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Finally, (13) »A History of Fortune* (1522, in the 2-nd edit-ion of 1524 called »Fortunek and Virtue’s Variance«) is an al-legorical treatise on the mundane life of a young courtier and his miserable death after he had lost the favours of his lord. Its original was written in Czech, and may be attributed to the well known royal adventurer and writer, Ilynek of Podebrad.

D. Poland is the only country in whicli Latin MSS have been preserved rendering the complete story of Marcolphus and Salomo, that is, including the adventure with Salomo’s adulterous wife. But (14) »The Dialogue which Salomo the Wise held with Marcolphus (Marchołt) the Fat and Lusty« (1521) reproduces tho short Latin yersion, which was many times printed under the name »Cołlationes quas mutuo dicitur habere Rex Salomo cum Marcolpho*. John of Koszyczki, who madę the Polish translat-ion, gave in it an adeąuate equiyalent of the Latin original with all its linguistic tricks and scholastic subtleties. The story was seyeral times reprinted within the 16-th century, thougli nothing except smali fragments of these editions has survived, and in the course of time it was completely forgotten.

Similar was the fate of another comic romance called (15) »The Life of Aesop the Phrygian Sage«, printed ca 1522 and reprinted in 1578. Its author, Biernat z Lublina, versified in it the Latin Wita Aesopi« by Rimicius (Rinuccio) and added it, as an introductory piece, to the collection of the Aesopian fables which he also rendered into verse. The yersion of Rinuccio is not madę up, however, only of the tricks played by the clever Greek slave upon his erudite but stupid master Xanthus; it also includes the Oriental story of the adyentures of the wise Ahikar, a circumstance to which it is due that the romance has aequired its moralising flayour. This last characteristic of the biography of Aesop must have appealed to the mind of Biernat and perpe-tuated itself morę successfully in his translation than the rema-ining part of it.

But both the Semite jester Marcolphus and his Greek brother, Aesopus, were eclipsed in Poland by their German heir, the fa-mous Tyli Eulenspiegel. The jests of Eulenspiegel whose very name betrays the intention of his anonymous writer, for it im-plies a parody of the yarious »Specula«, as the medieyal collec-tions of edifying stories used to be called, spread all over Eur-