Chapter 22

sl. 181 and ff. Kasyapa's two wives disputed about the colour of the sun's horses. They agreed that whichever was in the wrong should become a slave to the other. Kadrú, the mother of the snakes, won by getting her children to darken the horses. So Garuda's mother Vinatá became a slave.

[170] Divine personages of the size of a thumb; sixty thousand were produced from Brahmá's body and surrounded the chariot of the sun. The legend of Garuda and the Bálakhilyas is found in the Mahábhárata, see De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, p. 95.

[171] A yojana is probably 9 miles, some say 2-1/2, some 4 or 5. See Monier Williams s. v.

[172] Compare the 5th story in the first book of the Panchatantra, in Benfey's translation.

Benfey shows that this story found its way into Mahometan collections, such as the Thousand and one Nights, and the Thousand and one Days, as also into the Decamerone of Boccaccio, and other European story-books, Vol. I, p. 159, and ff.

The story, as given in the Panchatantra, reminds us of the Squire's Tale in Chaucer, but Josephus in Ant. Jud. XVIII, 3, tells it of a Roman knight named Mundus, who fell in love with Paulina the wife of Saturninus, and by corrupting the priestess of Isis was enabled to pass himself off as Anubis. On the matter coming to the ears of Tiberius, he had the temple of Isis destroyed, and the priests crucified. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, Vol. II, p. 27. Liebrecht's German translation, p. 232). A similar story is told by the Pseudo-Callisthenes of Nectanebos and Olympias. Cp. Coelho's Contos Populares Portuguezes, No. LXXI, p. 155.

[173] Thus she represented the Arddhanárísvara, or Siva half male, and half female, which compound figure is to be painted in this manner.

[174] She held on to it by her hands.

[175] Wilson remarks that this presents some analogy to the story in the Decamerone (Nov. 7 Gior. 8) of the scholar and the widow "la quale egli poi, con un suo consiglio, di mezzo Luglio, ignuda, tutto un dì fa stare in su una torre." It also bears some resemblance to the story of the Master Thief in Thorpe's Yule-tide Stories, page 272. The Master thief persuades the priest that he will take him to heaven. He thus induces him to get into a sack, and then he throws him into the goose-house, and when the geese peck him, tells him that he is in purgatory. The story is Norwegian. See also Sir G. W. Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Vol. 1. p. 127.

[176] Cp. the way in which Rüdiger carries off the daughter of king Osantrix, Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. I, p. 227.

[177] têrêsantes nykta cheimerion hydati kai anemô kai ham' aselênon exêsan. Thucyd. III. 22.

[178] The word dasyu here means savage, barbarian. These wild mountain tribes called indiscriminately Savaras, Pulindas, Bhillas &c., seem to have been addicted to cattle-lifting and brigandage. So the word dasyu comes to mean robber. Even the virtuous Savara prince described in the story of Jímútaváhana plunders a caravan.

[179] Cathay?

[180] Compare the rose garland in the story of the Wright's Chaste Wife; edited for the early English Text Society by Frederick J. Furnivall, especially lines 58 and ff.

"Wete thou wele withowtyn fable "Alle the whyle thy wife is stable "The chaplett wolle holde hewe; "And yf thy wyfe use putry "Or telle eny man to lye her by Then welle yt change hewe, And by the garland thou may see, Fekylle or fals yf that sche be, Or elles yf she be true.

See also note in Wilson's Essays on Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I, p. 218. He tells us that in Perce Forest the lily of the Kathá Sarit Ságara is represented by a rose. In Amadis de Gaul it is a garland which blooms on the head of her that is faithful, and fades on the brow of the inconstant. In Les Contes à rire, it is also a flower. In Ariosto, the test applied to both male and female is a cup, the wine of which is spilled by the unfaithful lover. This fiction also occurs in the romances of Tristan, Perceval and La Morte d'Arthur, and is well known by La Fontaine's version, La Coupe Enchantée. In La Lai du Corn, it is a drinking-horn. Spenser has derived his girdle of Florimel from these sources or more immediately from the Fabliau, Le Manteau mal taillé or Le Court Mantel, an English version of which is published in Percy's Reliques, the Boy and the Mantel (Vol. III.) In the Gesta Romanorum (c. 69) the test is the whimsical one of a shirt, which will neither require washing nor mending as long as the wearer is constant. (Not the wearer only but the wearer and his wife). Davenant has substituted an emerald for a flower.

The bridal stone, And much renowned, because it chasteness loves, And will, when worn by the neglected wife, Shew when her absent lord disloyal proves By faintness and a pale decay of life.

I may remark that there is a certain resemblance in this story to that of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, which is founded on the 9th Story of the 2nd day in the Decamerone, and to the 7th Story in Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen.

See also "The king of Spain and his queen" in Thorpe's Yule-tide Stories, pp. 452-455. Thorpe remarks that the tale agrees in substance with the ballad of the "Graf Von Rom" in Uhland, II, 784; and with the Flemish story of "Ritter Alexander aus Metz und Seine Frau Florentina." In the 21st of Bandello's novels the test is a mirror (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 287). See also pp. 85 and 86 of Liebrecht's Dunlop, with the notes at the end of the volume.

[181] A man of low caste now called Dom. They officiate as executioners.

[182] Compare the way in which the widow's son, the shifty lad, treats Black Rogue in Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands (Tale XVII d. Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303.)

[183] Datura is still employed, I believe, to stupefy people whom it is thought desirable to rob.

[184] I read iva for the eva of Dr. Brockhaus's text.

[185] A precisely similar story occurs in the Bahár Dánish. The turn of the chief incident, although not the same, is similar to that of Nov VII, Part 4 of Bandello's Novelle, or the Accorto Avvedimento di una Fantesca à liberare la padrona e l' innamorato di quella de la morte. (Wilson's Essays, Vol. I, p. 224.) Cp. also the Mongolian version of the story in Sagas from the Far East, p. 320. The story of Saktimatí is the 19th in the Suka Saptati. I have been presented by Professor Nílmani Mukhopádhyáya with a copy of a MS. of this work made by Babu Umesa Chandra Gupta.

[186] Cp. the story of the Chest in Campbell's Stories from the Western Highlands. It is the first story in the 2nd volume and contains one or two incidents which remind us of this story.

[187] I read mahâkulodgatáh.

[188] Alluding to Indra's having cut the wings of the mountains.

[189] The peafowl are delighted at the approach of the rainy season, when "their sorrow" comes to an end.

[190] It is often the duty of these minstrels to wake the king with their songs.

[191] Weapons well known in Hindu mythology. See the 6th act of the Uttara Ráma Charita.

[192] Sútrapátam akarot she tested, so to speak. Cp. Taranga 21, sl. 93. The fact is, the smoke made her eyes as red as if she had been drinking.

[193] Or "like Kuvera." There is a pun here.

[194] Young Deformed.

[195] Cp. the distribution of presents on the occasion of King Etzel's marriage in the Nibelungen Lied.

[196] It must be remembered that a king among the Hindus was inaugurated with water, not oil.

[197] The word "adders" must here do duty for all venomous kinds of serpents.

[198] A similar story is found in the IVth book of the Panchatantra, Fable 5, where Benfey compares the story of Yayáti and his son Puru. Benfey Panchatantra I. 436. Bernhard Schmidt in his Griechische Märchen, page 37, mentions a very similar story, which he connects with that of Admetos and Alkestis. In a popular ballad of Trebisond, a young man named Jannis, the only son of his parents, is about to be married, when Charon comes to fetch him. He supplicates St. George, who obtains for him the concession, that his life may be spared, in case his father will give him half the period of life still remaining to him. His father refuses, and in the same way his mother. At last his betrothed gives him half her allotted period of life, and the marriage takes place. The story of Ruru is found in the Ádiparva of the Mahábhárata, see Lévêque, Mythes et Légendes de l'Inde, pp. 278, and 374.

[199] I read dhátá for dhátrá.

[200] i. e. Hastinápura.

[201] Here Wilson observes: The circumstances here related are not without analogies in fact. It is not marvellous therefore that we may trace them in fiction. The point of the story is the same as that of the "Deux Anglais à Paris," a Fabliau, and of "Une femme à l'extremité qui se mit en si grosse colère voyant son mari qui baisait sa servante qu'elle recouvra la santé" of Margaret of Navarre, (Heptameron. Nouvelle 71). Cp. Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 131.

Webster, Duchess of Malfi, Act IV, Sc. 2, tells a similar story,

"A great physician, when the Pope was sick Of a deep melancholy, presented him With several sorts of madmen, which wild object, Being full of change and sport, freed him to laugh, And so the imposthume broke."

[202] Cp. Sagas from the far East, Tale XI, pp. 123, 124. Here the crime contemplated is murder, and the ape is represented by a tiger. This story bears a certain resemblance to the termination of Alles aus einer Erbse, Kaden's Unter den Olivenbäumen, p. 22. See also page 220 of the same collection. In the Pentamerone of Basile, Tale 22, a princess is set afloat in a box, and found by a king, whose wife she eventually becomes. There is a similar incident in Kaden's Unter den Olivenbäumen, p. 220.

[203] Literally a handful of water, such as is offered to the Manes, is offered to Fortune. It is all over with his chance of attaining glory.

[204] Cp. Sicilianische Märchen, Vol. I, p. 220. Liebrecht, in note 485 to page 413 of his translation of Dunlop's History of Fiction, compares this story with one in The Thousand and One Days of a princess of Kashmír, who was so beautiful that every one who saw her went mad, or pined away. He also mentions an Arabian tradition with respect to the Thracian sorceress Rhodope. "The Arabs believe that one of the pyramids is haunted by a guardian spirit in the shape of a beautiful woman, the mere sight of whom drives men mad." He refers also to Thomas Moore, the Epicurean, Note 6 to