Hereupon the other monks remained
quite bewildered, unable to arrive at any decision as to whether Dandaka
was dead or alive, until at length, after a great deal of trouble, the
bystanders succeeded in convincing them that the man was not dead and in
inducing them to return to their dwelling. Dandaka also now stood up and
went his way, after having been heartily laughed at by the people.[11]
A diverting story in the _Facetiae_ of Poggius, entitled "Mortuus
Loqueus," from which it was reproduced in the Italian novels of Grazzini
and in our old collection _Tales and Quicke Answeres_, has a near
affinity with jests of this class, and also with the wide cycle of
stories in which a number of rogues combine to cheat a simpleton out of
his property. In the early English jest-book,[12] it is, in effect, as
follows:
There once dwelt in Florence a noodle called Nigniaca, upon whom a party
of young men resolved to play a practical joke. Having arranged their
plans, one of them met him early one morning, and asked him if he was
not ill. "No," says the wittol. "I am well enough." "By my faith," quoth
the joker, "but you have a pale, sickly colour," and went his way.
Presently a second of the complotters came up to him, and asked him if
he was not suffering from an ague, for he certainly looked very ill. The
poor fellow now began to think that he was really sick, and was
convinced of this when a third man in passing told him that he should be
in his bed--he had evidently not an hour to live.
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