consent;
indeed, she always repeated that if he abandoned her she would kill
herself. Hearing this, the emperor caused two splendid rings to be
made, and had engraved upon two gems images of the following efficacy:
one of remembrance and the other of forgetfulness. Having set these in
their appropriate rings he gave one—that of forgetfulness—to his wife,
and kept the other for himself . . . The wife began straightway to
forget the love of her husband, and the emperor, noting this, journeyed
back to his realm with great joy, and never returned to his wife. He
ended his life in peace.36
Welsh
legend offers us parallels to the ring of Gyges and to that set with
the "Stone of Remembrance" told of in the Gesta Romahorum. In the old
Welsh epic, the Mabinogion, the following directions are given by a
damsel to her lover in regard to a ring of the former type: "Take this
ring and put it on thy finger with the stone within thy hand; and close
thy hand upon the stone, and as long as thou concealest it, it will
conceal thee." This Stone of Invisibility was regarded as one of the
thirteen rarities of the ancient British regalia, formerly treasured up
in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, and in another Welsh legendary cycle (the
Triads) it is said to have "liberated Owen, the son of Urien, from
between the portcullis and the wall." Whoever concealed the stone
would be concealed by it. Here indeed the similarity with the story
told of the ring of Gyges is so close that it is apparent we only have
to do with an adaptation of the classic tale. As to the stone of
Remembrance, however, the Welsh tradition seems to be essentially an
independent one. The Mabinogion makes Iddawe say to Rhonabwy: "Dost
thou see this ring with a stone set in it upon the Emperor's hand?
3β »Die Gesta Romanorum," ed. Wilhelm Dick, Erlangen, 1890, pp. 10, 11.
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