Heinrich Kaufringer, Der feige Ehemann (ca. 1400)
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Maere and Novellas
Heinrich Kaufringer, Der feige Ehemann (ca. 1400)
Euling, K. (ed.): Heinrich Kaufringers Gedichte. (=StLV 182) Tübingen 1888. Vol. 6, p. 78–86
HKFE-1:
Promythion: A small pity is better than a big one. A knight is wooing a Straßburgian citizen famous for her beauty. She is rejecting him and complains to her husband how the knight is harassing her. He has the wooer come to him and tells his wife that he will hide arms in his room and take revenge on him. When the knight appears, armed only with a dagger, the wife asks him if he isn’t afraid of her husband. But he denies it and sticks his dagger through a sixfold plate harness.
Motif References:
K 1514.4.2 Husband hides in curtain to catch paramour. On entering paramour threatens to kill husband if he should appear
HKFE-175:
The hiding husband gets scared and doesn’t help his wife when the knight rapes her. When the knight has left she reproaches him but he says it is better to have a small damage done than the big damage he would have had. Epimythion: The cowardly husband is not absolutely right because if he would have come out of his hiding place there would have been no harm at all.
Motif References:
W 121 Cowardice
J 210 Choice between evils
T 471 Rape
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