Note 11 — Chapter CXXIV

This story is known in Europe, and may perhaps be the original source of Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that Ends Well.” At any rate there is a slight resemblance in the leading idea of the two stories. It bears a close resemblance to the story of Sorfarina, No. 36 in Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen, and to that of Sapia in the Pentamerone of Basile. In the Sicilian and in the Neapolitan tale a prince is angry with a young lady who, when teaching him, gave him a box on the ear, and marries her in order to avenge himself by ill-treating her; but finding that he has, without suspecting it, had three children by her, he is obliged to seek a reconciliation. Dr. Köhler in his note on the Sicilian tale gives no other parallel than Basile’s tale, which is the 6th of the Vth day, Vol. II, p. 204 of Liebrecht’s translation.