Of hym that said there were but two commandementes

Pay attention and life has plenty of reminders to stay humble. No matter how many books you read, no matter plays you attend, no matter how many conversations with clever people - there is always something surprising to learn.

William Hazlitt is an essayists of whom I have known for many years and have never, to my recollection, read. But he is only the vehicle for reminding me that we never know as much as we might think.

In searching for an essay by Hazlitt, I come across Shakespeare Jest-Books; Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed to Have Been Used by Shakespeare edited by William Carew Hazlitt. Not the essayist William Hazlitt from half a century earlier.

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What is this? I have read a good number of books about Shakespeare and I don't recall ever having heard of these. From Wikipedia.

The title of Shakespeare's Jest Book has been given to two quite different early Tudor period collections of humorous anecdotes, published within a few years of each other. The first was The Hundred Merry Tales, the only surviving complete edition of which was published in 1526. The other, published about 1530, was titled Merry Tales and Quick Answers and originally contained 113 stories. An augmented edition of 1564 contained 140.

The explanation of the title comes from a reference to one or other collection in William Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing in which the character Beatrice has been accused 'that I had my good wit out of the 100 Merry Tales' (II.sc.1). By that time it seems that the two works were being confounded with each other.

Contents

The stories in the 1526 Hundred Merry Tales are largely set in England, mostly in London or the surrounding area, and contain the stock figures of stupid clergymen, unfaithful wives, and Welshmen, the butt of many jokes at the time. Most are followed by a comment on what can be learned from the story. The book's Victorian editors identified a few Italian and French sources from earlier centuries but it was mainly a depository for popular lore that was to figure in more focussed collections published later. In particular, one story there (Of the thre wyse men of Gotam, 24) features the proverbial villagers of Gotham. Another (Of mayster Skelton that broughte the bysshop of Norwiche ii fesauntys, 40) concerns the raffish priest and poet John Skelton, of whom many more stories were to be told in the Merie Tales of Skelton (1566).

Merry Tales and Quick Answers has a wider and more literary range of reference. Among its contents are to be found two of Aesop's Fables dealing with human subjects, Of Thales the astronomer that fell in a ditch (25) and Of the olde woman that had sore eies (89), and two popular tales that were credited to Aesop in later collections: Of hym that sought his wyfe, that was drowned agaynst the streme (55) and Of the olde man and his sonne that brought his asse to the towne to sylle (59). Three of these and yet one more, Of the yonge woman, that sorowed so greatly the deathe of her husbande (10), were to figure later among La Fontaine's Fables. The story of the young widow is a close translation of a fable that had appeared in the Latin collection of Laurentius Abstemius only three decades earlier.

The anecdotes recorded in the work range from Classical history to near contemporary times across the cities of Europe. One scholar comments that the work is ‘mostly drawn from Erasmus and Poggio Bracciolini, but acknowledges little of its inheritance beyond ascribing a handful of its jests to Plutarch’. It certainly owes to Poggio a good deal of its scabrous and scatological content.

The language is closer to Chaucer's Middle English than the Shakespeare's English.

Here is the first of the Hundred Merry Tales.

Of hym that said there were but two commandementes. i.

¶ A certayne Curate in the contrey there was that preched in the pulpet of the ten comaundementys, sayeng that there were ten commaundementes that euery man should kepe, and he that brake any of them commytted syn, howbeit he sayd, that somtyme it was dedely and somtyme venyal. But when it was dedely syn and whan venyall there were many doutes therin. ¶ And a mylner, a yong man, a mad felow that cam seldom to chyrch and had ben at very few sermons or none in all his lyfe, answered hym than shortely this wyse: I meruayl, master person, that ye say there be so many commaundementes and so many doutes: for I neuer hard tell but of two commaundementes, that is to saye, commaunde me to you and[Pg 12] commaunde me fro you. Nor I neuer harde tell of more doutes but twayn, that ys to say, dout the candell and dout the fyre.[7] At which answere all the people fell a laughynge.

By this tale a man may well perceyue that they, that be brought vp withoute lernynge or good maner, shall neuer be but rude and bestely, all thoughe they haue good naturall wyttes.

That's kind of hard work. Here is a rough rendering into modern English.

A country curate preached from his pulpit about the ten commandments, saying that every man should keep them. “Break any of the commandments and you have committed a sin, either a deadly sin or a venal sin, though sometimes you might have doubts as to which is which.”

A young unworldly milliner, who rarely attended church and who had hardly ever heard a sermon, responded to the curate: I marvel that you say there are so many commandments and so much uncertainty for I have never heard of but two commandments. What I command you to do and what you command me to do.

And I have never heard of any doubts except two. Dowse the candle and dowse the fire.

Hearing this declaration, the congregation fell about laughing.

From this story, it is clear that without learning or good manners, a person can never be but foolish and careless even though they might have sharp wits.

Learn something new every day.