Prose Narrative: I. Lyly and His Predecessors

When Beatrice is alleged to have had her good wit “out of the HundredMerry Tales,” 2 it is implied that she depends upon the most archaic sourceof inspiration an Elizabethan could well have resorted to. The book inquestion was printed by John Rastell about 1525 as A C. Mery Talys, andwas followed a decade later by T. Berthelet’s Tales and Quick Answers,Very Mery and Pleasant to Rede. In its ultimate form, Merry Tales, WittyQuestions, & Quick Answers (1567), it contained 113 brief selections of a sportive nature, calculated for a pre-Reformation public. 3 Some are merejests, some classical anecdotes or exempla from such authors as Aulus Genius,and some are rapidly told fabliaux. Several of them reappeared in Painter’s Palace of Pleasure. The majority are well told and really witty, and usuallythere is a shrewd or surprising moral at the end. The tales of the radishroot given to King Louis of France and of the man who paid his debt withcrying “baa!” 4 are admirable examples of the short story; and there is meriteven in so brief a jeu d’esprit as the one “Of the Beggar’s answer to MasterSkelton the poet”: A poor beggar that was foul, black, and loathly to behold, came upon a timeunto Master Skelton the poet, and asked him his alms. To whom MasterSkelton said: I pray thee, get thee away from me, for thou lookest as thoughthou tamest out of hell. The poor man, perceiving he would give him nothing,answered: Forsooth, sir, ye say truth: I came out of hell. Why diddest thou nottarry still there? quod Master Skelton. Marry, sir, quod the beggar, there is noroom for such poor beggars as I am; all is kept for such gentlemen as ye be.