Note 8 — Chapter IV

This story occurs in Scott’s Additional Arabian Nights as the Lady of Cairo and her four Gallants, [and in his Tales and Anecdotes, Shrewsbury, 1800, p. 136, as the story of the Merchant’s wife and her suitors]. It is also one of the Persian tales of Arouya [day 146 ff.]. It is a story of ancient celebrity in Europe as Constant du Hamel or la Dame qui attrapa un Prêtre, un Prévôt et un Forestier [Le Grand d’Aussy, Fabliaux et Contes. Paris, 1829, Vol. IV, pp. 246–56]. It is curious that the Fabliau alone agrees with the Hindu original in putting the lovers out of the way and disrobing them by the plea of the bath. (Note in Wilson’s Essays on Sanskrit Literature, edited by Dr. Rost, Vol. I, p. 173.) See also a story contributed by the late Mr. Damant to the Indian Antiquary, Vol. IX, pp. 2 and 3, and the XXVIIIth story in Indian Fairy Tales collected and translated by Miss Stokes, with the note at the end of the volume. General Cunningham is of opinion that the dénouement of this story is represented in one of the Bharhut Sculptures; see his Stúpa of Bharhut, p. 53. A faint echo of this story is found in Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, No. 55, pp. 359–362. Cp. also No. 72(b) in the Novellæ Morlini. (Liebrecht’s Dunlop, p. 497.)

Cp. the 67th Story in Coelho’s Contos Populares Portuguezes, and the 29th in the Pentamerone of Basile. There is a somewhat similar story in the English Gesta (Herrtage, No. XXV) in which three knights are killed.

A very similar story is quoted in Mélusine, p. 178, from Thorburn’s Bannu or our Afghan Frontier.