Chapter Grey to Grissel of G by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The tale of Grisilda is the last in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Petrarch rendered it into a Latin romance, entitled De Obedentia et Fide Uxoria Mythologia. In the middle of the sixteenth century appeared a ballad and also a prose version of Patient Grissel. Miss Edgeworth has a domestic novel entitled The Modern Griselda (1804). The tale of Grisilda is an allegory on the text, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.”

Dryden says, “The tale of Grizild was the invention of Petrarch, and was sent by him to Boccace, from whom it came to Chaucer.”—Preface to Fables.

Griskinissa, wife of Artaxaminous king of Utopia. The king felt in doubt, and asked his minister of state this knotty question—

Shall I my Griskinissa’s charms forego,
Compel her to give up the royal chair,
And place the rosy Distaffina there?

The minister reminds the king that Distaffina is betrothed to his general.

And would a king his general supplant?
I can’t advise, upon my soul I can’t.
   —Rhodes: Bombastes Furioso (1790).

Grissel or Grizel. Octavia, the wife of Mark Antony, and sister of Augustus, is called the “patient Grizel of Roman story.”

For patience she will prove a second Grissel.
   —Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, act ii. sc. 1 (1594).