Note 69 — Chapter III
Edward Rehatsek translation
I reproduce the following notes on treasure-trees from my paper on the Franklin’s Tale (entitled “The Damsel’s Rash Promise”) in Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” printed for the Chaucer Society, p. 336:
In the Kathá Sarit Ságara—an ancient Sanskrit story-book—we read of trees with golden trunks, branches of jewels, the clear white flowers of which were clusters of pearls; golden lotuses, etc. Aladdin, it will be remembered, found in the cave, where was deposited the magic lamp, trees bearing “fruit” of emeralds and other gems of great price, with which he took care to stuff his pockets.
In the mediæval romance of Alexander we are told how the world-conqueror jousted with Porus for his kingdom, and having overthrown him, he found in the palace of the vanquished monarch innumerable treasures, and amongst others a vine of which the branches were gold, the leaves emerald, and the fruit of other precious stones—a fiction, says Dunlop, which seems to have been suggested by the golden vine which Pompey carried away from Jerusalem.
The garden of Duke Isope, as described in the Tale of Beryn (Supp. Canterbury Tales: Ch. Soc., p. 84), had a similar tree:
“In mydward of this garden stant a feire tre, Of alle maner levis that under sky [there] be, I-forgit and i-fourmyd, eche in his degre, Of sylvir, and of goldè fyne, that lusty ben to see.”
As the treasures coveted by the Arimaspians were guarded by griffins, and the golden apples of the Hesperides by a dragon, so this garden of Duke Isope was kept by eight “tregetours,” or magicians, who looked like “abominabill wormys,” enough to frighten the bravest man on earth.
The Italian poet Boiardo, in the 12th canto of his Orlando Innamorato, represents the virtuous Tisbina as promising her love to Iroldo, who is madly enamoured of her, on condition that he perform a certain task for her: “Beyond the forest of Barbary,” says she, “is a fair garden, which has an iron wall. Herein entrance can be obtained by four gates: one Life keeps, Death, another, Poverty, another, and Riches, another. Whoso goes therein must depart by the opposite gate. In the midst is a tree of vast height, far as an arrow may mount aloft; that tree is of marvellous price, for whenever it blossoms it puts forth pearls, and it is called the Treasure-Tree, for it has apples of emerald and boughs of gold. A branch of this tree,” adds the fair Tisbina, “I must have, otherwise I am in heavy case.”