyde. (6) And as men wold haue borne hym in to his graue [(7) whiche was withoute the toune] there to be buryed, (8) his wyf made grete sorowe and wepte pyteously. (9) And whanne he was buryed (10) she wold abyde stylle vpon the graue and lete do make a lytyll lodge or hows therupon (11) and oute of this lodge she wold neuer departe (13) for no prayer ne fayr world neyther for ony yeftes ne for menaces of her parentes. (14) Now it befell (15) in the toun that (16) mysdoer (17) was condampned to be hanged. (19) And to thende that he shold not be taken fro the galhows (18) hit was thenne commaunded that a knyght shold kepe hym. (20)And as the knyght kepte hym (21) grete thurste took hym. (24) And as he perceyued the lodge of the sayd woman (26) he wente to her (27) and prayd her to gyue hym somme drynke. (28) And she with good herte gaf hym to drynke. (29) And the knyght dranke with grete appetyte as he that had grete thurste & whan he hyad dronke (31) he torned ageyne (32) to the galhows ward. (35) This knyght came another tyme to the woman (37) for to comforte her. (40) And thre tymes he dyd soo. (41) And as he was thus goyng and comynge (42) doubtynge hym of no body (43) his hanged man wss taken and had fro the galhows. (44) And whanne the knyght was come ageyne to the galhows & sawe that he had loste his dede man (45) he was gretely abasshed & not withoute cause. (46) For hit was charged to hym vpon peyne to be hanged yf he were take awey. (47) This knyght thenne seynge his Iugement (48) tourned and went ageyne to the sayd woman & cast hym at her feete and laye before her as he had be dede. (49) And she demaunded of hym: My frend what wylt thow that I doo for the? (50) Allas, sayd he, I praye the that thow socoure and counceylle me now at my grete nede. (51) For by cause I haue not kept wel my theef whiche men haue rauysshed fro me the kynge shalle make me to be put to dethe. (53) And the woman sayd: Haue no drede my frend. For well I shalle fynde the manere wherby thow shalt be delyuerd. (54) For we shall take my husbond and shalle hange hym in stede of thy theef. (55) Thenne beganne she to delue (56) and tooke oute of the erthe her husbond and (61) at nygt she hanged hym at the galhows in stede of the other (62) & sayd to the knyght: (63) My ryght dere frend I pray the that this be kept wel secrete. (64) For we doo hit theefly. (69) And thus the dede men haue somme whiche make sorowe for them (70) but that sorowe is sone gone and passyd. (71) And they whiche ben on lyue haue some whiche drede them (72) but theyr drede wantith and faylleth whan they ben dede.

References

Beer, Jeanette, ed. Medieval Translators and Their Craft. Studies in Medieval Culture 25. Kalamazoo: Western
Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 1989.

Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de. Vie des dames galantes. Paris: Garnier, 1841.

Buchner, Georg. Die Historia septem sapientum nach der Innsbrucker Handschrift vom Jahre 1342. Erlangen: Junge, 1889.

Grisebach, Eduard. Die Wanderung der Novelle von der treulosen Wittwe durch die Weltlitteratur. Berlin: Lehmann, 1889.

Hecker, Beate, ed. Julien Macho[s] Esope . . . nach der Edition von 1486. Diss. Hamburg: Romanisches Seminar der Universität Hamburg, 1982.

Lecoy de la Marche, A. Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues . . . d’Étienne de Bourbon. . . . Paris, 1877.

Lenaghan, R. T., ed. Caxton’s Aesop. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967.

Österley, Hermann, ed. Steinhöwels Äsop. Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 117. Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1873.

Runte, Hans R. “‘Alfred’s Book,’ Marie de France, and the Matron of Ephesus.” Romance Philology 36.4 (May 1983): 556–64.

___. “From the Vernacular to Latin and Back: The Case of The Seven Sages of Rome.” Beer 93–133.

Spiegel, Harriet, ed. and trans. Marie de France: Fables. Toronto Medieval Texts and Translations 5. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1987.

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^[1]Translations in Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Czech.

^[2]It was translated into Dutch as Dye historien ende fabulen van Esopus (Antwerp: Gheraert Leeu, 1485).

^[3]He knew more German than his most recent editor lets on (Hecker lxxxvii–lxxxviii), to wit the peculiar case of Fable 48 on women’s libidinousness, whose Latin version Steinhöwel prints (151) but explicitly (152) refuses to translate; Macho very wordily translates only Steinhöwel’s refusal (105). Much less prudish than the two men, Marie de France had closed her collection with that very fable (“De la femme e de sa geline,” Spiegel 254–57).

^[4]All translations are mine.

^[5]My Germanist collegue Ralf-Henning Steinmetz (Universität Kiel) was unable, regrettably, to confirm the mention of baldness in the German Seven Sages. He most obligingly reminded me, however, of Grisebach’s quotation (47) from a variant version (in a manuscript in Tours, ed. Lecoy de la Marche) of Étienne de Bourbon’s adaptation of Jacques de Vitry’s Matron story in which the thief is/was indeed “calvus,” and one-footed to boot!

^[6]Here’s a “picturesque” part of it: “Miles . . . quasi in capite percussus ad terram cecidit . . . antequam sacerdos venit, emisit spiritum” [The knight, as if struck in the head, fell to the floor, and before the priest (could) get there, gave up his ghost].

^[7]“Erat . . . lex . . . quod, si latro esset . . . ablatus, vicecomes . . . terras suas perderet [corresponds to B 19] . . . Lex . . . est talis quod, si latro . . . ablatus fuerit, vicecomes totam terram suam ammittet” (corresponds to C, D 51) [The law was that, if a (hanged) thief was stolen, the guard would lose all his lands (etc.)].

^[8]“Heu michi, quid feci? Iam omnia mobilia et immobilia perdidi” (corresponds to B 46) [Poor me, what did I do? All my possessions and land-holdings are as good as lost].

^[9]C 62 is “Tunc ait domina militi” in The Seven Sages.

^[10]“. . . illa . . . votum deo uouit quod nunquam de illo recederet . . . Amici . . . vltra sepulcrum eius paruam casam ei fecerunt” [The widow swore an oath to God that she would never move from (her husband’s grave). Friends made her a small hut over his grave].

^[11]“O domina karissima, quid prodest anime sue ut in isto loco maneas? Melius est tibi . . . largas elemosynas pro anima sua perpetrare, quam . . . te . . . consumere” [Dearest lady, what good does it do your soul to stay in this place? It would be better for you to give generous alms for the sake of your soul than to consume yourself].

^[12]Together with Lachesis and Clotho, the spinner of the thread of life, Atropos forms Moira, or Fate. (I am indebted to my colleague Roland Bonnel for having pointed me to The Oxford Classical Dictionary.)

^[13]Erroneously published by Bon-Joseph Dacier as a fabliau (Mémoires. . . de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 41 [1780]: 535–37).