XXV.

_Pagana et eius mercis emptor._

Pagana mulier, lac in olla fictili, Ova in canistro, rustici mercem penus, Ad civitatem proximam ibat venditum. In eius aditu factus huic quidam obvius Quanti rogavit ista quæ fers vis emi? Et illa tanti. Tantin’? hoc fuerit nimis. Numerare num me vis quod est æquum? vide Hac merce quod sit nunc opus mihi plus dabo Quam præstet illam cede, et hos nummos cape, Ea quam superbe fœde rusticitas agit, Hominem reliquit additis conviciis, Quasi æstimasset vilius mercem optimam. Aversa primos inde vix tulerat gradus, Cum lubricato corruit strato viæ: Lac olla fundit quassa, gallinaceæ Testæ vitellos congerunt cœno suos Caput cruorem mittit impingens petræ Luxata nec fert coxa surgentem solo: Ridetur ejus non malum, sed mens procax, Qua merx et ipsa mercis et pretium perit; Seque illa deflens tot pati infortunia Nulli imputare quam sibi hanc sortem potest Dolor sed omnis sæviter recruduit Curationis danda cum merces fuit.

In re minori cum quis et fragili tumet Hunc sortis ingens sternit indignatio.

NOTE H.

Hulsbach, “Sylva Sermonum,” Basileæ, 1568, p. 28: “In sylva quadam morabatur heremicola jam satis provectæ ætatis, qui quaque die accedebat civitatem, afferens inde mensuram mellis, qua donabatur. Hoc recondebat in vase terreo, quod pependerat supra lectum suum. Uno dierum jacens in lecto, et habens bacalum in manu sua, hæc apud se dicebat: Quotidie mihi datur vasculum mellis, quod dum indies recondo, fiet tandem summa aliqua. Jam valet mensura staterem unum. Corraso autem ita floreno uno aut altero, emam mihi oves, quæ fœnerabunt mihi plures: quibus divenditis coëmam mihi elegantem uxorculam, cum qua transigam vitam meam lætanter: ex ea suscitabo mihi puellam, quam instituam honeste. Si vero mihi noluerit obedire, hoc baculo eam ita comminuam: atque levato baculo confregit suum vasculum, et effusum est mel, quare cassatum est suum propositum, et manendum adhuc in suo statu.”

NOTE I.

“El Conde Lucanor, compuesto por el excelentissimo Principe don Iuan Manuel, hijo del Infante don Manuel, y nieto del Santo Rey don Fernando,” Madrid, 1642; cap. 29, p. 96. He tells the story as follows: “There was a woman called Dona Truhana (Gertrude), rather poor than rich. One day she went to the market carrying a pot of honey on her head. On her way she began to think that she would sell the pot of honey, and buy a quantity of eggs, that from those eggs she would have chickens, that she would sell them and buy sheep; that the sheep would give her lambs, and thus calculating all her gains, she began to think herself much richer than her neighbors. With the riches which she imagined she possessed, she thought how she would marry her sons and daughters, and how she would walk in the street surrounded by her sons and daughters-in-law; and how people would consider her happy for having amassed so large a fortune, though she had been so poor. While she was thinking over all this, she began to laugh for joy, and struck her head and forehead with her hand. The pot of honey fell down, was broken, and she shed hot tears because she had lost all that she would have possessed if the pot of honey had not been broken.”

NOTE K.

Bonaventure des Periers, “Les Contes ou les Nouvelles.” Amsterdam, 1735. Nouvelle XIV. (vol. i. p. 141). (First edition, Lyon, 1558): “Et ne les (les Alquemistes) sçauroiton mieux comparer qu’à une bonne femme qui portoit une potée de laict au marché, faisant son compte ainsi: qu’elle la vendroit deux liards: de ces deux liards elle en achepteroit une douzaine d’œufs, lesquelz elle mettroit couver, et en auroit une douzaine de poussins: ces poussins deviendroient grands, et les feroit chaponner: ces chapons vaudroient cinq solz la piece, ce seroit un escu et plus, dont elle achepteroit deux cochons, masle et femelle: qui deviendroient grands et en feroient une douzaine d’autres, qu’elle vendroit vingt solz la piece; apres les avoir nourris quelque temps, ce seroient douze francs, dont elle achepteroit une iument, qui porteroit un beau poulain, lequel croistroit et deviendroit tant gentil: il sauteroit et feroit _Hin_. Et en disant _Hin_, la bonne femme, de l’aise qu’elle avoit en son compte, se print à faire la ruade que feroit son poulain: et en ce faisant sa potée de laict va tomber, et se respandit toute. Et voila ses œufs, ses poussins, ses chappons, ses cochons, sa jument, et son poulain, tous par terre.”

[Footnote 1: La Fontaine, _Fables_, livre vii., fable 10.]

[Footnote 2: Phædon, 61, 5: Μετὰ δὲ τὸν θεὸν, ἐννοήσας, ὅτι τὸν ποιητὴν δέοι, εἶπερ μέλλοι ποιητὴς εἶναι, ποιεῖν μύθους, ἀλλ’ οὐ λόγους, καὶ αὐτὸς οὐκ ἦ μυθολογικός, διὰ ταῦτα δὴ οὓς προχείρους εἶχον καὶ ἠπιστάμην μύθους τοὺς Αἰσώπου, τούτων ἐποίησα οἷς πρώτοις ἐνέτυχον.]

[Footnote 3: Robert, _Fables Inédites_, des XIIe, XIIIe, et XIVe Siècles; Paris, 1825; vol. i. p. ccxxvii.]

[Footnote 4: _Pantschatantrum sive Quinquepartitum_, edidit I. G. L. Kosegarten. Bonnæ, 1848.

_Pantschatantra, Fünf Bücher indischer Fablen, aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt._ Von Th. Benfey. Leipzig, 1859.

_Hitopadesa_, with interlinear translation, grammatical analysis, and English translation, in Max Müller’s Handbooks for the study of Sanskrit. London, 1864.

_Hitopadesa, eine alte indische Fabelsammlung aus dem Sanskrit zum ersten Mal in das Deutsche übersetzt._ Von Max Müller. Leipzig, 1844.]

[Footnote 5: _Pañcatantra_, v. 10.]

[Footnote 6: _Hitopadeśa_, ed. Max Müller, p. 120; German translation, p. 159.]

[Footnote 7: Note A, page 188.]

[Footnote 8: _Hottentot Fables and Tales_, by Dr. W. H. I. Bleek, London, 1894, p. 19.]

[Footnote 9: _Academy_, vol. v. p. 548.]

[Footnote 10: _Die Märchen des Siddhi-kür_, or _Tales of an Enchanted Corpse_, translated from Kalmuk into German by B. Jülg, 1866. (This is based on the +Vetâlapañcaviṃśati+.) _Die Geschichte des Ardschi-Bordschi Chan_, translated from Mongolian by Dr. B. Jülg, 1868. (This is based on the +Siṃhâsanadvâtriṃśati+.) A Mongolian translation of the _Kalila and Dimnah_, is ascribed to Mélik Said Iftikhar eddin Mohammed ben Abou Nasr, who died A.D. 1280. See Barbier de Meynard, “Description de la Ville de Kazvin,” _Journal Asiatique_, 1857, p. 284; Lancereau, _Pantchatantra_, p. xxv.]

[Footnote 11: Plato’s expression, “As I have put on the lion’s skin” (_Kratylos_, 411), seems to show that he knew the fable of an animal or a man having assumed the lion’s skin without the lion’s courage. The proverb ὄνος παρὰ Κυμαίους seems to be applied to men boasting before people who have no means of judging. It presupposes the story of a donkey appearing in a lion’s skin.

A similar idea is expressed in a fable of the Pañcatantra (IV. 8) where a dyer, not being rich enough to feed his donkey, puts a tiger’s skin on him. In this disguise the donkey is allowed to roam through all the corn-fields without being molested, till one day he sees a female donkey, and begins to bray. Thereupon the owners of the field kill him.

In the Hitopadeśa (III. 3) the same fable occurs, only that there it is the keeper of the field who on purpose disguises himself as a she-donkey, and when he hears the tiger bray, kills him.

In the Chinese Avadânas, translated by Stanislas Julien (vol. ii. p. 59), the donkey takes a lion’s skin and frightens everybody, till he begins to bray, and is recognized as a donkey.

In this case it is again quite clear that the Greeks did not borrow their fable and proverb from the Pañcatantra; but it is not so easy to determine positively whether the fable was carried from the Greeks to the East, or whether it arose independently in two places.]

[Footnote 12: _Calilah et Dimna, ou, Fables de Bidpai, en Arabe, précédées d’un Mémoire sur l’origine de ce livre._ Par Sylvestre de Sacy. Paris, 1816.]

[Footnote 13: Loiseleur Deslongchamps, _Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, et sur leur Introduction en Europe._ Paris, 1838.]

[Footnote 14: _Pantschatantra, Fünf Bucher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen, mit Einleitung._ Von. Th. Benfey. Leipzig, 1859.]

[Footnote 15: See Weil, _Geschichte der Chalifen_, vol. ii. p. 84.]

[Footnote 16: Benfey, p. 60.]

[Footnote 17: Cf. _Barlaam et Joasaph_, ed. Boissonade, p. 37.]

[Footnote 18: _Kalila and Dimna; or, the Fables of Bidpai, translated from the Arabic._ By the Rev. Wyndham Knatchbull, A.M. Oxford, 1819.]

[Footnote 19: _Specimen Sapientiæ Indorum Veterum, id est Liber Ethico-Politicus pervetustus, dictus Arabice Kalilah ve Dimnah, Græce Stephanites et Ichnelates, nunc primum Græce ex MS. Cod. Holsteiniano prodit cum versione Latina, opera S. G. Starkii._ Berolini, 1697.]

[Footnote 20: This expression, a four-winged house, occurs also in the Pañcatantra. As it does not occur in the Arabic text, published by De Sacy, it is clear that Symeon must have followed another Arabic text in which this adjective, belonging to the Sanskrit, and no doubt to the Pehlevi text, also, had been preserved.]

[Footnote 21: Note B, p. 190.]

[Footnote 22: Note C, p. 191.]

[Footnote 23: Note D, p. 192.]

[Footnote 24: Note E, p. 193.]

[Footnote 25: Benfey, _Orient und Occident_, vol. i. p. 138.]

[Footnote 26: Ibid. vol. i. p. 501. Its title is: “Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo,” ibid. pp. 167, 168.]

[Footnote 27: _Discorsi degli animali, di Messer Agnolo Firenzuola, in prose di M. A. F._ (Fiorenza, 1548.)]

[Footnote 28: _La Moral Filosophia del Doni, tratta da gli antichi scrittori._ Vinegia, 1552.

_Trattati Diversi di Sendebar Indiano, filosopho morale._ Vinegia, 1552.

P. 65. _Trattato Quarto._

A woman tells her husband to wait till her son is born, and says:--

“Stava uno Romito domestico ne i monti di Brianza a far penitenza e teneva alcune cassette d’ api per suo spasso, e di quelle a suoi tempi ne cavava il _Mele_, e di quello ne vendeva alcuna parte tal volta per i suoi besogni. Avenne che un’ anno ne fu una gran carestia, e egli attendeva a conservarlo, e ogni giorno lo guardava mille volte, e gli pareva cent’ anni ogni hora, che e gli indugiava a empierlo di Mele,” etc.]

[Footnote 29: _Le Plaisant et Facétieux Discours des Animaux, novellement traduict de Tuscan en François._ Lyon, 1556, par Gabriel Cottier.

_Deux Livres de Filosofie Fabuleuse, le Premier Pris des Discours de M. Ange Firenzuola le Second Extraict des Traictez de Sandebar Indien, par Pierre de La Rivey._ Lyon, 1579.

The second book is a translation of the second part of Doni’s _Filosofia Morale_.]

[Footnote 30: _The Anvar-i Suhaili, or the Lights of Canopus, being the Persian version of the Fables of Pilpay, or the Book, Kalilah and Damnah, rendered into Persian by Husain Vá’iz U’l-Káshifi, literally translated by E. B. Eastwick._ Hertford, 1854.]

[Footnote 31: Note F, p. 194.]

[Footnote 32: Note G, p. 194.]

[Footnote 33: Note H, p. 196.]

[Footnote 34: _Dialogues of Creatures moralysed_, sm. 4to, circ. 1517. It is generally attributed to the press of John Rastell, but the opinion of Mr. Haslewood, in his preface to the reprint of 1816, that the book was printed on the continent, is perhaps the correct one. (_Quaritch’s Catalogue_, July, 1870.)]

[Footnote 35: The Latin text is more simple: “Unde cum quedam domina dedisset ancille sue lac ut venderet et lac portaret ad urbem juxta fossatum cogitare cepit quod de p̅cio lactis emerit gallinam quæ faceret pullos quos auctos in gallinas venderet et porcellos emeret eosque mutaret in oves et ipsas in boves. Sic que ditata contraheret cum aliquo nobili et sic gloriabatur. Et cum sic gloriaretur et cogitaret cum quanta gloria duceretur ad illum virum super equum dicendo gio gio cepit pede percutere terram quasi pungeret equum calcaribus. Sed tunc lubricatus est pes ejus et cecidit in fossatum effundendo lac. Sic enim non habuit quod se adepturam sperabat.” _Dialogus Creaturarum optime moralizatus_ (ascribed to Nicolaus Pergaminus, supposed to have lived in the thirteenth century). He quotes Elynandus, in _Gestis Romanorum_. First edition, “per Gerardum leeu in oppido Goudensi inceptum; munere Dei finitus est, Anno Domini, 1480.”]

[Footnote 36: Note I, p. 197.]

[Footnote 37: My learned German translator, Dr. Felix Liebrecht, says in a note: “Other books in which our story appears before La Fontaine are _Esopus_, by Burkhard Waldis, ed. H. Kurz, Leipzig, 1862, ii. 177; note to _Des Bettlers Kaufmannschaft_; and Oesterley, in Kirchoff’s _Wendunmuth_, v. 44, note to i. 171, _Vergebene Anschleg reich zuwerden_ (Bibl. des liter. Vereins zu Stuttg. No. 99).”]

[Footnote 38: _Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibad._ Milano, 1869.]

[Footnote 39: The Greek text was first published in 1832 by Boissonade, in his _Anecdota Græca_, vol. iv. The title, as given in some MSS. is: Ἱστορία ψυχωφελὴς ἐκ τῆς ἐνδοτέρας τῶν Αἰθιόπων χώρας, τῆς Ἰνδῶν λεγομένης, πρὸς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν μετενεχθεῖσα διὰ Ἰωάννου τοῦ μοναχοῦ [other MSS. read, συγγράφεισα παρα τοῦ ἁγιου πατρος ἠμων Ἰωαννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ], ἀνδρὸς τιμίου καὶ ἐναρέτου μονῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Σάβα· ἐν ᾗ ὁ βίος Βαρλαάμ καὶ Ἰωάσαφ τῶν ἀοιδίμων καὶ μακαρίων. Joannes Monachus occurs as the name of the author in other works of Joannes Damascenus. See Leo Allatius, Prolegomena, p. L., in _Damasceni Opera Omnia_. Ed. Lequien, 1748. Venice.

At the end the author says: Ἐως ὧδε τὸ πέρας τοῦ παρόντος λόγου, ὃν κατὰ δύναμιν ἐμὴν γεγράφηκα, καθὼς ἀκήκοα παρὰ τῶν ἀψευδῶς παραδεδωκότων μοι τιμίων ἀνδρῶν. Γένοιτο δὲ ἠμᾶς, τοὺς ἀναγινώκοντάς τε καὶ ἀκούοντας τὴν ψυχωφελῆ διήγησιν ταύτην, τῆς μερίδος ἀξιωθῆναι τῶν εὐαρεστησάντων τῷ κυρίῳ εὐχαῖς καὶ πρεσβείαις Βαρλαὰμ καὶ Ἰωάσαφ τῶν μακαρίων, περὶ ὧν ἠ διήγησις. See also Wiener, _Jahrbücher_, vol. lxiii. pp. 44-83; vol. lxxii. pp. 274-288; vol. lxxiii. pp. 176-202.]

[Footnote 40: Littré, _Journal des Savants_, 1865, p. 337.]

[Footnote 41: The _Martyrologium Romanum_, whatever its authority may be, states distinctly that the acts of Barlaam and Josaphat were written by Sanctus Joannes Damascenus. “Apud Indos Persis finitimos sanctorum Barlaam et Josaphat, quorum actus mirandos sanctus Joannes Damascenus conscripsit.” See Leonis Allatii Prolegomena, in _Joannis Damasceni Opera_, ed. Lequien, vol. i. p. xxvi. He adds: “Et Gennadius Patriarcha per Concil. Florent. cap. 5: οὐχ ἥττον δὲ καὶ ὁ Ἰωάννης ὁ μέγας τοῦ Δαμασκοῆ ὀφθαλμὸς ἐν τῷ βίῳ Βαρλαὰμ καὶ Ἰωσάφατ τῶν Ἰνδῶν μαρτυρεῖ λέγων.”]

[Footnote 42: The story of the caskets, well known from the _Merchant of Venice_, occurs in _Barlaam and Josaphat_, though it is used there for a different purpose.]

[Footnote 43: Cf. Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, vol. i. p. 80; vol. ii. p. 528; _Les Avadanas, Contes et Apologues indiens_, par Stanislas Julien, i. pp. 132, 191; _Gesta Romanorum_, cap. 168; _Homáyun Nameh_, cap. iv.; Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, pp. 758, 759; Liebrecht, _Jahrbücher für Rom. und Engl. Literatur_, 1860.]

[Footnote 44: _Lalita Vistara_, ed. Calcutt., p. 126.]

[Footnote 45: Ibid., p. 225.]

[Footnote 46: See M. M.’s _Chips from a German Workshop_, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 207.]

[Footnote 47: Minayeff, _Mélanges Asiatiques_, vi. 5, p. 584, remarks: “According to a legend in the _Mahâvastu_ of Yaśas or Yaśoda (in a less complete form to be found in Schiefner, _Eine tibetische Lebensbeschreibung Sâkyamunis_, p. 247; Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 187; Bigandet, _The Life or Legend of Gaudama_, p. 113), a merchant appears in Yosoda’s house, the night before he has the dream which induces him to leave his paternal house, and proclaims to him the true doctrine.”]

[Footnote 48: _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, vol. iii. p. 21.]

[Footnote 49: In some places one might almost believe that Joannes Damascenus did not only hear the story of Buddha, as he says, from the mouth of people who had brought it to him from India, but that he had before him the very text of the _Lalita Vistara_. Thus in the account of the three or four drives we find indeed that the Buddhist canon represents Buddha as seeing on three successive drives, first an old, then a sick, and at last a dying man, while Joannes makes Joasaph meet two men on his first drive, one maimed, the other blind, and an old man, who is nearly dying, on his second drive. So far there is a difference which might best be explained by admitting the account given by Joannes Damascenus himself, viz: that the story was brought from India, and that it was simply told him by worthy and truthful men. But, if it was so, we have here another instance of the tenacity with which oral tradition is able to preserve the most minute points of the story. The old man is described by a long string of adjectives both in Greek and in Sanskrit, and many of them are strangely alike. The Greek γέρων, old, corresponds to the Sanskrit +jîrṇa+; πεπαλαιώμενος, aged, is Sanskrit +vṛddha+; ἐρρικνώμενος τὸ πρόσωπον, shriveled in his face, is +balînicitakâya+, the body covered with wrinkles; παρείμενος τὰς κνήμας, weak in his knees, is +pravedhayamânaḥ sarvângapratyangaiḥ+, trembling in all his limbs; συγκεκυφώς, bent, is +kubja+; πεπολιώμενος, gray, is +palitakeśa+; ἐστερήμενος τοὺς ὀδόντας, toothless, is +khaṇḍadanta+; ἐγκεκομένα λαλῶν, stammering, is +khurakhurâvaśaktakaṇṭha+.]

[Footnote 50: _Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, vol. xxiv p. 480.]

[Footnote 51: _Débats_, 1859, 21 and 26 Juillet.]

[Footnote 52: _Die Quellen des Barlaam und Josaphat, in Jahrbuch für roman. und engl. Litteratur_, vol. ii. p. 314, 1860.]

[Footnote 53: _Travels of Fah-hian and Sung-yun, Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India._ (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) Translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal. London, Trübner & Co. 1869.]

[Footnote 54: Littré, _Journal des Savants_, 1865, p. 337.]

[Footnote 55: _Pantschatantra; Fünf. Bücher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen. Aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt mit Einleitung und Ammerkungen_, 2 Theile, Leipzig, 1859; and particularly in the first part, the introduction, called “Ueber das Indische Grundwerk, und dessen Ausflüsse, so wie über die Quellen und die Verbreitung des Inhalts derselben.”]

[Footnote 56: Cf. Assemani, _Biblioth. Orient._ iii. 1, 220, and Renan, in the _Journal Asiatique_, Cinq. Série, t. vii. 1856, p. 251.]