De mulierum subtili decepcione

Summarising the version of the story found in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 219 of the Latin Gesta Romanorum, Sebastian Sobecki writes:

The narrative is a moralizing coming-of-age tale in which Jonathas, the youngest son of the emperor, receives three talismans, a ring, a brooch, and a magic carpet. He then attends university [...] and falls in love with the prostitute Fellicula, who on three separate occasions cheats him of one of these three items, each time forcing Jonathas to return to his mother, who admonishes him with a variant of the same life lesson. When Fellicula has obtained all three enchanted items, she leaves Jonathas behind in a distant country, after which she is stricken with sickness. Abandoned at the far end of the world, Jonathas makes his way back, acquiring along the way both poisons and the means to heal Fellicula. Once he has returned, he pretends to heal her, but instead gives her the poisonous items that cause Fellicula to die a gruesome death.{{Cite journal |last=Sobecki |first=Sebastian |date=2023 |title=Authorized Realities: The Gesta Romanorum and Thomas Hoccleve’s Poetics of Autobiography |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/723872 |journal=Speculum |volume=98 |issue=2 |pages=536–558 |doi=10.1086/723872 |issn=0038-7134}}{{rp|547}}

The story was influential in medieval Europe: it was translated into Middle English prose, a version of which three manuscripts survive ([http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=0&ref=Harley_MS_7333 London, British Library, MS Harley 7333]; London, British Library, Additional MS 9066 [folio 20v]; and [https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-KK-00001-00006/1 Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Kk I. 6] [folios [https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-KK-00001-00006/482 482v]–[https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-KK-00001-00006/488 488v]), in the first of which the story is called "Godfridus a Wise Emperoure".Gesta Romanorum, ed. by Sidney J. H. Herrtage, Early English Text Society, extra series, 33 (London: Trübner, 1879), pp. 180–96. This Middle English prose translation was itself translated into Icelandic as Jónatas ævintýri, probably in 1429–34.{{Cite book |title=The Story of Jonatas in Iceland |publisher=Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Ísland |year=1997 |isbn=997981960X |editor-last=Jorgensen |editor-first=Peter A. |series=Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, 45 |location=Reykjavík}}{{rp|clxiii}} Jónatas ævintýri was a source for the Icelandic Viktors saga ok Blávus, which in turn lent Jónatas-material to Sigrgarðs saga frœkna.{{rp|clxiii-clxv}}

A separate translation from Latin into Middle English was undertaken by Thomas Hoccleve, as the fifth and final section of the work known as his Series. This is a 672-line Middle English verse rendition.{{Cite book |title=Selections from Hoccleve |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1981 |isbn=0198710836 |editor-last=Seymour |editor-first=M. C. |location=Oxford |pages=139}}{{Citation |last=Richardson |first=Gavin |title=8 Disenchantment: Hoccleve's Tale of Jonathas and Male Revenge Fantasy |date=2018-01-01 |work=Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West |pages=267–287 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004363809/B9789004363809_010.xml |access-date=2025-03-11 |publisher=Brill |language=en |doi=10.1163/9789004363809_010 |isbn=978-90-04-36380-9}} The copy of the Latin Gesta Romanorum used by Hoccleve for this purpose was identified in 2023 as London, British Library, MS Harley 219. Hoccleve's poem was later incorporated into William Browne's 1614 poem The Shepheards Pipe.{{Cite journal |last=Brogan |first=Boyd |date=2017 |title=“Some Other Kind of Lore”: Satire and Self-Governance in Spenserian Poetry |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4f22733b-c169-458a-bd45-12f85839c3d6/download |journal=Studies in Philology |language=en |volume=114 |issue=1 |pages=67–96 |doi=10.1353/sip.2017.0002 |issn=1543-0383}}

• See Gesta Romanorum.

• Gesta Romanorum, ed. by Sidney J. H. Herrtage, Early English Text Society, extra series, 33 (London: Trübner, 1879), pp. [https://archive.org/details/publicationsextr00earluoft/page/180/mode/2up 180–96] (presenting the text from London, British Library, MS Harley 7333 alongside the text from London, British Library, Additional MS 9066, with variant readings from Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Kk I. 6 given in the apparatus to the latter text).

• '[https://www.luminarium.org/medlit/jonathas.htm The Tale of Jonathas]', in Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, in the Huntington Library Ms. HM 111 (Formerly Phillips Ms. 8151), the Durham Univ. Ms. Cosin V.III.9, and Huntington Library Ms. HM 744 (Formerly Ashburnham Ms. Additional 133), vol. 1 ed. by Frederick J. Furnivall, vol. 2 ed. by I. Gollancz, rev. edn by Jerome Mitchell and A. I. Doyle, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 61, 73 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), I 219–42 {{ISBN|9780197225837}}.
• {{Cite book |title=Selections from Hoccleve |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1981 |isbn=0198710836 |editor-last=Seymour |editor-first=M. C. |location=Oxford |pages=93–102}}
• {{Cite book |last=Occleve |first=Thomas |title='My compleinte' and other poems |date=2001 |publisher=University of Exeter Press |isbn=978-0-85989-701-3 |editor-last=Ellis |editor-first=Roger |series=Exeter medieval texts and studies |location=Exeter}}

• {{Cite book |title=The Story of Jonatas in Iceland |publisher=Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi |year=1997 |isbn=997981960X |editor-last=Jorgensen |editor-first=Peter A. |series=Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, 45 |location=Reykjavík}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/bibliography/BIB1489?rid=hyp.1409.19991101t123123 Middle English Compendium bibliography entry] for Hoccleve's Tale of Jonathas

Category:Wisdom literature

Category:Anecdotes