TALES FROM THE GESTA ROMANORUM

Translated by Rev. C. Swan

New York and London

G. P. Putnam’s Sons

iii

You have here, my good friends, sundrymoral and entertaining stories, inventedby the monks of old, and used by them foramusement, as well as for instruction; fromwhich the most celebrated poets, of our ownand other lands, have condescended to drawtheir plots.

The improvements and refinements of thisage will naturally lead you to condemn asabsurdities, many of the incidents with whichthese tales abound. Considering the knowledgeof the present day, you are justified in so doing.But I pray you to bear in mind that few qualitiesare more dependent on time, than probabilityand improbability. When you read thesetales, you must, for the time, retrace your stepsto the age in which they were written; andthough the tale may seem absurd to us of thisday, yet if it was calculated to impress theivminds of those for whom it was invented, andto whom it was told, its merit was great, andtherefore deserving of due praise. A giant ora magician was as probable to the people of themiddle ages, as electricity to us. I pray youbear this in mind whilst you judge of thesetales.

Romantic fiction pleases all minds, both oldand young: the reason is this, says an oldPlatonist, “that here things are set down asthey should be; but in the true history of theworld, things are recorded indeed as they are,but it is but a testimony that they have notbeen as they should be. Wherefore, in theupshot of all, when we shall see that come topass, that so mightily pleases us in the readingthe most ingenious plays and heroic poems,that long afflicted Virtue at last comes to thecrown, the mouth of all unbelievers must bestopped.”

To the work of the ingenious Mr. Swan, theonly translator of these stories that I know ofin this country, I am indebted for my firstintroduction to these old tales; and I cannotconclude these few words without thankinghim for having often lightened my labors byhis close and admirable versions.