“From this story,” said the vazīr, “consider, O sultan, how deep is the artifice of women, and how little dependence should be placed upon their declarations.”190
On the seventh night the Damsel kindled a funeral pile, and affected to cast herself into it, when her attendants prevented her, and carrying her forcibly to the sultan, informed him of her attempt on her own life. The sultan exclaimed: “What could have induced thee to such rashness?” She replied: “If thou wilt not credit my assertions, I will certainly throw myself into the fire, when thou wilt be too late regretful on my account, as the prince repented of having unjustly punished the religious woman.” The sultan desired to know the particulars, and the Damsel said:
A CERTAIN pious woman, who made pilgrimages to various parts of the world, in the course of one of them came to the court of a sultan, who received her with welcome reverence. One day his queen took the good woman with her to the bath, and handed her a string of jewels, worth two thousand gold dīnars, to take charge of while she bathed. The religious woman placed it upon the sajjāda,191 and began to say her prayers. Suddenly a magpie alighted from the roof of the palace, and fled away with the string of jewels in its claws, unobserved by the pilgrim, and ascended to one of the turrets.
When the queen came from the bath, she searched for the string of jewels, but not finding it, demanded it of the pilgrim, who said: “It was here this instant, and I have not moved from this place. Whether any of your domestics may have taken it up or not, I cannot tell.” The queen was enraged, and complained to the sultan, who commanded the pilgrim to be scourged till she should discover the jewels. She was beaten severely, but confessed nothing; after which she was imprisoned, and remained a long time in durance; till one day the sultan, sitting upon the terrace of the palace, beheld a magpie, with the string of jewels twisted round its claws. He commanded the bird to be caught, released the pilgrim, of whom he entreated pardon, kissed her hands, begged forgiveness of God for what he had done, and would have made atonement to her by a valuable present, but she would not accept it. She left the court; and having resolved in her mind, for the remainder of her life, not to enter the house of any one, retired to the mountains, till she died. May God have mercy upon her!192
The Damsel then related, as an example of the crafty disposition of men, the
Ed-Detma.192a
THERE was formerly a princess, than whom no one of her time was more skilful in horsemanship and throwing the lance and javelin. Her name was Ed-Detmà. Many powerful princes demanded her in marriage, but she would not consent, having resolved to wed only him who should overcome her in combat, saying: “Whoever worsts me, I will be his; but should I prove victorious, he shall forfeit his weapons and his horse, and I will stamp upon his forehead with a hot iron this inscription: ‘The Freedman of Ed-Detmà.’”193
Many princes attempted to gain her, but she foiled them, seized their weapons, and marked them as she had signified. At length the prince of Persia, named Bahram, hearing of her charms, resolved to obtain her; for which purpose he quitted his kingdom, and underwent many difficulties on his journey, until he reached his destination. He then entrusted his property to a respectable inhabitant, and visited the sultan; to whom he presented a valuable offering. The sultan seated him respectfully, and inquired the object of his visit. “I am come from a distant country,” replied the prince, “anxiously desirous of an alliance with thy daughter.” The sultan said: “My son, I have no power over her; for she has resolved not to wed, unless her suitor shall vanquish her in combat.” The prince answered: “I accept the conditions;” upon which the sultan informed his daughrer, who accepted the challenge.
On the appointed day a numerous crowd assembled in the maydan,194 where the sultan with his nobles appeared in great pomp. Ed-Detmà advanced, arrayed in dazzling habiliments; and the prince came forth, elegant in person, and superbly accoutred. They immediately encountered; the earth vibrated from the shock of their horses, and violent was the charge of weapons on both sides. The sultan viewed with admiration the majestic demeanour of the prince; and Ed-Detmà, perceiving his superior valour and agility, dreaded being vanquished. She artfully withdrew her veil, when her countenance appeared as the resplendent moon suddenly emerging from a dark cloud. The prince was fascinated with her beauty, and his whole frame trembled. The princess, observing his confusion, threw her javelin at his breast, and he fell from his horse, and she returned exulting to the palace.
The prince rose up, much mortified at his discomfiture, and returned to the city, pondering upon the deceit she had practised, and resolved to try a stratagem upon her. After some days, he fixed to his face a long white beard, like that of a venerable old man, clothed himself in the dress of a devotee, and repaired to a garden which he was informed the princess visited every month. He formed an intimacy with the keeper of it, by making him presents, till he had drawn him over to his interest. He then pretended to understand the cultivation of a garden, and the management of plants. The keeper therefore entrusted them to his care, and he watered them carefully, so that the shrubs became fresher and the blossoms more beautiful under his management.
At the usual time, the ferashes195 came, and spread carpets, and made other preparations for the reception of the princess. Bahram, on her approach, took some jewels and scattered them in the walks, when the princess and her attendants, seeing an old man, apparently trembling with age, stopped and inquired what he was doing with the jewels. He replied: “I would purchase a wife with them, and would have her from among you.” At this the ladies laughed heartily, and said: “When thou art married, how wilt thou behave to thy wife?” He said: “I would just give her one kiss, and divorce her.” Then said the princess jestingly, and pointing to one of her ladies: “I will give thee this girl for a wife,” upon which he advanced, kissed the damsel in a tremulous manner, and gave her the jewels. After laughing at him for some time, the princess and her attendants quitted the garden.
The like scene was enacted for several days, the prince every time giving richer jewels to the lady he espoused; till at length the princess thought to herself: “Every one of my maidens has obtained from this dotard jewels richer than is in the possession of most sovereigns, and I certainly am more worthy of them than my attendants. He is a decrepid wretch, and can do me no harm.” She then went alone to the garden, where she beheld the old man scattering jewels which were invaluable, and said: “I am the sultan's daughter, wilt thou accept me as a wife?” He advanced, and presented her with such a number of jewels that she was delighted beyond measure, and became anxious that he should give her one kiss, and let her depart like the other ladies. The prince, suddenly clasping her in his arms, exclaimed: “Dost thou not know me? I am Bahram, son of the sultan of Persia, whom thou overcamest only by stratagem, and I have now vanquished thee in the same manner. On thy account I exiled myself from my friends and country, but I have now obtained my desires.”
The princess remained silent, not being able to utter a word from confusion. She retired in anger to the palace, but, upon reflection, did not disclose what had passed, through fear of disgrace.196 She said to herself: “If I have him put to death, what will it profit me? I can now do nothing wiser than marry him, and repair with him to his own country.” Having thus resolved, she sent a trusty messenger to inform him of her intentions, and appointed a night to meet him.
At the time fixed upon the prince was ready to receive her; they mounted their horses under cover of the night, and by daylight had travelled a great distance. They did not slacken their speed day or night until they were beyond the reach of pursuit, and arrived at the capital of Persia in safety. The prince then despatched rich presents by an ambassador to the sultan her father, entreating that he would send an envoy to ratify the marriage of his daughter. The sultan having duly complied, the qāzī and proper witnesses attended; and they were married amid the greatest rejoicings, and the prince lived long with her in perfect felicity. [31]
“Such,” said the Damsel, “is the artfulness of men.” When the sultan had heard these stories, he again gave orders that his son should be put to death.
On the following day the Seventh Vazīr approached the sultan, and, after the usual obeisance, said: “Forbear, my lord, to shed the blood of thy innocent son; for thou hast none but him, and may not have another, when thou hast put him to death. Attend not to the malicious accusations of concubines, for the deceit of bad women is astonishing, and is exemplified in the
THERE was a certain merchant, very rich, who had an only son, whom he loved exceedingly. One day he said to the young man: “My son, tell me whatever thou desirest of the pleasures of life, that I may gratify thee.” The youth replied: “I long for nothing so much as to visit the city of Bagdād, and see the palaces of the khalīf and the vazīrs—that I may behold what so many merchants and travellers have so rapturously described.” The merchant observed: “I do not approve of such an excursion, because it would occasion your absence from me.”—“My dear father,” said the young man, “you inquired my wish, and this is it, and I cannot willingly give it up.” When the father heard this, being unwilling to vex his son, he prepared for him an adventure of merchandise of the value of thirty thousand dīnars, and recommended him to the care of some eminent merchants, his particular friends.
The youth was amply provided with requisites for the journey, and, attended by many slaves and domestics, he travelled unceasingly till he reached the celebrated capital of Islām, where he hired a handsome house near the grand market. For several days he rode about the city, and beheld such splendid scenes that his mind was bewildered amidst the magnificence of the buildings, the richness of the shops, and the spaciousness of the markets. He admired the dome-crowned palaces, their extensive courts, and regular arcades; the pavements of variously-coloured marbles, the ceilings adorned with gold and azure, the doors studded with nails of silver, and painted in fanciful devices.
At length, he stopped at a mansion of this description, and inquired the rent by the month; and the neighbours told him that the monthly hire was ten dirhams. The young merchant exclaimed in astonishment: “Are ye speaking the truth, or do ye only jeer me?” They replied: “We swear, my lord, that we speak the truth exactly; but it is impossible to reside in that house more than a week or a fortnight, without being in hazard of death—a circumstance well known in Bagdād. The rent originally was twenty gold dīnars monthly, and is now reduced to ten silver dirhams.”199
The young man was now still more surprised, and said to himself: “There must be some reason for this, which I wish to find out, and am resolved to hire the house.” He did so; and, casting all fear from his mind, took possession, brought his goods, and resided some time in it, employed in business and amusement. At length, sitting one day at his gate, he beheld an old woman (may God's vengeance rest upon her!), who was a cunning go-between under a religious garb. When the old jade saw the young man reclining upon a mastaba200 spread with nice carpets, and that he had every appearance of affluence around him, she bowed to him,200a and he returned her salute. She then gazed steadfastly at him, upon which he said: “Dost thou want my services, good mother? Dost thou know me, or mistake me for one whom I may resemble?” She answered: “My lord, and my son, I know thee not; but when I beheld thy beauty and manliness, I thought upon a circumstance, which, with God's blessing, I will relate.” The youth exclaimed: “God grant it may be a fortunate one!” She said: “How long hast thou resided in this house?” On his replying, two months, she exclaimed: “That is wonderful, my son! For every one who before resided in it for more than a week or a fortnight either died or, being taken dangerously ill, gave it up. I suppose thou hast not opened the prospect-room or ascended the terrace?” When she had thus spoken, she went away, and left the young man astonished at her questions.
Curiosity made him immediately examine closely all the upper apartments of the mansion, till at length he found a secret door, almost covered with cobwebs, which he wiped away. He then opened the door, and, hesitating to proceed, said to himself: “This is wonderful! What if I should meet my death within?” Relying, however, upon God, he entered, and found an apartment having windows on every side, which overlooked the whole neighbourhood. He opened the shutters, and sat down to amuse himself with the prospect. His eyes were speedily arrested by a palace more elegant than the others, and while he surveyed it, a lady appeared upon the terrace, beautiful as a hūrī; her charms would have ravished the heart, changed the love of Majnūn,201 torn the continence of Joseph, overcome the patience of Job, and assuaged the sorrow of Jacob:201a the chaste and devout would have adored her, and the abstinent and the pilgrim would have longed for her company.
When the merchant's son beheld her, love took possession of his heart. He sank down on the carpet, and exclaimed: “Well may it be said, that whoever resides in this mansion will soon die from hopeless love of this beautiful damsel!” He quitted the apartment, locked the door, and descended the staircase. The more he reflected the more he was disturbed, and both rest and patience forsook him. Then he went and sat down at his gate, when, lo! after a short interval, the old woman appeared, devoutly counting her beads, and mumbling prayers.202 When she came near, he saluted her, and said: “I was at ease and contented until I looked out of the apartment you mentioned, and beheld a young lady, whose beauty has distracted me; and if thou canst not procure me her company, I shall die with disappointment.”202a She replied: “My son, do not despair on her account, for I will accomplish thy desires.” Then she consoled him, and he gave her fifty dīnars, with many thanks for her kindness, saying: “My dear mother, assist me to the purpose, and you may demand what you please.” The old woman replied: “My son, go to the great market, and inquire for the shop of our lord Abū-'l Fat-h the son of Qaydām, the great silk merchant, whose wife this lady is. Approach him with all civility, and say that you want a rich veil,202b embroidered with gold and silver, for your concubine. Return with it to me, and your desires shall be gratified.” The young man hastened to the bazār of the chief merchants, and was soon directed to the person he inquired after, who was also a broker of merchandise to the khalīf Harūnu-'r-Rashīd. He easily found such a veil as he was directed to purchase, for which he paid a hundred gold dīnars, and returned home with it to the old woman, who took a live coal, and with it burned three holes in the veil, which she then took away with her.
She then proceeded to the young lady's house, and knocked at the gate. When the lady inquired who was there, the old woman said: “It is I, Ummu Maryam,”203 on which the merchant's wife, knowing her to be a humble acquaintance of her mother, said: “My dear aunt,203a my mother is not here, but at her own house.” The old woman said: “Daughter, the hour of prayer approaches, and I cannot reach my house in time to perform my ablutions. I request, therefore, that I may make them in your house, as I am secure of having pure water here.”203b
The door was now opened, and the hypocritical jade entered, counting her beads, and mumbling her prayers for the welfare of the young lady, her husband, and her mother. She then took off her drawers,204 girded her vest round her waist, and a vessel of water being brought, performed her ablutions; after which she said: “Show me, good daughter, a pure spot, free from pollution, to pray upon.” The young lady replied: “You may pray upon my husband's carpet.” The old woman now muttered her prayers, during which, unperceived by the merchant's wife, she slipped the burnt veil under the cushion at the head of the husband's carpet, and then, rising up from her devotions, she thanked the young lady, warned her against meeting the eyes of licentious men, and took her leave.
Soon after this the merchant returned home, sat down upon his carpet to repose himself, and his wife brought him a collation, of which he ate. She then set before him water, and he washed his hands, after which he turned to take a napkin from under his cushion to wipe them, when, lo! he discovered the veil which he had that day sold to the young man, and instantly became suspicious of his wife's fidelity. For some time he was unable to speak. On reflection, he resolved that his disgrace should not become public among his brother merchants, or reach the ears of the khalīf, whose agent and broker he was, lest he should be dishonoured at court. He kept the discovery of the veil to himself; but, in a little time, addressing his wife, desired that she would go and visit her mother.
The lady, supposing from this that she was indisposed, put on her veil, and hastened to the house of her mother, whom, however, she found in good health, and that no ill had befallen her. The mother and daughter sat down, and were talking of indifferent matters, when suddenly several porters entered the house, loaded with the wife's effects, her marriage dower, and a writing of divorce. The old lady in alarm exclaimed: “Knowest thou not, daughter, the cause of thy husband's displeasure?” The wife replied: “I can safely swear, my dear mother, that I know not of any fault of which I can have been guilty, deserving this treatment.” The mother wept bitterly for the disgrace of her daughter, and the wife lamented her separation from her husband, whom she ardently loved. She continued to grieve night and day; her appetite failed her, and her beauty began to decay.
In this manner a month passed away. At the expiry of this period the old woman Ummu Maryam came to visit the young lady's mother, and after many fawning caresses sat down. When she had told the common news, she said: “I heard, sister, that my lord Abū-l Fat-h had divorced your daughter his wife, on which account I have fasted some days and spent the nights in prayer, in hopes that God may restore her condition.” The mother replied: “May God grant us that blessing!” The old woman then inquired after her daughter, and the mother said: “She is grieving for the loss of her husband; her heart is breaking; she feels no pleasure in company, which is disgustful to her, and I fear that, should her lamentations and sorrow continue, they will occasion her death.” Then the old woman asked: “Does thy daughter wish to be reconciled to her husband?” The mother replied, that she did. “If so,” said the old woman, “let her abide with me for a night or two. She will see proper company; her heart will be refreshed; and society will relieve her depression of mind.” The mother assented to the propriety of her observations, gained the consent of her daughter, prevailed upon her to dress herself, and sent her home with Ummu Maryam, who conducted her to the house of the merchant's son.
The young man, when he saw his beloved, rejoiced as if he had gained possession of the world. He ran to her, saluted her, and kissed her between the eyes. The affrighted lady was overcome with shame and confusion; but he addressed her with such tenderness, made such ardent professions, and repeated so many elegant verses, that at length her fears were dispelled. She partook of a collation, and drank of various wines. Every now and then she looked at the young man, who was beautiful as the full moon, and love for him at length fascinated her mind. She took up a lute, and played and sang in praise of his accomplishments, so that he was in such ecstasies that he would have sacrificed his life and property to her charms.207
In the morning the old woman returned, and said: “My children, how passed you the evening?” The young lady replied: “In ease and happiness, my dear aunt, by virtue of your supplications and midnight prayers.” On this the old woman said roughly: “Thou must now accompany me to thy mother.” The young merchant flattered her, and giving her ten gold dīnars, said: “I pray thee let her remain with me this day.” She took the gold, and then repaired to the mother of the young lady, to whom, after the usual salutations, she said: “Sister, thy daughter bids me inform thee that she is better, and her grief is removed; so that I hope you will not take her from me.” The mother replied: “Since my daughter is happy, why should I deny thee, even should she remain a month; for I know that thou art an honest and pious woman, and that thy dwelling is auspicious.”
After this the young lady remained seven days at the house of the young merchant, during which on each morning Ummu Maryam appeared, saying to her: “Return with me to thy mother;” and the young man entreated for another day, giving her regularly ten gold dīnars. Having received the present, she always visited the mother, and gave her agreeable tidings of her daughter's health. On the eighth day, however, the mother said to the old woman: “My heart is anxious about my daughter; and truly her long absence seems extraordinary;” and Ummu Maryam, pretending to be affronted, replied: “Sister, dost thou cast reflections upon me?” She then repaired to the house of the young merchant, brought away the lady, and conducted her to her mother, but did not enter the house.
When the mother saw that her health and beauty were restored, she was delighted, and said: “Truly, daughter, my heart was anxious concerning thee; and I began to suspect Ummu Maryam, and treated her unkindly because of thy long absence.”—“I was not with her,” replied the young lady, “but in pleasure and happiness, and in repose and safety. I have obtained through her means health and contentment; so that I conjure thee, my dear mother, to ease her mind, and be grateful for her kindness.” Hearing this, the mother arose, and went immediately to the house of the old woman, entreated her pardon, and thanked her for her kindness to her daughter. Ummu Maryam accepted her excuses, and the old lady returned home with her mind relieved.
Next morning the wily Ummu Maryam visited the young merchant, and said: “My son, I wish you to repair the mischief you have done, and to reconcile a wife to her husband.”—“How can that be effected?” he asked. “Go to the warehouse of Abū-'l Fat-h the son of Qaydām,” she replied, “and enter into conversation with him, till I shall appear before you; then start up, and lay hold of me, abuse me roundly, and say: ‘Where is the veil I gave thee to darn, which I bought of my lord Abū-'l Fat-h, the son of Qaydām?’ If he asks thee the cause of thy claim upon me, answer him thus: ‘You may recollect that I bought a veil of you for a hundred gold dīnars, as a present to my concubine. I gave it to her, and she put it on, but soon after, while she was carrying a lamp, some sparks flew from the wick, and burnt it in three places. This old woman was present, and said that she would take it to the lace-darner, to which I consented, and I have never seen her since till this moment.’”
The young merchant accordingly went to the great market, and coming to the shop of my lord Abū-'l Fat-h, the son of Qaydām, he made him a profound obeisance, which Abū-'l Fat-h returned, but in a gloomy and sulky manner. The youth, however, seated himself, and began to address him on various subjects, when Ummu Maryam appeared, with a long rosary in her hands, the beads of which she counted, while repeating aloud the attributes of the Deity.209 He immediately started up, ran and laid hold of her, and began to abuse her, when she exclaimed: “I am innocent, and thou art innocent!” A crowd soon gathered around them, and Abū-'l Fat-h, coming from his shop, seized the young man, and demanded: “What is the cause of this rude behaviour to a poor old woman?” He replied: “You must recollect, sir, that I bought of you a rich veil for a hundred dīnars. I gave it to my concubine, who shortly afterwards dropped some sparks from a lamp, which burnt the veil in three places. This cursed hypocritess was present at the time, and offered to carry it immediately to the lace-darner. She took it, accordingly, and I have not set eyes upon her again till now, though more than a month has elapsed.”
Ummu Maryam assented to the veracity of this statement, and said: “My son, I honestly intended to get the veil mended; but, calling at some houses on my way to the darner, I left it behind me, but where I cannot recollect. I am, it is true, a poor woman, but of pure reputation, and have nothing wherewith to make up the loss of the veil. ‘Let the owner, then,’ said I to myself, ‘believe that I have cheated him, for that is better than that I should occasion disturbances among families by endeavouring to recover the veil.’ This is the whole matter; ‘God knows the truth, and God will release from difficulty the true speaker.’”210
When Abū-'l Fat-h heard these words his countenance changed from sorrowful to glad. He thought tenderly of his divorced wife, and said in his mind: “Truly I have treated her harshly.” He then begged pardon of God for his jealousy, and blessed him for restoring to him again his happiness. To his inquiry of the old woman, whether she frequented his house, she replied: “Certainly; and also the houses of your relations. I eat of your alms, and pray that you may be rewarded both in this world and the next. I have inquired for the veil at all the houses I visit, but in vain.”—“Did you inquire at my house?” said the merchant. “My lord,” replied the old woman, “I went yesterday, but found no one at home, when the neighbours informed me that my lord had for some cause divorced his wife.”
Addressing the young man, Abū-'l Fat-h said: “Sir, I pray you, let this poor old woman go, for your veil is with me, and I will take care that it shall be properly repaired;” on which Ummu Maryam fell down before the merchant and kissed his hands, and then went her way. Abū-'l Fat-h now took out the veil in the presence of the young man, and gave it to a darner; and was convinced that he had treated his wife cruelly, which indeed was the case, had she not afterwards erred through the temptations of that wicked old woman. He then sent to his wife, requesting her to return, and offered her what terms she pleased; and she complied with his desire, and was reconciled;—but my lord Abū-'l Fat-h the son of Qaydām little knew what had befallen him from the arts of Ummu Maryam. [16]
When the vazīr had ended his story, “Consider, O sultan,” he said, “the cunning of bad women, their wiles, and their artful contrivances.”—The sultan again gave orders to stay the execution of his son.
ON the eighth morning, when the impediment was done away against his speaking, the prince sent to the vazīrs and his tutor, who had concealed himself, and desired them to come to him. On their arrival, he thanked them for their services to his father, and what they had done to prevent his own death, adding: “By God's help, I will soon repay you.”
The vazīrs now repaired to the sultan, informed him of the cause of his son's obstinate silence, and of the arts of the damsel. The sultan rejoiced exceedingly, and ordered a public audience to be held, at which the vazīrs, the officers of state, and the learned men appeared. The prince entered, with his tutor, and, kissing the ground before his father, prayed eloquently for his welfare and that of his vazīrs and his tutor. The whole assembly were astonished at his fluency of speech, his propriety of diction, and his accomplished demeanour. The sultan was enraptured, and ran to him, kissed him between the eyes, and clasped him to his bosom. He did the same to the tutor, and thanked him for his care of the prince. The tutor said: “I only commanded him to be silent, fearful for his life during these seven days, which were marked in his horoscope as unfortunate, but have ended happily.”213 Then the sultan said: “Had I put him to death, in whom would have been the crime—myself, thee, or the damsel?” On this question the assembly differed much in their opinions, and the prince, observing their altercations, said: “I will solve this difficulty.” The assembly with one voice exclaimed: “Let us hear,” and the Prince said:
I HAVE heard of a certain merchant to whom there came unexpectedly a visitor; upon which he sent a female domestic to buy laban213a in the market. As she was returning with it upon her head in an uncovered vessel, she passed under a tree, on which was a serpent, from whose mouth fell some drops of venom into the laban. Her master and his guest ate of it, and both died. [19]
“Whose, then, was the fault?” asked the prince: “the girl's, who left the vessel uncovered? or her master's, who gave the laban to his guest?”
Some said it was the master's fault, because he did not examine the laban first. The prince replied: “No one was in fault; their time was come and their residence in this world at an end. Had my death taken place, no one would have been guilty but my father's concubine.”
When the assembly heard this, all were astonished at the prince's eloquence and wisdom, and raised their voices in applause, saying: “O sultan, thy son is most accomplished!” Then the sultan commanded a ponderous stone to be tied to the feet of the artful and wicked concubine, and she was cast into the sea. The tutor was rewarded, and invested with an embroidered robe of great value. The sultan delighted in his son, and abdicating his throne, gave it up to the prince, who made all happy by his justice and clemency.
BELIEF in the Asiatic origin of many of the Fables and Tales of domestic life which afforded instruction and entertainment to the Middle Ages has for some time prevailed, and of late years the proofs have been multiplied by the industry of Oriental scholars. The evidence adduced has been of the most positive description. It is not built on probabilities, upon general and indefinite analogies, or on partial and accidental resemblances, but upon actual identities. Although modifications have been practised, names altered, scenes changed, circumstances added or omitted, we can still discover the sameness of the fundamental outline; and, amidst all the mystifications of the masquerade, lay our hands, without hesitation, upon the authentic individual.—Dr. H. H. Wilson (1840).
PROFESSOR E. B. Cowell, of Cambridge, in an interesting paper contributed to the Welsh Society's journal (Y Cymmrodor), October, 1882, has adduced a number of variants of this tale, together with its oldest (Buddhistic) form, from which, with his kind permission, I make the following extracts:
“Readers of the Mabinogion will remember the curious legend of the oldest known animals, which is found in the story of Kilhwch and Olwen. We read there how Arthur's ambassadors went successively in search of tidings about Mabon the son of Modron, to the ousel of Cilgwri, the stag of Redynvre, the owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, the eagle of Gwern Abwy, and, finally, the salmon of Llyn Llyw, and each in turn gave some fresh proof of its greater age than its predecessors, but still referred the question to some animal of still more venerable antiquity than itself. Ap Gwilym, however, alludes to another version of the story, which, I am inclined to think, preserves an older form of this wide-spread piece of folk-lore. In his poem, Yr Oed, where he describes himself as waiting and waiting under the thorn for his faithless mistress, he says:
A thousand persons and more liken me
To him who dwelt in Gwernabwy;
In truth I should not be an eagle at all,
Except for my waiting for my fair lady three generations of men;
I am exactly like the stag
In Cilgwri, for my beloved;
Of the same colour, gray to my thinking,
As my bedfellow (the owl) in Cwm Cawlwyd.
Here we have only three animals instead of the five in the Mabinogi; and, as far as I can trace the story in Eastern literature, three is the usual number given, however the species of the animals themselves may vary. The legend itself, like so many other popular stories, came to Europe originally from India, and probably passed, together with Buddhism, into other countries. Its oldest known form is found in the Culla Vagga portion of the Vinayapitaka, one of the oldest parts of the Buddhist sacred books; and another version of it is given in the first volume of the fátakas, lately translated by Mr. T. W. Rhys Davids. The former version, a translation of which I subjoin, can hardly be later than the third century B.C.
Long ago there was a great banyan tree on the slope of the Himálaya mountains, and three friends dwelt near it—a partridge, a monkey, and an elephant. They were disrespectful and discourteous to one another, and did not live harmoniously together. Then it occurred to them: “Oh, if we could but know which of us is the eldest, we could honour him and respect him, and show him duty and reverence, and abide by his exhortations.” Then the partridge and the monkey asked the elephant: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you remember?” “Friends,” he replied, “when I was a child I used to walk over this banyan tree, keeping it between my thighs, and its topmost shoot touched my belly. This is the oldest thing that I remember.” Then the partridge and the elephant asked the monkey: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you remember?” “Friends, when I was a child I used to sit on the ground and eat the topmost shoot of this banyan. This is the oldest thing that I remember.” Then the monkey and the elephant asked the partridge: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you remember?” “Friends, in yonder place there was once a certain great banyan tree; I ate a fruit from it and voided it in this spot, and from it sprang this banyan. Therefore, friends, I am older than either of you.” Then the monkey and the elephant thus addressed the partridge: “You, friend, are the oldest of us all; we will honour and respect you, and will show you duty and reverence, and will abide by your exhortations.” Then the partridge stirred them up in the five moral duties, and also took those duties upon himself. They were respectful and courteous to one another, and lived harmoniously together, and after the dissolution of their bodies they were reborn happily in heaven.
“The same apologue occurs in the seventeenth of the Avadánas, or Indian apologues, translated by Julien from the Chinese.—A curiously distorted version of the Buddhist legend is found in the Uttara-kanda of the Sanskrit Rámáyana, the later book which was added to the Rámáyana to explain and amplify the brief allusions to earlier events which had been left obscure in the original poem. There we read that a vulture and an owl, who had lived in a certain wood from time immemorial, quarrelled about the possession of a certain cave, each claiming it to be his by ancient right. They eventually agreed to bring the matter before Ráma for his decision. On his asking them how long each claimed to have had the cave as a dwelling, the vulture replied: ‘It has been my home ever since this earth was first filled with men newly come into being;’ while the owl rejoined: ‘It has been my home ever since this earth was first adorned with trees.’ Ráma then decided that the cave properly belonged to the owl, as trees and plants were originally produced before the creation of mankind from the marrow of two demons slain by Vishnu, whence the earth was called Mediní (from meda, marrow). Here we have only two animals introduced; Ráma, however, as the umpire, occupies the place of the third. But,” adds Professor Cowell, “we find the triad of interlocutors reappearing in the version of the story given in the Sindibād Nāma. This story reproduces the old dialogue, but the animals are changed, and a new point is added at the end.”
But there is another form of the legend, current in Europe since the 12th century, in which men are substituted for animals, and which in one particular closely resembles the version in our text, namely, the well-known story of the Three Dreamers and the Loaf. In this form it seems to have been derived from the Arabian fabulists by Peter Alphonsus, who has related it, in his Disciplina Clericalis (fab. 17), as follows:
It is related of two citizens and a countryman, going to Mecca, that they shared provisions till they reached there, and then their food failed, so that nothing remained save so much flour as would make a single loaf, and that a small one. The citizens seeing this said to each other: “We have too little bread, and our companion eats a great deal. Wherefore we ought to have a plan to take away from him part of the loaf, and eat it by ourselves alone.” Accordingly a plan of this sort proved acceptable: to make and bake the loaf, and while it was being baked to sleep, and whoever of them saw the most wonderful things in a dream should eat the loaf alone. These words they spoke artfully, as they thought the rustic too simple for inventions of this sort. They made the loaf and baked it, and at length lay down to sleep. But the rustic, more crafty than they thought, whilst his companions were asleep, took the half-baked loaf, ate it up, and again lay down. One of the citizens, as if terrified out of his sleep, awoke, and called his companion, who inquired: “What is the matter?” He said: “I have seen a wondrous vision; for it seemed to me that two angels opened the gates of Paradise, and led me within.” Then his companion said to him: “That is a wondrous vision you have seen; but I dreamed that two angels took me, and, cleaving the earth, led me to the lower regions.” All this the countryman heard, and pretended to be asleep; but the citizens, being deceived and wishing to deceive, called on him to awake. But the rustic replied cunningly, and as though he were terrified: “Who are they that call me?” Then they said: “We are your companions.” But he replied: “Have you returned already?” To this they rejoined: “Where did we go, that we should return?” Then the rustic said: “Now it seemed to me that two angels took one of you, and opened the gates of heaven and led him within; then two others took the other and opened the earth and took him to hell; and seeing this, I thought that neither of you would return any more, and I rose and ate the loaf.”
From Alphonsus—who may have obtained it from the Historia feshuae Nazareni, a scurrilous life of the Saviour, of Jewish invention, where it also occurs—this version was taken into the Gesta Romanorum, and at a later period Cinthio, the Italian novelist, introduced it into his Hecatommithi, where the characters are a philosopher, an astrologer, and a soldier. The tale has long been popular in our own country—a well-worn “Joe Miller,” of an Englishman, a Scotchman, and an Irishman who travelled in company; the conventional Irishman “dreamt he was hungry, and got up and ate the loaf.”
A VARIANT of this tale is found in the Pancha Tantra, Sect. v, Fab. 10, to the following effect: The sons of a certain King Chandra used to feed a herd of monkeys. There was likewise at their court a herd of rams. One of the latter, a glutton, was in the habit of going to the kitchen to devour whatever he saw, and the cooks always beat him. The monkey king reflected that the quarrel between the ram and the cooks must lead to the destruction of the monkeys, because, if the cooks some day beat him with a burning log of wood, his wool would catch fire, he would run into the horses' stable close by, set fire to the stable, and cause injury to the horses; and as their wounds can only be healed by monkeys' fat, the monkeys will have to suffer. So he advised his tribe to go to the woods. They refuse, and as their king's prediction is eventually fulfilled, he vows revenge on King Chandra, and induces him to go with his suite to a certain pond where pearl necklaces are to be procured. In that pond all the suite are devoured by a Rákshasa, whereupon the monkey king, climbing on a tree, tells King Chandra of the revenge he has taken on him.
THERE must be few readers who are not familiar with this story through the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, but it was popular several centuries before that celebrated collection was rendered into English from Galland's French translation, as it is one of the tales of the Seven Wise Masters and the Seven Sages, old English prose and metrical versions of the Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ, or of Dolopathos, which are Latin and French adaptations of the Book of Sindibād. In our common version of the Thousand and One Nights, the Story of the Parrot is told (in the introduction) by King Yunan, when his counsellers urged him to put the sage Dūbān to death; but in the Būlāq and Calcutta printed Arabic texts, the king says: “I should repent after it, as King Sindibād repented of killing his falcon;” then follows the well-known story of the king who killed his falcon, under the mistaken idea that it had, from mere wantonness, repeatedly dashed from his hand the cup of spring water, when he was about to drink, and afterwards found that a venomous serpent lay coiled at the spring-head.223
The 68th chapter of Swan's Gesta Romanorum seems imitated from the Story of the Parrot: A certain king had a fair but vicious wife. It happened that her husband having occasion to travel, the lady sent for her gallant, and rioted in every excess of wickedness. Now one of her handmaids, it seems, was skilful in interpreting the song of birds, and in the court of the castle there were three cocks. During the night, while the gallant was with his mistress, the first cock began to crow. The lady heard it, and said to her servant: “Dear friend, what says yonder cock?” She replied: “That you are grossly injuring your husband.” “Then,” said the lady, “kill that cock without delay.” They did so, but soon after, the second cock crew, and the lady repeated her question. “Madam,” said the handmaid, “he says, ‘My companion died for revealing the truth, and for the same cause I am prepared to die.’” “Kill him!” cried the lady, which they did. After this, the third cock crew. “What says he?” asked she again. “Hear, see, and say nothing, if you would live in peace.” “Oh, don't kill him,” said the lady.
The frame, or leading story, of the Persian collection of Nakhshabī, entitled, Tūtī Nāma, Parrot-Book, or Tales of a Parrot, is similar to our tale: A man bought, for a large sum of money, a wonderful parrot, that could talk eloquently and intelligently, and shortly afterwards, a sharyk—a species of nightingale, according to Gerrans, “which imitates the human voice in so surprising a manner, that, if you do not see the bird, you cannot help being deceived”—and put it in the same cage with the parrot. When he was about to set out on a distant journey, he told his wife, that, whenever she had any important affair to transact, she must first ask the advice of the parrot and the sharyk, and do nothing without their sanction. Some months after he was gone, his wife saw from the roof of her house a very handsome young prince pass along the street with his attendants, and immediately became enamoured of him. The prince also perceived the lady, and sent an old woman to solicit an assignation with her on the same evening. The lady consents to meet him, and having arrayed herself in her finest apparel, proceeds to the cage, and first consults the sharyk upon the propriety of her intended intrigue; but the bird forbade her to go, upon which the lady in a rage seized the faithful bird, and dashed it on the ground, so that it instantly died. She then represented her case to the parrot, who, having witnessed the fate of his unhappy companion, prudently resolved to temporise with the amorous dame, and accordingly “commiserated her situation, quenched the fire of indignation with the water of flattery, and began a tale conformable to her temperament,” which he took care to protract till morning. In this manner, night after night, the parrot contrives to keep the lady at home until her husband's return.—The first story the parrot relates, according to Gerrans (and also in Kāderī's abridgment; but it is the 5th in MS. No. 2573, in the India Office), is of a merchant, who, having occasion to travel, left his wife and house in charge of a sagacious parrot —a cockatoo, according to Gerrans. During his absence his wife had an intrigue with a young man, who came to the house every evening; but on the merchant's return, the discreet bird, while giving a faithful account of all other transactions, said not a word in reference to the lady's merry pranks. The husband soon hears of them, however, from his neighbours, and punishes his wife. Suspecting the parrot to have blabbed, the lady goes at night to the cage, takes out the bird, plucks off all its feathers, and throws it into the street. In the morning, when the merchant misses his favourite bird, she tells him that a cat had carried it away, but he discredits her story, and thrusts her out of doors. Meantime the parrot had taken up his abode in a burying-ground, to which the poor wife now also retires; and the parrot advises her to shave her head and remain there fasting during forty days, after which she should be reconciled to her husband. This she does, and at the end of the prescribed period the parrot goes to his old master, and upbraids him with his cruel treatment of his innocent wife, adding that she had been fasting forty days in the burying-ground. The merchant hastens to seek his wife, asks her forgiveness, and they live together ever afterwards in perfect harmony. “In like manner,” adds the story-telling parrot, “I shall conceal your secret from your husband, or make your peace with him if he should find it out.”
The Tūtī Nāma of Nakhshabī was composed about A. D. 1320; it was preceded, according to Pertsch, by a similar Persian work, by an unknown author, which was based upon a Sanskrit book, now lost, of which the Suka Saptatī, Seventy Tales of a Parrot, is only an abstract, and other sources. And here the question is suggested: Was the Sindibād story of the Husband and the Parrot imitated or adapted from the frame, or leading tale, of the original Sanskrit Parrot-Book, or was the idea of the latter taken from the Book of Sindibād? However this may be, the principal story of the Tūtī Nāma presents some points of resemblance to incidents in one of the numerous legends of the famous hero Rasalū, which are current in the Panjāb, namely, the story of Rāja Sirikop and Rasalū, kindly communicated to me by General James Abbott, from a small work which he had printed for private circulation, at Calcutta, in 1851. The conclusion of this legend seems to be the original of our old European tale of the cruel knight who caused the heart of his wife's paramour to be dressed and served up to her for supper. Rasalū, having slain the inhuman Rāja Sirikop, who played at dice for the heads of his guests, took away his infant daughter Kokla, and, when she was of age, married her. The Rana Kokla had seldom the society of her husband, as he was passionately devoted to the chase, but he left behind him, as spies upon her conduct, two birds, which could talk intelligently, a parrot and a mina, or hill starling. While Rasalū was absent on a hunting excursion, his young and lonely bride was seated at her window one day, when the handsome Rāja Hodi chanced to see her as he rode past. “And she saw him, and he took the place which Rasalū had left vacant in her heart… So Rana Kokla threw him down a rope, which she tied firmly to the balcony. And Rāja Hodi clambered up to the balcony by this rope, and entered the chamber of Rana Kokla. And the mina exclaimed: ‘What wickedness is this?’ Then Hodi went straight to the mina's cage and wrung its neck. So the parrot, taking warning, said: ‘The steed of Rasalū is swift; what if he should surprise you? Let me out of my cage, and I will fly over the palace, and will inform you the instant he appears in sight.’ And Kokla said: ‘O excellent bird! do even as thou hast said,’ and she released the bird from its cage. Then the parrot flew swift as an arrow to Dumtūr, and alighting upon Rasalū's shoulder, as he hunted the stag, exclaimed: ‘O Raja, a cat is at your cream!’” The sequel is nearly identical with the catastrophe of the story in Boccaccio's Decameron, Day iv, Nov. 9, and the French tradition of Raoul de Coucy and the Lady of Fayel.—It is possible that the two birds of Rasalū may have suggested the frame of the Sanskrit prototype of the Tūtī Nāma. At all events, the legends of Rasalū and other ancient Indian heroes have been time out of mind the stock-in-trade of the wandering bards of the Panjāb, from whom General Abbott obtained this wild tale, among many others.227
Wonderfully-gifted parrots are the principal characters in many of the Hindū tales. The facility with which this bird imitates human speech, together with the doctrine of metempsychosis— and the allied notion of a person being able by magical power to transfer his own soul into the dead body of any animal or bird, upon which, for example, the romance of King Vikram is based —probably induced the fablers of India to adopt the parrot as the favourite character in their fictions. But apart from the marvellous parrot of Oriental romance, it would appear from the accounts of grave authors, Western as well as Eastern, that the bird is not only capable of repeating words and phrases which it has been taught, but is possessed of considerable intelligence. Locke, in his Essay on the Human Understanding, relates a curious anecdote of a parrot which answered rationally several questions which it was asked by Prince Maurice, one of which was: “What do you there (i.e. at Marignan)?” The parrot replied: “I look after the chickens.” The prince laughed, and said: “You look after the chickens!” to which the parrot replied: “Yes, I; and I know well enough how to do it,” at the same time clucking in imitation of the noise made by the hen to call together her young ones.—Willoughby tells of a parrot which, when one said, “Laugh, Poll, laugh,” laughed, accordingly, and the instant after screamed out, “What a fool you are to make me laugh!” Rhodiginus mentions a parrot that could recite correctly the whole of the Apostles' Creed, and of another that could repeat a sonnet from Petrarch. But these feats dwindle into insignificance when compared with the accomplishments of parrots referred to by the Arabian historian El-Ishākī (cited by Lane, 1001 Nights, i, p. 111, note 22), one of which could repeat the 36th chapter of the Qur'ān, the other recited the whole of the Qur'ān!—Goldsmith relates that a parrot belonging to Henry VII, having been kept in a room next to the Thames, in his palace at Westminster, had learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One day, sporting on its perch, it fell into the water. The bird had no sooner discovered its situation than it called out: “A boat! twenty pounds for a boat!” A waterman, happening to be near the place where the parrot was floating, immediately took it up and restored it to the king, demanding, as the bird was a favourite, that he should be paid the reward it had called out. This was refused; but it was agreed that, as the parrot had offered a reward, the man should again refer to its determination for the sum he was to receive. “Give the knave a groat!” the bird screamed the instant the reference was made.
A VARIANT—possibly the original—of this widely-diffused story is found in the Hitopadesa, Book ii, Fable, 7, as follows:
“In the town of Dwárávatí a certain farmer had a wife, a woman of loose conduct, who used to amuse herself with the magistrate of the town and with his son. One day, as she sat diverting herself with the magistrate's son, the magistrate himself arrived. When she saw him, she shut his son in the cupboard, and began sporting in the same manner with the magistrate. In the meantime, the herdsman her husband returned from the fold. On seeing him, she said: ‘O magistrate, do you, taking your staff, and putting on the appearance of anger, depart with haste.’ This was done; and now the herdsman, coming up, asked his wife: ‘Wherefore came the magistrate here?’ She replied: ‘For some cause or other, he is angry with his son, who, running away, came here, and entered the house. Him I have made safe in the cupboard. His father, seeking him, and not finding him in the house, is therefore going off in a rage.’ Then having made the youth come out of the cupboard, she showed him to her husband.”
The 9th tale of the Disciplina Clericalis of Peter Alphonsus is evidently a modification of the story:
“In former times there was a good man, who, on setting out on a distant journey, left his wife in charge of her mother. This old woman brought to the house a young man whom her daughter loved. It happened that, while they were seated at table, the husband returned unexpectedly and knocked at the door. The young woman rose to open the door to her husband. But the mother (who lived with the friend of her daughter) did not know what to do, because there was no place in which to hide him. So, while the daughter was opening the door to her husband, the old woman took a drawn sword and handed it to the youth, and told him to stand with it drawn at the door; and if the husband said anything to him, he should answer nothing. The youth did as the old woman told him; and when the door was opened, the husband of the girl saw him, and he stood quite still, and said: ‘Who art thou?’ He did not say a word, but held the drawn sword in his hand, and the husband was perplexed at this. The old woman said to him: ‘Fair son, be quiet; let none hear you.’ Then the husband wondered more than before, and said: ‘Fair lady, who is he?’ The old woman said to him: ‘Three men were following him just now; we opened the door and let him enter here, and because he feared lest you be one of them, he will not answer you.’ ‘Lady,’ said the husband, ‘you did well;’ and he entered and called to the lover of his wife, and caused him to dine with him.”
This is also one of the Fabliaux; but it must have been from another version, more closely resembling the Sindibād tale, that Boccaccio derived his story of the lady of Florence and her two lovers (Decameron, Day vii, Nov. 6): To the one called Leonetto she was much attached; but the other, Lambertuccio, only procured her good-will by the power which he possessed, in consequence of his high rank and influence, of doing her an injury. While residing at a country seat, the husband of this lady left her for a few days, and on his departure she sent for Leonetto to bear her company. Lambertuccio, also hearing of the absence of the husband, came to the villa soon after the arrival of her favoured lover. Scarcely had Leonetto been concealed, and Lambertuccio occupied his place, when the husband unexpectedly knocked at the outer gate. At the earnest entreaty of his mistress, Lambertuccio runs down with a drawn sword in his hand, and rushes out of the house, exclaiming: “If ever I meet the villain again!” Leonetto is then brought forth from concealment, and the husband is informed, and believes, that he had sought refuge in his villa from the fury of Lambertuccio, who, having met him on the road, had pursued him with an intention of putting him to death.—Dunlop.
From Boccaccio the story was reproduced in Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie (a catchpenny book), printed about 1590; and eleven years later Samuel Rowlands turned it into verse, in his Knave of Clubs, under the title of “The Cuckold:” the lady's lovers are a courtier and a captain;—the former is hidden away on the arrival of the son of Mars, who, when the lady hears that her husband is coming, is instructed how to comport himself in his retreat:
So downe the staires he goes,
With rapier drawne, such feareful looks he showes,
The cuckold trembles to behould the sight,
And up he comes, as he had met some spright.
Ah, wife, said he, what creature did I meete?
Hath he done any harme to thee, my sweete?
A verier ruffian I did never see;
The sight of him hath almost distracted me.
My loving husband, as I heere sate sowing,
Thinking no harme, or any evill knowing,
A gentleman comes up the staires amaine,
Crying, Oh, helpe me, or I shall be slaine:
I of compassion, husband (life is deere),
Under your bed in pitty hid him heere;
His foe sought for him with his rapier drawne,
While I with teares did wash this peece of lawne.
But when he saw he could not finde him out
(After he tossed all my things about),
He went downe swaggering even as you met him,
My saving the poore man so much did fret him.
A blessed deede, quoth he; it prooves thee wise:
Alas! the gentleman uneasie lies;
Wife, call him forth; I hope all danger's past;
Good Bettris, looke that all the doores be fast.
Sir, you are welcome to my house, I vow,
I joy it is your sanctuary now,
And count myself most happy in the thing,
That such good fortune did you hither bring.
Sir, said the courtier, hearty thanks I give,
I will requite your kindness if I live.
But the story had found its way into an English jest-book many years before its appearance in Tarlton's Newes, even before Boccaccio's tales were translated in Paynter's Palace of Pleasure. In Tales and Quicke Answeres, very Pleasant and Mery to Rede, 1535, it is told of an innkeeper's wife near Florence. While she was entertaining one lover, another came “up the ladder,” and she bade him be off. “But for all her words, he would not go away, but still pressed to come in. So long they stood chiding that the good-man came upon them, and asked them why they bawled so. The woman, not unprovided with a deceitful answer, said: Sir, this man would come in perforce to slay or mischief another that is fled into our house for succour, and hitherto I have kept him back.—When he that was within heard her say so, he began to pluck up his heart, and say he would be revenged on him without. And he that was without made a face as he would kill him that was within.—The foolish man her husband inquired the cause of their debate, and took upon him to set them at one. And so the good silly man spake and made the peace between them, yea, and farther, he gave them a gallon of wine.”
In all the Eastern texts, excepting the Persian and Scott's versions, the story of the Double Infidelity is preceded by another, related by the same vazīr:
A certain man was very particular in his food, and could not eat anything that he suspected to be unclean. In the course of a trading journey he came to a town, and sent his servant to buy some bread. The servant returned with two loaves, which his master relished so much that he told him always to procure him the same bread. This he did for some time (25 days, according to the Breslau text), until one day the servant returned without any bread, saying that the woman of whom he had hitherto bought the loaves had no more to sell. The merchant then sends for the woman, and asks her how the bread she had sold his servant was so pleasantly flavoured. She explains, to the infinite disgust of the man who was so particular in his food— and doubtless the explanation will be not less disgusting to the reader—that her master had suffered from blisters on his back, for which the doctor prescribed a poultice of flour mixed with honey and oil;—she took the poultice each day, when it was removed for a fresh one, and made it into a loaf, which the merchant's servant had bought of her daily. But now that her master was cured (in the Breslau text he was dead), she could supply no more loaves.
IN three other Arabic texts of the Seven Vazīrs, this rather pointless story—which, however, belongs to the original Book of Sindibād—is followed by a second related by the Damsel, of
who devised a diabolical plan to procure the disgrace of a merchant's wife, whose virtue he had unsuccessfully attempted. The story is very objectionable in its details, and must therefore be passed over.
THIS is a very different story from that of the Two Pigeons as found in the Syriac, Greek, Hebrew, and old Castilian versions, yet it may—Comparetti's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding—be the older form. The story of the Two Pigeons is omitted in all the Arabic texts of the Seven Vazīrs. It reappears, as follows, in the Anvār-i Suhaylī:
They have related that a pair of pigeons had collected some grains of corn in the beginning of summer, and stored them up in a retired place as a hoard for winter. Now that corn was moist, and when summer drew to a close, the heat of the atmosphere had such an effect upon the corn, that it dried up, and appeared less than it did at first. During these days the male pigeon was absent from home. When he came back and observed that the corn appeared to be less in quantity, he began to reproach his partner, and said: “We had laid up this grain for our food in winter, so that when the cold became excessive, and from the quantity of snow, no corn was to be found on the fields, we might support ourselves with this. At this time, when pickings are to be met with in mountain and plain, why hast thou eaten our supplies? and why hast thou swerved from the path of prudence? Hast thou not heard, pray, that the sages have said:
Now that thou hast food in plenty,
Do thy best it up to store,
That thou may'st still have abundance
When the harvest-time is o'er.”
The female pigeon said: “I have eaten none of this grain, nor have I used any of it in any way whatever.” As the male pigeon saw that the grain had decreased, he did not believe her denial, and pecked her till she died. Afterwards, in the winter, when the rain fell incessantly, and the marks of dampness were evident on door and wall, the grain imbibed moisture and returned to its former state. The male pigeon then discovered what had been the cause of the apparent loss, and began to lament and to bewail his separation from his affectionate partner. Thus he wept bitterly, and said: “Grievous is this absence of my friend, and more grievous still that repentance is unavailing.
With prudence act, for haste will cause thee pain
And loss, and to regret the lost is vain.”
And the moral of this story is, that it behoves a wise man not to be precipitate in inflicting punishment, lest, like the pigeon, he suffer from the anguish of separation.
In the Syriac, Greek, and old Castilian versions, the vazīr who relates the story of the Two Pigeons has for his second a rather stupid tale, which may be entitled
A ploughman's wife was bringing him some bread in a basket when she was met in the forest by a robber, who, having first conversed with her, ate up all her bread, excepting a small portion which he made into the form of an elephant, slipped it into her basket, and then let her go. When she reached the field where her husband was ploughing, and opened the basket, she discovered the robber's trick, and, to excuse herself, told her husband that she had dreamt some evil threatened him, which might be averted by his eating a small image of an elephant made of bread.—The story is also found in the Suka Saptatī and Nakhshabī's Tūtī Nāma.
THE pretended damsel's account of herself differs materially in the Persian text from that in the Seven Vazīrs and other versions. In the Persian she represents herself as having become enamoured of the prince from seeing his beauty from the terrace of her mansion; then she “points to her abode,” and they proceed “till they reach a desolate spot.” This is certainly not quite so plausible as what she says in the Arabic texts—that she fell from her litter on the way to be married to a certain prince. The conclusion, too, varies quite as much, so far as we possess it in the Persian MS.—In the old Castilian version the Damsel introduces this tale of the “female devil” by warning the king, most absurdly, that his vazīrs would kill him, “as a vazīr once killed a king,” since it relates that the son of the king was not killed, but returned in safety to his father.—In the Hebrew version the story of the Changed Sex is fused with this tale.
The Shah's own Story-teller gave Sir John Malcolm the following account of the nature and habits of ghūls, while “the Elchee” and his suite were passing through one of their favourite haunts: “The natural shape of these monsters is terrible, but they can assume those of animals, such as cows or camels, or whatever they choose, often appearing to men as their relations or friends, and then they do not only transform their shapes, but their voices also are altered. The frightful screams and yells which are often heard amid these dreaded ravines are changed for the softest and most melodious notes; unwary travellers, deluded by the appearance of friends, or captivated by the forms, or charmed by the music of these demons, are allured from their path, and after feasting for a few hours on every luxury are consigned to destruction. The number of these ghūls,” added the worthy Hajjī, “has greatly decreased since the birth of the Prophet, and they have no power to hurt those who pronounce his name in sincerity and faith.” (Sketches of Persia, ch. xvi.)—In Russian Folk Tales the Baba Yagas perform the part of Ghūls, Rākshasas, etc. Luckily for their intended victims, they are endowed with but a small store of intellect, and are generally outwitted by the interesting heroes and heroines.
IT is somewhat strange that this story should be omitted in the Seven Vazīrs, and yet form one of the four tales of the Seven Sages which are common to all the Eastern texts of the Book of Sindibād. The story is thus related in a black-letter copy (preserved in the Glasgow University Library) of the Seven Wise Masters, the old English prose translation, by Copland, of the Septem Sapientum Romæ, or of a French rendering of it; where it is told by the First Master:
There was a valiant knight which had one only son, the which he loved so much, that he ordained for his keepers three nowr-ishers. The first should give him suck, and feed him. The second should wash him, and keep him clean: and the third should bring him to his sleep and rest. The knight had also a greyhound and a falcon, which he also loved right well. The greyhound was so good, that he never run at any game, but he took it, and held it till his master came. And if his master disposed him to go into any battel, if he should not speed therein, anone as he should mount upon his horse, the greyhound would take the horse-tail in his mouth, and draw backward, and would also cry and howl marvelouslie loud. By these signs, and the due observation thereof, the knight did always understand that his journey should have very ill success. The falcon was so gentle and hardy, that he was never cast off to his prey but he took it.
The same knight had much pleasure in justing and tourney, so that upon a time under his castle he proclaimed a tournament, to the which came many great lords and knights. The knight entered into the tourney, and his ladie went with her maidens to see it: and as they went out, after went the nowr-ishers, and left the child lying alone there in the cradle, in the hall: where the greyhound lay near the wall, and the hawk or falcon standing upon a perch. In this hall there was a serpent lurking, or hid in a hole, to all them of the castle unknown, the which when he perceived that they were all absent, he put his head out of his hole, and when he saw none but the child lying in the cradle, he went out of his hole towards the cradle, for to have slain the child. The noble falcon perceiving that, and he beholding the greyhound that was sleeping, made such a noise and rustling with her wings presently, that the greyhound awoke, and rose up: and when he saw the serpent nigh the child, anone against him he leapt, and they both fought so long together, until that the serpent had grievously hurt and wounded the greyhound, that he bled so sore, that the earth about the cradle was all bloody. The greyhound, when that he felt himself grievously wounded and hurt, start fiercely upon the serpent, and fought so sore together, and so eagerly, that between them the cradle was overcast with the child, the bottome upward. And because that the cradle had four pomels like feet, falling towards the earth, they saved the childs life and his visage from any hurt. What can be more exprest to make good the wonder in the preservation of the child? Incontinently hereafter, with great pain the greyhound overcame and slew the serpent, and laid him down again in his place, and licked his wounds.
And anon after the justs and tourney was done, the nowrishers came first into the castle, and as they saw the cradle turned the up side down upon the earth, compassed round about with blood: and that the greyhound was also bloody, they thought and said amongst themselves, that the greyhound had slain the child: and were not so wise as to turn up the cradle again with the child, for to have seen what was thereof befallen. But they said, Let us run away, lest that our master should put or lay the blame upon us, and so slay us. As they were thus running away, they met the knight's wife, and she said unto them, Wherefore make ye this sorrow, and whither will ye run? Then said they, O lady, wo and sorrow be to us, and to you. Why, said she, what is there happened? show me. The greyhound, they said, that our lord and master loved so well, hath devoured and slain your son, and lyeth by the wall all full of blood. As the lady heard this, she presently fell to the earth, and began to weep and cry piteouslie, and said, Alace, O my dear son, are ye slain and dead? What shall I now do, that I have mine only son thus lost? Wherewithal came in the knight from the tourney, beholding his lady thus crying and making sorrow, he demanded of her wherefore she made so great sorrow and lamentation. She answered him, O my lord, that greyhound that you have loved so much hath slain your only son, and lyeth by the wall, satiated with the blood of the child. The knight, very exceeding angry, went into the hall, and the greyhound went to meet him, and did fawn upon him, as he was wont to do, and the knight drew out his sword, and with one stroke smote off the greyhound's head, and then he went to the cradle where the child lay, and found his son all whole, and by the cradle the serpent slain; and then by diverse signs he perceived that the greyhound had killed the serpent for the defence of the child. Then with great sorrow and weeping he tare his hair, and said, Wo be to me, that for the words of my wife, I have slain my good and best greyhound, the which hath saved my child's life, and hath slain the serpent: therefore I will put myself to penance: and so he brake his sword in three pieces, and went towards the Holy Land, and abode there all the days of his life.
This story occurs in all the Western texts of the Seven Wise Masters, also in the Anglican Gesta Romanorum;—see Madden's old English versions, edited for the Roxburghe Club [xxvi], p. 86. A wolf takes the place of the snake in the well-known Welsh legend, which Edward Jones, in his Musical Relics of the Welsh Bards, vol. i, gives as follows: “There is a general tradition in North Wales that a wolf had entered the house of Prince Llywelyn. Soon after, the prince returned home, and going into the nursery, he met his dog Killhart all bloody and wagging his tail at him. Prince Llywelyn, on entering the room, found the cradle where his child lay overturned and the floor flowing with blood: imagining that the greyhound had killed the child, he immediately drew his sword and stabbed it; then turning up the cradle found under it the child alive and the wolf dead. This so grieved the prince that he erected a tomb over his faithful dog's grave, where afterwards the parish church was built, and goes by the name Bedd Gelhart (the grave of Killhart), in Caernar-vonshire. From this incident is derived a very common Welsh proverb: ‘I repent as much as the man who slew his greyhound.’ Prince Llywelyn ab Jowerth,” adds Jones, “married Joan, a daughter of King John by Agatha, daughter of Robert Ferrers Earl of Derby, and this dog was a present to the prince from his father-in-law, about the year 1205.”—A curious instance, surely, of the transformation of an ancient Indian tale!
The Dog and Snake version reappears in the Italian novels of Sansovino (Day ix, N. 1), in Dolopathos and Erasto, and also in the Facétieuses fournées, and its oldest form is perhaps found in the Pancha Tantra, section v, fable 2:
There was a Bráhman, named Déva Sarmá, whose wife had one son; she had also a favourite ichneumon that she brought up with the infant, and cherished like another child. At the same time, she was afraid that the animal would, some time or other, do the child a mischief, knowing its treacherous nature, as it is said: “A son, though ill-tempered, ugly, stupid, and wicked, is still the source of delight to a father's heart.” One day the mother, going forth to fetch water, placed the child in the bed, and desired her husband to guard the infant, especially from the ichneumon. She then departed, and after a while the Bráhman himself was obliged to go forth to collect alms. When the house was thus deserted, a black snake came out of a hole, and crawled towards the bed where the infant lay; the ichneumon, who saw him, impelled by his natural animosity, and by regard for his foster-brother, instantly attacked him, and, after a furious encounter, tore him to pieces. Pleased with his prowess and the service he had rendered, he ran to meet his mistress on her return home, his jaws and face besmeared with blood. As soon as the Bráh-man's wife beheld him, she was convinced that he had killed her child, and in her rage and agitation she threw the water-jar at the ichneumon with all her force, and killed him on the spot. She then rushed into the house, where she found the child still asleep, and the body of a venomous snake torn in pieces at the foot of the bed. She then perceived the error she had committed, and beat her breast and face with grief for the unmerited fate of her faithful little favourite. In this state her husband found her on his return. When he had told her the cause of his absenting himself, she reproached him bitterly for that greedy desire of profit, which had caused all the mischief.
In the Hitopadesa, the woman goes to make her ablutions after childbirth, and while she is absent the rája sends for the Bráhman to perform for him a certain religious rite. The version in the Pancha Tantra is the only one in which the woman slays the faithful animal, and the Persian version is peculiar in representing the infant's mother as having died in giving it birth. The story as found in Calila and Dimna agrees with that in the Hitopadesa.
IN all other texts, with the exception of Nakhshabī, this story is fused with that of the Go-Between and the She-Dog, but they certainly formed separate tales originally, as they are so found in the Sanskrit collection entitled Suka Saptatī, or Seventy Tales of a Parrot. According to Nakhshabī, when the wife is introduced to her own husband by the old procuress, she recognises him under her veil, throws it off, seizes hold of him, declares that she had adopted this device to entrap him, and accuses him of infidelity to the assembled neighbours. She then takes him before the qāzī, and obtains a divorce.
A STORY in the Kathá Sarit Ságara,242 of the Monkey and the Porpoise, is sometimes cited as a parallel to this tale, but I cannot see any resemblance between them. An old monkey, having strayed from his troop into a forest on the sea shore, contracts a friendship with a porpoise, whose mate becomes jealous, and feigning illness, tells him that the only thing which could cure her is the heart of a monkey. With great reluctance the porpoise sets off to induce his friend the monkey to visit his dwelling; and as he carries him on his back through the water the monkey inquires the cause of his evident disquietude. The porpoise confesses that his wife longs for a monkey's heart, upon which the monkey informs him that his heart is upon a tree in the forest, and that if the porpoise would return with him he should be made welcome to it. The porpoise accordingly conveys him back, and the monkey no sooner touches the land than he leaps into a tree, and calls the porpoise a fool for believing that any animal keeps his heart outside his body.
In Syntipas and the Libro de Los Engannos, the boar waited in expectation of having more figs thrown him, with his head raised, until the veins of his neck burst and he died therefrom. The story as told in the Anvār-i Suhaylī is identical with the Persian version. The Mishlé Sandabar is the only Eastern text in which, in this tale, a man is substituted for the monkey, and from it the story in this form was taken into the Septem Sapien-tum : it is thus related in the black-letter copy of the Seven Wise Masters belonging to the Glasgow University Library:
There was sometime an emperor, the which had a great forest, wherein was a wild boar, which was so cruel and so fierce, that he killed and devoured men going through the forest. The emperor therefore being right heavy, proclaimed throughout all his dominions, that whosoever he was that could slay the boar, should have his only daughter to wife, and therewith his empire after his death: and as this was in places proclaimed, there was not one man found that durst give this adventure. But there was a shepherd who thought in himself: Might I the boar overcome and slay, I should not only advantage myself, but also my generation and kindred. So then he took his shepherd's staff in his hand and went to the forest: and as the boar had of him a sight, he drew towards the herdsman, but he for fear climbed upon a tree, and then the boar began to bite and gnaw the tree. So the herd thought shortly that he would have overthrown it. This tree was loaden with great plenty of fruit, and the herd gathered and plucked thereof, and cast them to the boar, insomuch that when he was filled therewith, he laid him down to sleep: the which when the herd perceived, by little and little descended the tree, and with the one hand he clawed the boar, and with the other held him upon the tree, and seeing that the boar slept very soundly, he drew out his knife, and smote the boar to the heart, and killed him. And so shortly after he wedded the emperor's daughter: and after the death of her father, he was made emperor.
Then said she [the empress], My lord, wot ye not what I have said? He said, Right well. Then said she, This mighty boar betokeneth your most noble person, against whom may no man withstand, neither by wisdom nor with strength. This shepherd, with his staff, is the person of your ungracious son, who with his staff of cunning, beginneth to play with you, as the herdsman clawed the boar, and made him to sleep and after killeth him. In the same manner the masters of your son, by their false fables and narrations claw you, and glose with you, until the time that your son slay you, that he may reign. Then said the emperor, God forbid that they should do to me as he did to the wild boar: and he said unto her, This day my son shall die: and she answered, If you do so, then do ye wisely.
The story of the Wild Boar is not found in any of the texts of the Seven Vazīrs.
IT is very significant that in this story as related in the Disciplina Clericalis of Alphonsus (A. D. 1106), the fabliau of La vielle qui séduisit la jeune fille, the Gesta Romanorum (13th century), and the collection of mediæval tales written in Latin, edited, for the Percy Society, by Wright (No. xiii, De dolo et arte vetularum), the incident of the Libertine Husband does not occur; but—as in the Sanskrit Suka Saptatī and our Persian Sindibād Nāma— the scruples of the virtuous matron are done away by the old hag's device, and the lover is introduced to her. In the Suka Saptatī the lady is the wife of a prince; a young man becomes enamoured of her, and his mother, seeing him fading away because of his love, adopts the expedient of the dog, and persuades her to grant her son an interview.
The oldest form of the story is probably that of the Cunning Siddhikari, in the Kathá Sarit Ságara: A Buddhist priestess has been employed by four young merchants to corrupt Devasmitá, the wife of a merchant, and with this object she pays a visit to the virtuous lady. The narrative thus proceeds:
“As she approached the private rooms of Devasmitá, a she-dog, that was fastened there with a chain, would not let her come near, but opposed her entrance in the most determined way. Then Devasmitá, seeing her, of her own accord sent a maid, and had her brought in, thinking to herself: ‘What can this person be come for?’ After she had entered, the wicked ascetic gave Devasmitá her blessing, and, treating the virtuous woman with affected respect, said to her: ‘I have always had a desire to see you, but to-day I saw you in a dream, therefore I am come to visit you with impatient eagerness; and my mind is afflicted at beholding you separated from your husband, for beauty and youth are wasted when one is deprived of the society of one's beloved.’ With this and many other speeches of the same kind she tried to gain the confidence of the virtuous woman in a short interview, and then, taking leave of her, she returned to her own house. On the second day she took with her a piece of meat full of pepper-dust, and went again to the house of Devasmitá, and there she gave that piece of meat to the she-dog at the door, who gobbled it up, pepper and all. Then, owing to the pepper-dust, the tears flowed in profusion from the animal's eyes, and her nose began to run. And the cunning ascetic immediately went into the apartment of Deva-smitá, who received her hospitably, and she began to cry. When Devasmitá asked her why she shed tears, she said, with affected reluctance: ‘My friend, look at this dog weeping outside here. This creature recognised me to-day as having been its companion in a former birth, and began to weep; for that reason my tears gushed through pity.’ When she heard that, and saw that she-dog outside apparently weeping, Devasmitá thought for a moment to herself: ‘What can be the meaning of this wonderful sight?’ Then the ascetic said to her: ‘My daughter, in a former birth, I and that dog were the two wives of a certain Bráhman. And our husband frequently went about to other countries on embassies by order of the king. Now while he was away from home I lived with other men at my pleasure, and so did not cheat the elements of which I was composed, and my senses, of their lawful enjoyment. For considerate treatment of the elements and senses is held to be the highest duty. Therefore I have been born in this birth with a recollection of my former existence. But she, in her former life, through ignorance, confined all her attention to the preservation of her character, therefore she has been degraded and born again as one of the canine race; however, she too remembers her former birth.’246 The wise Devasmitá said to herself: ‘This is a novel conception of duty; no doubt this woman has laid a treacherous snare for me;’ and so said to her: ‘Reverend lady, for this long time I have been ignorant of this duty, so procure me an interview with some charming man.’ Then the ascetic said: ‘There are residing here some young merchants that have come from another country, so I will bring them to you.’”
The wicked ascetic returns home delighted with the success of her stratagem. Meanwhile Devasmitá resolves to punish the four young merchants. So calling her maids, she instructs them to prepare some wine mixed with datura (a stupifying drug), and to have a dog's foot of iron made as quickly as possible. Then she causes one of her maids to dress herself to resemble her mistress. The ascetic introduces one of the young libertines into the lady's house in the evening, and then returns home. The maid, disguised as her mistress, receives the young merchant courteously, and, having persuaded him to drink freely of the drugged wine till he becomes senseless, the other maids strip off his clothes, and, after branding him on the forehead with the dog's foot, during the night push him into a filthy ditch. On recovering consciousness he returns to his companions, and tells them, in order that they should share his fate, that he had been robbed. The three other young merchants in turn visit the house of Devasmitá, and receive the same treatment. Soon afterwards the pretended devotee, ignorant of the result of her device, visits the lady, is drugged, her ears and nose are cut off, and she is flung into a foul pond. In the sequel, the lady, disguised in man's apparel, proceeds to the country of the young libertines, where her husband had been residing for some time, and, going before the king, petitions him to assemble all his subjects, alleging that there are among his citizens four of her slaves who had run away. Then she seized upon the four young merchants, and claimed them as her slaves. The other merchants indignantly cried out that these were reputable men, and she answered that if their foreheads were examined they should be found marked with a dog's foot. On seeing the merchants thus branded, the king was astonished, and Devasmitá thereupon related the whole story, and all the people burst out laughing, and the king said to the lady: “They are your slaves by the best of titles.” The other merchants paid a large sum to the chaste wife to redeem these four from slavery, and a fine to the king's treasury. And Devasmitá having received the money, and recovered her husband, was honoured by all men, returned to her own city, and was never afterwards separated from her beloved.
It will be observed that in this old Indian version the dénoue-ment is more moral than in any others: instead of the lady yielding, she entraps successively the four young merchants and their go-between, and punishes all of them in the most edifying manner.
NOTHING at all resembling this fragment is found in any of the Eastern texts represented in our Comparative Table. Without the commencement it is difficult to guess at the details of the story. Perhaps the lady, in her husband's absence, had gone to the house of an old lover, under some false pretences; she is apparently disguised, and so is not recognised by him; then she gets drunk there, and discovers herself to him in her joy to be near him again, and is maltreated in consequence. She pretends to her neighbours that it is all her own doing, because of her grief for the news of her husband's death. When he comes, however, she turns the tables on him, and he pays off the debts she had incurred during his absence.
In the manuscript, on the first of the three remaining pages of the story (fol. 177), there is a painting of the “tresses” scene: A young man is seated, holding the lady's severed hair in his right hand, near his left is a wine bottle overturned, and two others are introduced to show there has been a drinking-bout going on; the lady, with her hair cut off and her face apparently flushed and idiotic, stands near the youth; while at a short distance is a figure which seems meant rather for that of a eunuch than an old woman, “biting the finger of astonishment.” It is not very clear from the text whether by “the old companion” who “leaped lnto her suddenly” we are to understand the old lover, or this unsexed personage—probably the former. I should suppose the Suka Saptatī likely to contain the complete story, or something similar.
THIS story is found in the 8th Night of Nakhshabī's Tūtī Nāma (where it is told by the 5th vazīr) and also in the modern version of its Sanskrit prototype, the Suka Saptatī.—Readers of Lane's translation of the Thousand and One Nights will probably recollect a more elaborate conversation by signs in the touching story of 'Azīz and 'Azīza, where the young man's cousin and betrothed interprets the amorous lady's symbols; for instance: She tucked up her sleeves from her forearms, and opening her five fingers, struck her bosom with them (with the palm and five fingers); next she raised her hands, and held forth a mirror from the lattice, and took a red handkerchief and retired with it; after which she let it down from the lattice towards the street three times, letting it down and raising it, and then wringing and twisting it with her hand and bending down her head; meaning thereby: “Come hither after five days; seat thyself at the shop of the dyer [indicated by the dipping and wringing of the red handkerchief], until my messenger shall come to thee.”—Lane remarks, that “the inability of numbers of Eastern women in families of the middle classes to write or read, as well as the difficulty or impossibility existing of conveying written letters, may have given rise to such modes of communication.”
Another example of conversing by signs occurs in the Story of the Minister's Son, in the Sanskrit collection entitled Vetala-panchavinsati (Twenty-five Tales of a Demon). The prince and his companion, the minister's son, discover a lady bathing in a tank; and the prince and the damsel become immediately enamoured of each other. The lady took a lotus from her garland of flowers, and put it in her ear; she then twisted it into an ornament called dantapatra, or tooth-leaf; then she took another lotus and placed it significantly upon her heart. The minister's son explains these signs: the lady lives in such a place; she is the daughter of a dentist there; her name is Padmavati, and her heart is wholly the prince's. An old woman (as usual) acts as go-between. The lady scolds her, strikes her on both cheeks with her two hands smeared with camphor;—meaning: “Wait for the remaining ten nights of moonlight, for they are unfavourable for an interview.” A second time the old woman goes to the lady, who again pretends to be angry with her, and strikes her on the breast with three fingers dipped in red dye;—meaning: “I cannot receive you for three nights.” A third time the lady receives her more graciously, but, instead of letting her go into the street by the usual way, she places her in a seat with a rope fastened to support it, and lets her down from a window into the garden of the house, where she must climb a tree, cross the wall, and let herself down by another tree, and go to her own house; thus indicating to the prince the way by which he was to be admitted into the house.
Cardonne, in his Mélanges de Littérature Orientale, gives a variant of our story, with additions, from a Persian or Turkish collection. After the father-in-law (a merchant of Agra) has failed to convince his son of his wife's infidelity, by displaying the anklets, he is still resolved to open his eyes to her true character, at whatever cost. “There was at Agra a mysterious reservoir, much admired, constructed by some wise men, who had brought water into it under the conjunction of certain planets. The virtue of the water consisted in trying all kinds of falsehood. A woman, suspected of infidelity, swore she had been faithful, and was thrown into this tank, called the Tank of Trial; if she swore falsely, she instantly sank to the bottom, but if truly, she swam on the surface. The enraged father-in-law cited the lady to this tank, according to the right of every head of a family. Conscious of her guilt, the lady studied how to clear herself in the eyes of the world. Acquainting her gallant of her situation, she begged him to counterfeit madness, and to seize her in his arms the moment she was to undergo the trial. The lover, solicitous to save the honour and life of his mistress, made no difficulty to expose himself to the eyes of the spectators, and found an opportunity to approach and embrace her, which he effected by subjecting himself to a few blows, being deemed insane by those who did not know him.
“The suspected wife advanced to the edge of the tank, and, raising her voice, cried: ‘I swear that I have never touched any man but my husband and that madman who has just insulted me. Let this water be my punishment if I have sworn falsely.’ Having thus spoken, she threw herself into the tank. The water buoyed her up in the sight of all present, who unanimously declared her innocent, and she returned triumphant to the arms of her husband, who had always thought her faithful. But the old man could not give up the opinion he had formed from the evidence of his own eyes; he kept constant watch in the garden, but the lover and the lady discontinued their meetings.
“The vigilance of the father-in-law did not, however, abate. The king of India, being informed of his indefatigable care and attention, thought him a very proper person to superintend his harem, and appointed him to that responsible office. The old man discharged his duties with great severity; every one trembled before him, and his eyes seemed to penetrate the walls of the seraglio, even to its inmost recesses. One night as the unrelenting old fellow was going his usual rounds, he perceived the prince's elephant mounted by its driver. This privileged animal advanced to the balcony of the king's favourite wife, which opened, and the elephant, taking the lady upon his trunk, conducted her to his rider. After some time the lady was brought back again in the same manner, and set down in her balcony. The aga could not help laughing at the docility of the animal, the confidence of the lady, and the happiness of the guide. The adventure having taught him that the sultan was no more fortunate than his son, he took comfort, and resolved to keep the lady's intrigue more secret than he had done that of his daughter-in-law.
From a fabliau, possibly, Margaret Queen of Navarre obtained the material of the 45th tale of her Heptameron, in which an officious neighbour, looking from his window, discovers a lady and her gallant in the garden; when she sees that they are being thus watched, she sends her lover away, and, going into the house, persuades her husband to spend what remains of the night with her in the same spot. In the morning the neighbour meets the husband and tells him of his wife's misconduct, but is answered: “It was I, gossip, it was I.”
PROFESSOR Benfey has pointed out, in his Pancha Tantra, the resemblance between this tale—which is not found in the Seven Vazīrs—and one in the Suka Saptatī. The fate of the officious monkey finds numerous parallels in Asiatic folk-tales. For instance: In the story of “Ameen and the Ghool,” related to Sir John Malcolm by the Shah's Story-teller, Ameen having outwitted the monster, who sought to slay him, while he slept, by the same device as that adopted by our own hero Jack, of giant-killing renown, the ghūl, on finding his intended victim alive and hearty in the morning, fled from his den in great terror, upon which Ameen took the opportunity of escaping. He had, however, only gone a short distance when he saw the ghūl returning with a large club in his hand, and accompanied by a fox. His knowledge of the cunning animal instantly led him to suspect that it had undeceived his enemy, but his presence of mind did not forsake him. “Take that,” said he to the fox, at the same time shooting him through the head. “That brute,” said he to the ghūl, “promised to bring me seven ghūls that I might chain them and carry them to Isfahān, and here he has only brought you, who are already my slave.” So saying, he advanced, but the ghūl had taken flight. (Sketches of Persia, chap. xvi.)
Another parallel is found in the Kashmīr folk-tale of “The Tiger and the Farmer's Wife:” One day a farmer went to his field to plough with his bullocks. He had just yoked them when a tiger walked up to him and saluted him; the farmer returned the salute, when the tiger said that the Lord had sent him to eat his two bullocks. The farmer promises that he will bring him a fine milch-cow instead; but his wife objects, and, putting on the farmer's best clothes, sets off, man-fashion, on the pony to where the tiger is waiting. She calls out: “I hope I may find a tiger in this field, for I have not tasted tiger's flesh since the day before yesterday, when I killed three.” The tiger, on hearing this, turns tail and flees into the jungle, where he meets a jackal, who asks him why he runs so fast. “Because a tiger-eating demon is after me.” The jackal tells him it is only a woman. But the tiger is still afraid, and the jackal and he knot their tails together, so that one should not escape at the other's expense. When the woman sees them, she calls out to the jackal: “This is very kind of you, to bring me such a fat tiger; but considering how many tigers there are in your father's house, I think you might have brought me two.” Upon this, the tiger flies off in a fright, dragging the jackal after him, and the latter is killed by being bumped against the stones. (Indian Antiquary, 1882.)
IT may possibly interest some students of comparative folk-lore to know that in the Persian version of this story the First Wish of the devotee is similar to that in the old Castilian version, Libro de los Engannos et los Asayamentos de las Mugeres, appended to Professor D. Comparetti's most valuable Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibād. And it is perhaps worthy of note that the Turkish rendering of the story agrees, in this respect, with the Persian and old Castilian versions; which seems to show that the Ottoman translation of the Thousand and One Nights was made from a different text from the Calcutta or the Būlāq.
AN error in the translation of the story of the Concealed Robe falls to be corrected in this place: pp. 76, 77, “One day the vile hag,” etc.,—it is not the old woman who visits the lady at her mother's house, after she ran away from her husband's violence, but the same “effeminate one” who concealed the robe, and who not only conducts her to her lover, but also makes peace between the husband and wife. The only part the old woman takes in the intrigue is to engage the services of the “effeminate one”—in the original, mukhannas, which means a hermaphrodite, and has another signification, which need not be here explained—for, although she “had now cleared her hands from the affairs of the world, she had formerly managed many such matters.” (I may as well mention that I had originally suppressed the circumstance of the want of sex on the part of the individual employed by the old woman, and, somehow, neglected to alter the terms in pages 76, 77.)—The wretched being who is so comically described in the text would doubtless readily obtain access to the women's apartments of any house in Persia or India; and as Eastern tales of common life are considered to faithfully reflect the manners and customs of the age in which they were composed, it may be concluded that eunuchs and epicene individuals were formerly employed in those countries as go-betweens in affairs of gallantry. It is hardly to be supposed, surely, that the author of the Sindibād Nāma deliberately substituted this hermaphrodite go-between for the conventional old woman of the same story as found in other versions. But I shall not take upon myself to say whether this peculiar turn of the story in the Persian text is evidence of its greater antiquity. I may add, that it will be observed that in the Persian version of the story the cloth, or robe, is not burnt, nor is the lady divorced, apparently, as in the Arabian and other texts; and perhaps the most remarkable difference is, that it is the young man himself who suggests that the husband should be reconciled to his wife. The story is so differently told in the Persian text from the Greek, Arabic, and other versions, that Falconer could only have cursorily looked at it in the MS. when he referred his reader to the tale as given in Jonathan Scott's Seven Vazīrs. Professor Comparetti has stated, in his “Researches,” that the Story of the Burnt Cloth is not in the Persian text of the Sindibād. He was, perhaps, misled by the French translator of Falconer's analysis, in the Revue Britannique, who may have omitted the brief allusion which Falconer makes to the story, in these words: “The vazīr [i.e. the sixth] next relates the Story of the Stratagem of the Old Woman with the Merchant's Wife and the Young Man, which, being told in the Seven Vazīrs (‘Tales,’ etc., p. 168), need not be here repeated.”—As this is one of the “secondary” tales of the vazīrs, which Professor Comparetti conceives was added when the tales of the Libertine Husband and the Old Woman and the She-Dog were fused together, it is of some importance to find it in the Persian text, and told so differently, as well as these two stories separately.
In some of the Arabian texts of the Seven Vazīrs, the story of the Burnt Veil is followed by the tale of
which is almost identical with the well-known story in the introduction to the Arabian Nights. The original is perhaps found in the Kathá Sarit Ságara, section seventh, to the following effect: Two young Bráhmans travelling are benighted in a forest, and take up their lodging in a tree near a lake. Early in the night a number of people come from the water, and having made preparations for an entertainment retire; a Yaksha (or genie) then comes out of the lake with his two wives, and spends the night there; when he and one of his wives are asleep, the other, seeing the youths, invites them to approach her, and, to encourage them, shows them a hundred rings received from former gallants, notwithstanding her husband's precautions, who keeps her locked up in a chest at the bottom of the lake. The Hindū story-teller is more moral than the Arab: the youths reject her advances; she wakes the Yaksha, who is going to put them to death, but the rings are produced in evidence against the unfaithful wife, and she is turned away with the loss of her nose.—The story is repeated in the next section with some variation: the lady has ninety and nine rings, and is about to complete the hundred, when her husband, who is Naga (or snake-god) wakes, and consumes the guilty pair with fire from his mouth.—Dr. H. H. Wilson.—There is a variant of this story in the Persian romance of Hatim Taï (a pre-Islamite chieftain, renowned throughout the East for his unbounded generosity and liberality): A king, on a hunting excursion, loses his way and is separated from his attendants; he comes to a beautiful garden, in which is a palace, and an artificial lake, sits down, and, as he is performing his ablutions, catches hold of an iron chain in the water, pulls it towards him, and behold, it is attached to a chest, which opens, and discovers a woman of surpassing beauty. After conversing with her, the king takes a ring from his finger and offers it to her as a memento, but she tells him that she has already a string of rings, of which she cannot tell the number, nor can she recollect which lover gave her a particular ring.—Forbes says there is a similar tale in Nakhshabī, near the beginning, but I have failed to find it in that work.
THIS story is told by the first vazīr in all the versions, save the Persian Sindibād Nāma, where it is related by the seventh vazīr, and two of the Arabian texts, namely, Scott's MS. and the Rich MS. in the British Museum, where it is, not inappropriately, told by the Damsel, since it tells rather against men than women, the king being the aggressor, and the “wile” of the lady being in defence of her own virtue.—As an instance of the “hashy” manner in which the Book of the Thousand and One Nights has been put together, it may be mentioned that in the Calcutta printed Arabic text (which hardly differs at all from that printed at Būlāq), this tale of the Sultan and the Virtuous Wife is also related separately from the Seven Vazīrs—Night 404.
A variant of the story is found in a Turkish collection, entitled 'Ajā'ibu-'l-Ma'āsir, Marvels of Memorials (i.e. of Traditions, etc.), which Cardonne translated, under the title of “La Pantoufle du Sultan,” in his Mélanges de Littérature Orientale. This version differs in some particulars from that of Scott. The sultan sends the vazīr a written order to proceed on some business to a distant place. The vazīr, in his haste to depart, leaves on the sofa the sultan's order. Instead of the lady giving the sultan a book to read while she prepares supper for his entertainment, she recites to him two distichs, to the effect that the lion would scorn to devour what the wolf leaves, and deigns not to quench his thirst in the river which had been polluted by the dog. “These words immediately convinced the sultan that he had nothing to hope for there; he retired greatly disconcerted, and in his confusion forgot one of his slippers. The vazīr, in the meantime, having in vain searched for the prince's order, recollected that he had left it on the sofa, and was obliged to return home for it. The sultan's slipper, which had lain till then unperceived, gave him a too clear conviction of the monarch's real designs, and his motive for sending him away. Tormented at once by ambition and jealousy, he concerted means to divorce his wife without the loss of his dignity. Having despatched his business, he returned to give the sultan an account of his commission, and pretended to his wife that, as the sultan had just given him a sumptuous palace, it was necessary for her to pass a few days with her father, in order that he might have leisure to furnish it, presenting her at the same time with a hundred pieces of gold.” The rest of the story agrees with the Arabian and other versions.
Boccaccio has adapted the first part of the Arabic version for the 5th Novel, Day i, of his Decameron. The Marchioness of Monferrat, while her husband was absent—being engaged in the crusade against the Turks—was visited by Philip, King of France, who had become enamoured of her from the accounts he had heard of her beauty and virtue. The lady, suspecting his designs, bought up all the hens she could, and caused them to be dressed in as many different ways as possible. When the king perceived the uniform character of the fare, he said: “Madam, are only hens bred in this country?” “Not so,” the lady replied; “but women, however they may differ in dress and titles, are the same here as in other places.” The king felt the force of the rebuke, and presently departed.
THE Persian version of this story differs very materially from that in Syntipas, where the woman, having learned of the young man's book of wiles, tells him the following tale:
“A certain man possessed a house and a prudent wife, and was always disparaging all woman kind. ‘Abuse not all women,’ his wife said, ‘but only the bad.’ ‘All,’ retorted he. ‘Speak not thus,’ the wife replied; ‘since you happen not to be united with one of them.’ ‘Had I fallen in with one of them,’ he then said, ‘I should have cut off her nose.’ After his own fashion, he also held up to obloquy some quarrelsome female neighbours. The wife then said to her husband: ‘What do you purpose doing to-day?’ And he answered: ‘I am going into the field, and, at your leisure, cook something and bring it thither, that I may dine.’ The wife then going forth met with, on her way, and purchased some fish, and scattered them in the field where her husband was to plough. When he discovered the fish, he said to his wife: ‘Have you prepared aught for us to eat this evening?’ And she replied: ‘I have cooked neither flesh nor fish, nor anything else.’ Thereupon he said: ‘Behold the food I found in the field, and cook it.’ Upon this she took the fish and concealed them. The table having been laid out, the man said to his wife: ‘Where is the fish?’ ‘What fish?’ she demanded. ‘Thou fool,’ said he, ‘did I not bring some fish just now, which I found in the field?’ The woman, scratching her face with her nails, cried out: ‘O listen to me, neighbours!’ And the neighbours having assembled, the wife said to them: ‘Listen, O my masters! My husband bids me cook fish which he brought from the field.’ The men asked the husband: ‘What sayest thou?—that you found fish in a ploughed field?’ He replied: ‘O my masters and brethren! the food I found there; but how it happened to be there, I know not.’ His wife then cried out: ‘This man has a devil!’ And the neighbours then put iron fetters on his hands and feet, and the whole night through the wretched man continued to say: ‘Did I not find the fish, and, bringing them to this jade, bid her cook them? Why have they, then, bound me with fetters?’ At the dawn of day the wife again raised a cry; upon which the neighbours reassembled, and asked: ‘What has happened?’ and the unfortunate man once more repeated the truth. ‘He is possessed of a devil!’ cried the woman; and the neighbours, believing her, said: ‘Verily, the man is suffering somewhat.’ After the third day, the woman said to her husband: ‘Art thou hungry? May I give thee somewhat to eat?’ And he answered; ‘Yea; and what hast thou to give me to eat?’ She said: ‘Cooked victuals, in the frying-pan.’ ‘Thou sayest well, woman. Are not those the same that I brought to you from the field?’ The wife then exclaimed: ‘O Christian masters! the evil spirit still possesses this man, as he continues to talk about the victuals.’ But on his declaring, ‘I no longer maintain what I uttered before,’ she gave him a portion and he ate of the food, without saying a word about it. But she asked: ‘Dost thou not remember the food?’ He replied: ‘I know not what thou art talking about.’ She then released him, and said: ‘O husband, all that thou hast uttered is true; but wherefore abusest thou not only the bad but also the good women? And I said to thee: “Be silent;” but thou repliedst: “If I had such a wicked wife, I should slay her.” No longer vainly boast of being superior to womankind.’”
Having put the youth off his guard by this artful story, the woman makes advances to him, and then makes a great outcry, which brought the neighbours, who asked the cause of her exclamations. The youth by this time had taken his seat at the table, and the woman said in reply to the neighbours: “This stranger, who is received kindly by us, eating at our table, was suffering grievously, and was in great danger of being choked, in consequence of a morsel sticking in his throat; but I, quickly seeing what had happened, and fearing the death of a guest, shouted out as you heard me. But now the help of God has saved him from the danger of choking, and granted him health,” and the neighbours went away. The woman, then approaching the stranger, said: “Hast thou written down all I have related to thee, and all I have done?” The stranger answered: “By no means.” She then said: “In vain, O man, have you sustained labours and outlays;—despite your endeavours, you have accomplished nothing, and never fathomed the machinations of women!” And the stranger immediately took the records of the wiles of women, and threw them into the fire, and, marvelling, said: “No human being is able to know the knaveries of women.” After this, hesitating, and not realising what might happen, he discontinued the investigation of woman's evil-craft, returned to his native land, and married a wife.
This story is not found in the Mishlé Sandabar or the Seven Vazīrs, and the subordinate tale, related by the woman, as above, is peculiar to the Greek text. The woman's own wile is also found in the Bahār-i Dānish, or Spring of Knowledge, by Ināyatu-'llāh of Delhi, a work which is avowedly derived, all but the frame, from ancient Indian sources; and in the 8th Night of Nakhshabī's Tūtī Nāma, where it is told by the fourth vazīr.—The twenty-first vazīr's story in the Turkish book of The Forty Vazīrs is not remotely related to the same tale. Mr. E. J. W. Gibb has favoured me with the following translation of it, from a printed text procured at Constantinople:
“There was in the palace of the world a great king, and he had a beautiful wife, such that many a soul dangled in the tresses on her cheek. That lady had a secret affair with a youth; and she used to hide the youth in a chest in the palace. One day the youth said to the lady: ‘If the king were aware of our work, he would slay the two of us.’ The lady said: ‘Leave that thought; I can do so that I shall hide thee in the chest, and say to the king: “Lo, my lover is lying in this chest;” and then, when the king is about to kill me, I will make him repentant by one word.’ While the youth and the lady were saying these words, the king came, and the lady straightway put the youth into the chest and locked it. The king said: ‘Why lockest thou that chest in such haste? What is in the chest?’ The lady answered: ‘It is my lover; I saw thee coming, and put him into the chest and locked it.’ Then was the king wroth, and he bared his sword, and thought to slay him who was in the chest, when the lady said: ‘O king, art thou mad? Where is gone thy understanding? Am I mad, that I should advance a strange man to thy couch, and then say to thee: “Lo, he is in the chest?” In truth, I wondered if thou wast sincere in thy trust of me, and I tried thee, and now I know that thou thinkest evil concerning me.’ Then did the king repent of what he had done; and he begged and besought of his wife, saying, ‘Forgive me.’ And he gave her many things, and craved pardon for his fault. When the king had gone out from the harem into the palace, the lady took that youth forth of the chest, and said: ‘Didst thou not see what a trick I played the king?’ and they gave themselves up to merriment.”
In another Turkish collection, according to Cardonne, a philosopher who had compiled a book of the tricks and devices of women is concealed in a chest by an Arab woman on the appearance of her husband. It seems the man and his wife had been for some time playing a game, which consists in receiving nothing from the person one is engaged to play with, without pronouncing the word Diadestè, or Touch-stake, from which the game derives its name. The woman, to the terror of the concealed philosopher, coolly tells her husband that she has a lover locked in the chest, upon which he furiously demands the key, which she gives him, and then calls out to him: “Pay me the forfeit —you have lost the Diadestè!” The husband, happy to find no cause for his jealousy, returns the key to his wife, and goes away, and the philosopher on being released from his confinement is advised by the woman to enter this contrivance in his book.
The trick played by the wife on her husband with the fishes in the ploughed field, which is interwoven with the Story of Woman's Wiles in the Greek text, finds parallels in other collections of Eastern fiction. For instance: In the tale of the Bang-Eater and his Wife (vol. vi of Jonathan Scott's edition of the Arabian Nights), the man having discovered a hidden treasure, his wife fetches it away, and he, being a very honest fellow, threatens to inform the chief of the police of her having appropriated the gold; upon which, in order that his story should be discredited, she scatters pieces of cooked meat around the house outside, and then awakes her husband, who was sleeping off the effects of a dose of his favourite bang, and tells him that it had just rained these pieces of food. He believes her; but next day he goes to the chief of police, and acquaints him that his wife has taken away some money which had been concealed in a heap of earth. The magistrate asks the woman if her husband told the truth, and she desires him to inquire of the foolish man what day it was that she took the money; he replies that it was the same day that it rained cooked food, and the magistrate causes him to be confined as a lunatic. Some time afterwards his wife persuades him to say that nobody ever knew of it raining anything but water, and he is set at liberty.
So, too, in the story of the Foolish Sachalī, in Miss Stokes' Indian Fairy Tales, the simpleton meets with a strayed camel, loaded with rupees, and takes it home; his mother conceals the treasure, and, while he is out of the way, scatters comfits outside the house. On his return home she tells him that the comfits have fallen from the skies, and the foolish Sachalī informs the neighbours that his mother had concealed a large quantity of rupees, which he found the same day that it rained comfits.—In an English story, it rained raisins, and in Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, there are showers of milk-porridge and pancakes.
In the Calcutta text of the Thousand and One Nights there occurs (Night 394) what seems an absurd variant of the trick with the fishes: A man gives his wife one Friday a fish to cook; while he is out, her lover comes, and, putting the fish in a jar of water, she goes off with him, and is absent a whole week. On the following Friday she comes home, and her husband (who had sought for her everywhere), reproaches her, but she brings out the fish alive from the jar, to show that she could not have been absent at all; she then assembles the neighbours, who, considering him mad, load him with fetters.
WE have in the Persian text of this ancient tale a curious parallel to a custom which prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages. The house of the bountiful man is represented as having “neither door, nor lock, nor porter.” In the Mabinogion, we read: “If it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none;” on which Lady Charlotte Guest remarks: “The absence of a porter was formerly considered as an indication of hospitality, and as such is alluded to by Rhys Brychan, a bard who flourished at the close of the 15th century:
The stately entrance is without porters,
And his mansions are open to every honest man.”
The original form of our story of the Poisoned Guests seems to be found in the 13th of the Twenty-five Tales of a Demon (Vetála Panchavinsati). The wife of a man named Harisvāmin having been stolen from him one night by a Vidyādhara prince, he gave away all his wealth to the Bráhmans, and resolved to visit all the holy waters, and wash away his sins, after which he hoped he might find his beloved wife again; and the story thus proceeds:
“Then he left his country, with his Bráhman birth as his only fortune, and proceeded to go round to all the holy bathing-places in order to recover his beloved. And as he was roaming about, there came upon him the terrible lion of the hot season, with the blazing sun for mouth, and with a mane composed of his fiery rays. And the winds blew with excessive heat, as if warmed by the breath of sighs furnaced forth by travellers grieved at being separated from their wives. And the tanks, with their supply of water diminished by the heat, and their drying white mud, appeared to be showing their broken hearts. And the trees by the roadside seemed to lament on account of the departure of the glory of spring, making their wailing heard in the shrill moaning of their bark, with leaves, as it were, lips, parched with heat. At that season Harisvāmin, wearied out with the heat of the sun, with bereavement, hunger and thirst, and continual travelling, disfigured, emaciated and dirty, and pining for food, reached in the course of his wanderings a certain village, and found in it the house of a Bráhman named Padmanābha, who was engaged in a sacrifice. And seeing that many Bráhmans were eating in his house, he stood leaning against the door-post, silent and motionless. And the good-wife of that Bráhman named Pad-manābha, seeing him in this position, felt pity for him, and reflected: ‘Alas, mighty is hunger! Whom will it not bring down? For here stands a man at the door, who appears to be a householder, desiring food, with downcast countenance; evidently come from a long journey, and with all his senses impaired by hunger. So is not he a man to whom food ought to be given?’ Having gone through these reflections, the kind woman took up in her hands a vessel full of rice boiled in milk, with ghee and sugar, and brought it, and courteously presented it to him, and said: ‘Go and eat this somewhere on the bank of the lake, for this place is unfit to eat in, as it is filled with feasting Bráhmans.’
“He said: ‘I will do so,’ and took the vessel of rice and placed it at no great distance under a banyan-tree on the edge of the lake; and he washed his hands and feet in the lake, and rinsed his mouth, and then came back in high spirits to eat the rice. But while he was thus engaged a kite, holding a black cobra with its beak and claws, came from some place or other, and sat on that tree. And it so happened that poisonous saliva issued from the mouth of that dead snake, which the bird had captured and was carrying along. The saliva fell into the dish of rice which was placed underneath the tree, and Harisvāmin, without observing it, came and ate up that rice. As soon as in his hunger he had devoured all that food, he began to suffer terrible agonies, produced by the poison. He exclaimed: ‘When fate has turned against a man, everything in this world turns also; accordingly this rice, dressed with milk, ghee, and sugar, has become poison to me.’ Thus speaking, Harisvāmin, tortured with the poison, tottered to the house of that Bráhman who was engaged in a sacrifice, and said to his wife: ‘The rice which you gave me has poisoned me; so fetch me quickly a charmer who can counteract the operation of poison; otherwise you will be guilty of the death of a Bráhman.’ When Harisvāmin had said this to the good woman, who was beside herself to think what it could all mean, his eyes closed, and he died. Accordingly the Bráhman who was engaged in a sacrifice drove out of his house his wife, though she was innocent and hospitable, being enraged with her for the supposed murder of her guest. The good woman, for her part, having incurred groundless blame from her charitable deed, and so become branded with infamy, went to a holy bathing-place to perform penance. Then there was a discussion before the superintendent of religion as to which of the four parties, the kite, the snake, and the couple who gave rice, was guilty of the murder of a Bráhman, but the question was not decided.”
This forms the 16th tale of the Tamil version (Vedála Cadai) and the 12th of the Hindī (Baitál Pachisí); in the latter, the traveller, having placed the dish of food at the foot of a fig-tree, went into the tank to wash his face and hands; meanwhile a black snake, gliding from the roots of the tree, thrust its venomous mouth into the food, and then went away.—An incident resembling this story is found in the Bahár-i Dánish (Story of the First Companion): A snake bites the lip of the lady's paramour while he lies asleep, and kills him; then it dropped some of its poison into the goblet of wine, which the lady when she awoke drank, and she also died.
THIS is not only a familiar “Joe Miller” story, but it has been popular throughout Europe in various forms since the Middle Ages. Wright, in his elaborate introduction to the early English metrical version of the Seven Sages (vol. xvi of the Percy Society publications), states that he had met with it among the Latin tales of the 13th and 14th centuries. The first appearance of the story in English (taken perhaps from Valerius Maximus), so far as I have ascertained, is in the collection of jests entitled Tales and Quicke Answeres, very Mery and Pleasant to Rede, printed about 1535, where it is related as follows:
“There were two men on a time, the whiche lefte a great somme of money in kepyng with a maiden on this condition, that she shulde nat delyuer hit agayne, excepte they came bothe together for hit. Nat lang after, one of them cam to hir morn-yngly arayde, and sayde that his felowe was deed, and so required the money, and she delyuered hit to hym. Shortly after came the tother man, and required to have the moneye that was lefte with hir in kepying. The maiden was than so sorow-full, both for lacke of the money, and for one to defende hir cause, that she thought to hange hirself. But Demosthenes, that excellent oratour, spake for hir and sayd: Sir, this mayden is redy to quite her fidelite, and to deliuer agayne the money that was lefte with hir in kepyng, so that thou wilt bringe thy felowe with the to receyue it. But that he could nat do.”
The story reappears in another jest-book, Jacke of Dovers Quest of Inquirie, or his Privy Search for the Veriest Foole in England, 1604, under the title of “The Fool of Westchester,” where two “cony-catchers,” or sharpers, deposit a sum of money with “a widow woman,” one of whom obtains the deposit, and decamps. When the other fellow brings the case to trial before the judges in London, the widow—without the help of “Demosthenes”—steps briskly to the bar, and offers to restore the money on the original condition, that both came together to claim it.—It is reproduced, with some variations, in The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, who was commonly called the King's Fool, where three pedlars leave a pack with a widow, who kept an inn on the highway-side, charging her strictly, before witnesses, to deliver it to none of them unless they all came together. Two of the pedlars return, after a time, and, pretending their partner had gone to a certain fair, obtain the pack. When the third comes and learns how he had been cheated, he cites the poor woman before the judges, and “George” dons a lawyer's gown, and pleads her cause successfully.—Strange to say, Lloyd, in his State Worthies, has actually related the story as an incident in the early legal career of William Noy, attorney-general (1577-1634)—the case of the Three Graziers and the Alewife, in which judgment was about to be given against the poor woman, when young Noy, having obtained a fee from her in order that he should be able to plead in her behalf, starts up and informs the court that his client is prepared to pay the money when all three are present to receive it. This is given, on Lloyd's weak authority, in Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxiii, pp. 267, 268, although the same legal feat had been previously credited in the same work to Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor (1540-1617). We have seen that the “case” was a popular jest in England before either Noy or Egerton was born.—A French variant is found in the Nouveaux Contes à rire, 1737, under the title of “Jugement subtil du duc d'Ossone contre deux Marchands;” and Rogers, in the notes to his poem of “Italy,” gives an Italian version, in which a young lawyer, the lover of the old lady's daughter, plays the part of the successful advocate.
FALCONER remarks, in a note on this passage of our text: “The advantages of travel are a favourite topic with Eastern poets. On this subject the reader will find, in the Asiatic Journal for September, 1839, some verses extracted from the Sikandar Nāma [Alexander-Book] of Nizāmī; and in the No. for November, 1839, a gazal by Jalālu-'d-Dīn Rūmī; and an Arabian poet has panegyrised travel in some verses which may be thus rendered:
Rise! flee the dull monotony of home;
Nor fear a friend will fail where'er you roam.
Go, wend from clime to clime your joyous way,
And Nature's lore will every toil repay;
Each shifting scene enkindling new delight,
While languor dulls the home-devoted wight.Change—mid the starry host, or earth below—
Works every good created beings know.
Mark the glad streamlet, fresh'ning as it flows;
The joyless marsh, stagnant in dead repose!
Shone the blest Sun one long, eternal day,
Men of each clime would loathe his garish ray;
And yon pale Moon, to pensive lovers dear,
Would tire even them, for ever in the sphere!If ne'er the arrow left the twanging string,
Say, would it reach the mark, or thread the ring?
If still the lion slumbered in his lair,
Would self-doomed victims to his feet repair?
Even gold is worthless, while the mine inurns,
And aloe yields no incense till it burns.
For change—in heaven above and earth below—
Works every good created beings know.”
The verses from the Sikandar Nāma are accompanied in the Asiatic Journal by the following beautiful paraphrase, signed F, and doubtless by Falconer himself:
'Tis blithe to wander earth's fair face
With wayward footsteps over,
And, as each varied scene we trace,
New beauties to discover.
Sweet, too, at busy daylight's close,
The halting-place, with its repose.'Tis blithe, our track as we pursue,
To mark with curious wonder,
Each step fresh marvels bring to view
Concealment's veil from under;
While all that meets the observant eye
Some thoughtful lesson shall supply.And yet, for aye, it were unwise
On distant shores to linger,
When busy Memory homeward hies,
And becks with restless finger;
And joys—she hints—our coming wait,
Denied us in our alien state.And what though, far from home, we share
Earth's hollow pomps that perish?
The friends, the loves, of youth are there,
And these the heart will cherish:
Its strings will twine around the home
Where we were nursed, howe'er we roam.
Of the gazal of Jalālu-'d-Dīn Rūmī referred to by Falconer, as above, my obliging friend Mr. E. J. W. Gibb has made the following close translation, in which he has very ingeniously reproduced the original rhyme-movement:
1 A-foot or a-wing had the tree to wander able been,
Ne'er had it known the wound of the saw or the hatchet keen.
2 If the sun fared not on his way a-foot and a-wing each night,
How were the world illumed at the dawn of the morning-sheen?
3 Or again, if the bitter water rose not from the sea to the sky,
Where from the flood of the rain were the life of the flowery green?
4 The drop that has gone from its home, when next it appeareth to view,
Having companied long with the shell, as a lustrous pearl is seen.
5 Did not Joseph set forth in tears from his father to journey afar?
And won he not thereby weal and honour and kingship to glean?
6 And Mustafa, journeyed he not to the region where Yathrib lay?
And found he not empire there, and a sovereign's glorious mien?
7 If to travel thou canst not avail, then journey to thine own heart,
And e'en as the ruby-mine, be fired by the ray serene.
8 O master, journey thou forth, away from thyself to Thyself;
For the ore of the mine turns gold by a journey like this, I ween.
9 From sourness and bitterness hence, to the region of sweetness fare;
For that every moon from the light of the sun is with grace beseen.
Jalālu-'d-Dīn, author of the above gazal, was the founder of the sūfī sect of mystics, known in Europe as the Dancing Dervishes, from their gyrations in performing acts of worship. He died at Qonya (Iconium) A. H. 672 (A. D. 1273).—In the fourth couplet of this beautiful gazal is an allusion to the notion, common to Asiatics, that a pearl is a condensed drop of water, which had fallen into the oyster, when its shell was open. Sa'dī has finely versified this in his Bustān.—In the sixth couplet, Mustafa is one of the names of Muhammad, and Yathrib is the old name of Madīna (the city, emphatically)—the reference is to the Prophet's Flight, El Hijra.—In the eighth couplet, the second “Thyself” seems to mean God, as Mr. Gibb supposes, the only truly existent being in the universe, and, therefore, every man's true self.—The English reader will observe that, in this gazal, as faithfully rendered by Mr. Gibb, the opening couplet rhymes, and the second line of each succeeding couplet (or bayt) rhymes with the first couplet.—Let me take the opportunity of adding, that the whole of the Dervish-doctrine (sūfīism, or Eastern mysticism) is amply set forth in the grand poem of Jalālu-'d-Dīn, entitled, par excellence, “The Masnavī,” of which the First Book has been translated into English verse by Mr. J. W. Redhouse, and published by Messrs. Trübner & Co.
NONE of the other texts of the Book of Sindibād represented in our Comparative Table has this widely-diffused tale, and the version here given differs remarkably from all others with which I am acquainted, although the fundamental outline is identical in them all. One of the oldest extant forms of it must, I think, be that found in the collection of stories, in Sanskrit, entitled Vetála Panchavinsati, or Twenty-five Tales of a Demon, a work which, though originally distinct and still existing in separate form in most of the vernacular languages of India, is now included in the grand collection (so often referred to in these notes) entitled Kathá Sarit Ságara. This is how the Vetála story is related in the last-mentioned work, according to Professor Tawney's translation:
In Ujjayni there lived an excellent Bráhman, the dear dependent and minister of King Punyasena, and his name was Harisvāmin. That householder had by his wife, who was his equal in birth, an excellent son like himself, Devasāmin by name. And he also had born to him a daughter, famed for her matchless beauty, rightly named Somaprabhā (i.e. Moonlight). When the time came for that girl to be given away in marriage, as she was proud of her exceeding beauty, she made her mother give the following message to her father and brother: “I am to be given in marriage to a man possessed of heroism, or knowledge, or magic power; you must not give me in marriage to any other, if you value your life.” When her father Harisvāmin heard this, he was full of anxiety, trying to find for her a husband coming under one of these three categories. And while so engaged he was sent as ambassador by King Punyasena to negotiate a treaty with the King of the Dekkan, who had come to invade him. And when he had accomplished the object for which he was sent, a noble Bráhman, who had heard of the great beauty of his daughter, came and asked him for her hand. Harisvāmin said to the Bráhman suitor: “My daughter will not marry any husband who does not possess either valour, or knowledge, or magic power; so tell me which of the three you possess.” He answered: “I possess magic power.” Thereupon Harisvāmin rejoined: “Then show me your magic power.” So he immediately prepared by his skill a chariot that would fly through the air. And in a moment he took up Harisvāmin in that magic chariot, and showed him heaven and all the worlds. And he brought him back delighted to that very camp of the King of the Dekkan, to which he had been sent on business. Then Harisvāmin promised his daughter to that man possessed of supernatural power, and fixed the marriage for the seventh day from that time.
And in the meanwhile another Bráhman, in Ujjayni, came and asked Harisvāmin's son Devasāmin for the hand of his sister. Devasāmin answered: “She does not wish to have a husband who is not possessed of either knowledge, or magic power, or heroism.” Thereupon he declared himself to be a hero. And when the hero displayed his skill in the use of missiles and hand-to-hand weapons, Devasāmin promised to give him his sister, who was younger than himself. And by the advice of the astrologers he told him, as his father had told the other suitor, that the marriage should take place on that very same seventh day, and this decision he came to without the knowledge of his mother.
At that very time a third person came to his mother, wife of Harisvāmin, and asked her privately for the hand of her daughter. She said to him: “Our daughter requires a husband who possesses either knowledge, or magic power, or heroism;” and he answered: “Mother, I possess knowledge.” And she, after questioning him about the past and the future, promised to give the hand of her daughter to that possessor of supernatural knowledge on that same seventh day. The next day Harisvāmin returned home, and told his wife and his son the agreement he had made to give away his daughter in marriage; and they told him separately the promises that they had made; and that made him feel anxious, as three bridegrooms had been invited.
Then on the wedding-day three bridegrooms arrived in Haris-vāmin's house—the man of knowledge, the man of magic power, and the man of valour. And at that moment a strange thing took place: the intended bride, the maiden Somaprabhā, was found to have disappeared in some inexplicable manner, and, though searched for, was not found. Then Harisvāmin said eagerly to the possessor of knowledge: “Man of knowledge, now tell me quickly where my daughter is gone.” He answered: “The Rākshasa Dhūmrasikha has carried her off to his own habitation in the Vindhya forest.” At this Harisvāmin was terrified, and said: “Alas, alas! how are we to get her back, and how is she to be married?” When the possessor of magic power heard that, he said: “Be of good cheer! I will take you in a moment to the place where she is.” He then prepared, as before, a chariot that would fly through the air, provided all kinds of weapons, and made Harisvāmin, the man of knowledge, and the brave man get into it, and in a moment he carried them to the habitation of the Rākshasa in the Vindhya forest, which had been described by the man of knowledge. The Rākshasa, when he saw what had happened, rushed out in a passion, and then the hero, who was put forward by Haris-vāmin, challenged him to fight. Then a wonderful fight took place between the man and the Rākshasa, who were contending for a woman, with various kinds of weapons, like Rāma and Rāvana.274 And in a short time the hero cut off the head of that Rākshasa with a crescent-headed arrow, though he was a doughty champion. Then they carried off Somaprabhā, whom they found in his house, and they all returned in the magic chariot.
And when they had reached Harisvāmin's house, the marriage did not go forward, though the auspicious moment had arrived, but a great dispute arose between the man of knowledge, the man of magic power, and the man of valour. The man of knowledge said: “If I had not known where this maiden was, how would she have been discovered when concealed?—So she ought to be given to me.” But the man of magic power said: “If I had not made the chariot that can fly through the air, how could you all have gone and returned in a moment like the gods? And how could you, without a chariot, have fought with a Rākshasa, who possessed a chariot?—So you ought to give her to me, for I have secured her by my skill this auspicious moment.” The brave man said: “If I had not slain the Rāk-shasa in fight, who would have brought this maiden back here in spite of all your exertions?—So she must be given to me.” While they went on wrangling in this style, Harisvāmin remained silent, being perplexed in mind.
A variant is found in the Tūtī Nāma (34th night of the India Office MS. No. 2573, and the 22nd of Kāderī's abridgment), to the following effect: A rich merchant of Kabūl had a beautiful daughter, named Zohra (or Venus), who had many wealthy suitors, but declared that she would marry only a man who was completely wise, or very skilful. Three young men present themselves before the merchant, saying that if his daughter requires a man of skill for her husband, each of them was eligible. The first youth said that his art was to discover the whereabouts of anything, or anybody, that was lost, and to predict future events. The second could make a horse of wood, which, whoever might mount it, would soar in the air, like Solomon's throne.275 The third was an archer, who could pierce any object at which he might point his arrow. The merchant having reported to his daughter the wonderful acquirements of her three new suitors, she promised to give her decision next morning. But the same night she disappeared, and the unhappy merchant sent for the three youths, desiring them to recover his daughter, by the exercise of their respective talents. The first youth discovered that a perī had carried the damsel to the summit of a mountain which was inaccessible to man. The second made a wooden horse, and gave it to the third (the archer), who mounted it, and very soon reached the mountain, killed the perī, and brought away the maiden. “Each of the three claimed her as his own by right, and the dispute continued.”
The story must be familiar to all readers of the common English translation of the Arabian Nights, in the tale of Prince Ahmed and the Peri Banou: Three princes are in love with their cousin, who is to be given to him that should bring the most wonderful thing. One of them procures a magic carpet, another an ivory telescope, and the third an apple that could cure the person who smelled at it, even if at the point of death. The youth with the tube discovers that the princess is dying; the magic carpet carries them all to the princess; and the apple restores her to health.
The Tartar version, in the Relations of Siddhí Kúr,276 is very peculiar in all its details: Six persons—a rich youth, a calculator, a mechanic, a physician, and a smith—set out together to seek their fortunes. Arriving at the mouth of a great river, each of them planted a tree of life and then separated, having agreed to meet at the same place again. The rich youth, in the course of his wanderings, marries a beautiful maiden; but the khān takes her from him, and afterwards causes him to be put to death, and his body to be covered with a huge rock. At the time agreed upon the five other wanderers return to the spot where they had planted their trees of life, and, seeing that the youth's tree was withered,276a the calculator by his art discovered that he was lying dead beneath a certain rock. The smith with his hammer smote the rock and broke it, and drew forth the body. Then the physician gave the dead youth a draught, and he became alive again. The revived youth having told his companions how his beautiful wife had been taken from him, and himself been slain, by the khān, they resolved by all means to recover such a pearl of beauty. Accordingly the mechanic constructed a wooden Garūda, which went in any direction, as it was guided from within. The painter then decorated the wooden bird with various colours, so that it was wondrous to behold. Then the youth seated himself within the wooden Garūda, which immediately flew through the air, and hovered above the khān's palace. When the khān discovered the strange bird, he bade the wife of the youth go upon the roof and offer food to it, which she did; and the bird descended, and the youth seated her beside him, and they flew away. Having returned to his five companions, the youth and his wife stepped forth from the Garūda, and on their beholding her beauty they began to quarrel among themselves, each claiming her as his wife, because of his share in her recovery, till at length they drew their knives and slew one another.
Such is the outline of the Tartar version of this old-world tale. The wooden Garūda here performs the part of the Enchanted Horse of the Thousand and One Nights, which, however, had reached Europe long before that entertaining work was composed. The contrivance in the Tartar tale was, in fact, borrowed from Hindū fiction: in a story in the Kathá Sarit Ságara, the hero, in love with a princess, personates Vishnū, and rides on a wooden representation of Garūda (the bird of Vishnū), guided by a pin and moving by magic—the prototype of
The wondrous steed of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride,
in Chaucer's “half-told tale of Cambuscan bold,” and of all other self-moving machines so famed in romance.277 —Of European variants, the best is perhaps the well-known German fairy tale of the Four Clever Youths who rescued from a dragon the king's daughter, and were all amply recompensed for their pains.