A proud lion was pacing about a few steps forward, then a side movement, then a grand stride backward. A monkey on a tree above imitates the movements, and his antics enrage the lion, who warns him to desist. The monkey however goes on with the caricature, and at last falls off the tree, and is caught by the lion, who puts him into a hole in the ground, and having covered it with a large stone goes off to seek his mate, that they should eat the monkey together. While he is absent a wolf comes to the spot, and is pleased to hear the monkey cry, for he had a grudge against him. The wolf asks why the monkey cries. “I am singing,” says the monkey, “to aid my digestion. This is a hare’s retreat, and we two ate so heartily this morning that I cannot move, and the hare is gone out for some medicine. We have lots of more food.” “Let me in,” says the wolf; “I am a friend.” The monkey, of course, readily consents, and just as the wolf enters he slips out, and, replacing the stone, imprisons the wolf. By-and-by the lion and his mate come up. “We shall have monkey to-day,” says the lion, lifting the stone—“faith! we shall only have wolf after all!” So the poor wolf is instantly torn into pieces, while the clever monkey once more overhead re-enacts his lion-pantomime.116
Strange as it may appear, there is a variant of the fable of the Fox and the Bear current among the negroes in the United States, according to Uncle Remus, that most diverting collection. In No. XVI, “Brer Rabbit” goes down in a bucket into a well, and “Brer Fox” asks him what he is doing there. “O I’m des a fishing, Brer Fox,” says he; and Brer Fox goes into the bucket while Brer Rabbit escapes and chaffs his comrade.
THE DESOLATE ISLAND, p. 243.
There is a tale in the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 74 of the text translated by Swan) which seems to have been suggested by the Hebrew parable of the Desolate Island, and which has passed into general currency throughout Europe: A dying king bequeaths to his son a golden apple, which he is to give to the greatest fool he can find. The young prince sets out on his travels, and after meeting with many fools, none of whom, however, he deemed worthy of the “prize,” he comes to a country the king of which reigns only one year, and finds him indulging in all kinds of pleasure. He offers the king the apple, explaining the terms of his father’s bequest, and saying that he considers him the greatest of all fools, in not having made a proper use of his year of sovereignty.—A common oral form of this story is to the effect that a court jester came to the bedside of his dying master, who told him that he was going on a very long journey, and the jester inquiring whether he had made due preparation was answered in the negative. “Then,” said the fool, “prithee take my bauble, for thou art truly the greatest of all fools.”
OTHER RABBINICAL LEGENDS AND TALES.
As analogues, or variants, of incidents in several wide-spread European popular tales, other Hebrew legends are cited in some of my former books; e.g.: The True Son, in Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. i, p. 14; Moses and the Angel (the ways of Providence: the original of Parnell’s “Hermit”), vol. i, p. 25; a mystical hymn, “A kid, a kid, my Father bought,” the possible original of our nursery cumulative rhyme of “The House that Jack built,” vol. i, p. 291; the Reward of Sabbath observance, vol. i, p. 399; the Intended Divorce, vol. ii, p. 328, of which, besides the European variants there cited, other versions will be found in Prof. Crane’s Italian Popular Tales: “The Clever Girl” and Notes; the Lost Camel, in A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories, p. 512. In Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ (for the Chaucer Society) I have cited two curious Jewish versions of the Franklin’s Tale, in the paper entitled “The Damsel’s Rash Promise,” pp. 315, 317. A selection of Hebrew Facetiæ is given at the end of the papers on Oriental Wit and Humour in the present volume (p. 117); and an amusing story, also from the Talmud, is reproduced in my Book of Sindibád, p. 103, note, of the Athenian and the witty Tailor; and in the same work, p. 340, note, reference is made to a Jewish version of the famous tale of the Matron of Ephesus. There may be more in these books which I cannot call to mind.
AN ARABIAN TALE OF LOVE.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Every land has its favourite tale of love: in France, that of Abelard and Eloisa, in Italy, of Petrarch and Laura; all Europe has the touching tale of Romeo and Juliet in common; and Muslims have the ever fresh tale of the loves and sorrows of Majnún and Laylá. Of the ten or twelve Persian poems extant on this old tale those by Nizámí, who died A.D. 1211, and Jámí, of the 15th century, are considered as by far the best; though Hátifí’s version (ob. 1520) is highly praised by Sir William Jones. The Turkish poet Fazúlí (ob. 1562) also made this tale the basis of a fine mystical poem, of which Mr. Gibb has given some translated specimens—reproducing the original rhythm and rhyme-movement very cleverly—in his Ottoman Poems. The following is an epitome of the tale of Majnún and Laylá:
Kays (properly, Qays), the handsome son of Syd Omri, an Arab chief of Yemen, becomes enamoured of a beauteous maiden of another tribe: a damsel bright as the moon,117 graceful as the cypress;118 with locks dark as night, and hence she was called Laylá;119 who captivated all hearts, but chiefly that of Kays. His passion is reciprocated, but soon the fond lovers are separated. The family of Laylá remove to the distant mountains of Nejd, and Kays, distracted, with matted locks and bosom bare to the scorching sun, wanders forth into the desert in quest of her abode, causing the rocks to echo his voice, constantly calling upon her name. His friends, having found him in woeful plight, bring him home, and henceforth he is called Majnún—that is, one who is mad, or frantic, from love. Syd Omri, his father, finding that Majnún is deaf to good counsel—that nothing but the possession of Laylá can restore him to his senses—assembles his followers and departs for the abode of Laylá’s family, and presenting himself before the maiden’s father,proposes in haughty terms the union of his son with Laylá; but the offer is declined, on the ground that Syd Omri’s son is a maniac, and he will not give his daughter to a man bereft of his senses; but should he be restored to his right mind he will consent to their union. Indignant at this answer, Syd Omri returns home, and after his friends had in vain tried the effect of love-philtres to make Laylá’s father relent, as a last resource they propose that Majnún should wed another damsel, upon which the demented lover once more seeks the desert, where they again find him almost at the point of death, and bring him back to his tribe.
Now the season of pilgrimage to Mecca draws nigh, and it is thought that a visit to the holy shrine and the waters of the Zemzem120 might cure his frenzy. Accordingly Majnún, weak and helpless, is conveyed to Mecca in a litter. Most fervently his sorrowing father prays in the Kaába for his recovery, but all in vain, and they return home. Again Majnún escapes to the desert, whence his love-plaints, expressed in eloquent verse, find their way to Laylá, who contrives to reply to them, also in verse, assuring her lover of her own despair, and of her constancy.
One day a gallant young chief, Ibn Salám, chances to pass near the dwelling of Laylá, and, seeing the beauteous maiden among her companions, falls in love with her, and straightway asks her in marriage of her parents. Laylá’s father does not reject the handsome and wealthy suitor, who scatters his gold about as if it were mere sand, but desires him to wait until his daughter is of proper age for wedlock, when the nuptials should be duly celebrated; and with this promise Ibn Salám departs.
Meanwhile, Noufal, the chief in whose land Majnún has taken up his abode, while hunting one day comes upon the wretched lover, and, struck with his appearance, inquires the cause of his distress. Noufal conceives a warm friendship for Majnún, and sends a messenger to Laylá’s father to demand her in marriage with his friend. But the damsel’s parent scornfully refused to comply, and Noufal then marches with his followers against him. A battle ensues, in which Noufal is victorious. The father of Laylá then comes to Noufal, and offers submission; but he declares that rather than consent to his daughter’s union with Majnún he would put her to death before his face. Seeing the old man thus resolute, Noufal abandons his enterprise and returns to his own country.
And now Ibn Salám, having waited the appointed time, comes with his tribesmen to claim the hand of Laylá; and, spite of her tears and protestations, she is married to the wealthy young chief. Years pass on—weary years of wedded life to poor Laylá, whose heart is ever true to her wandering lover. At length a stranger seeks out Majnún, and tells him that his beloved Laylá wishes to have a brief interview with him, near her dwelling. At once the frantic lover speeds towards the rendezvous; but when Laylá is informed of his arrival, her sense of duty overcomes the passion of her life, and she resolves to forego the dangerous meeting, and poor Majnún departs without having seen his darling. Henceforth he is a constant dweller in the desert, having for his companions the beasts and birds of the wilderness—his clothes in tatters, his hair matted, his body wasted to a shadow, his bare feet lacerated with thorns. After the lapse of many more years the husband of Laylá dies, and the beautiful widow passes the prescribed period of separation (’idda),121 after which Majnún hastens to embrace his beloved. Overpowered by the violence of their emotions, both are for a space silent; at length Laylá addresses Majnún in tender accents; but when he finds voice to reply it is evident that the reaction has completely extinguished the last spark of reason: Majnún is now a hopeless maniac, and he rushes from the arms of Laylá and seeks the desert once more. Laylá never recovered from the shock occasioned by this discovery. She pined away, and with her last breath desired her mother to convey the tidings of her death to Majnún, and to assure him of her constant, unquenchable affection. When Majnún hears of her death he visits her tomb, and, exhausted with his journey and many privations, he lays himself down on the turf that covered her remains, and dies—the victim of pure, ever-during love.
Possibly, readers of a sentimental turn—oft inclined to the “melting” mood—may experience a kind of pleasing sadness in perusing a rhythmical prose translation of the passage in Nizámí’s poem in which
Majnún bewails the Death of Laylá.
When Zayd,122 with heart afflicted, heard that in the silent tomb that moon123 had set, he wept and mourned, and sadly flowed his tears. Who in this world is free from grief and tears? Then, clothed in sable garments, like one oppressed who seeks redress, he, agitated, and weeping like a vernal cloud, hastened to the grave of Laylá; but, as he o’er it hung, ask not how swelled his soul with grief; while from his eyes the tears of blood incessant flowed, and from his sight and groans the people fled. Sometimes he mourned with grief so deep and sad that from his woe the sky became obscure. Then from the tomb of that fair flower he to the desert took his way. There sought the wanderer from the paths of man him whose night was now in darkness veiled, as that bright lamp was gone; and, seated near him, weeping and sighing, he beat his breast and struck upon the earth his head. When Majnún saw him thus afflicted he said: “What has befallen thee, my brother, that thy soul is thus overpowered? and why so pale that cheek? and why these sable robes?” He thus replied: “Because that fortune now has changed: a sable stream has issued from the earth, and even death has burst its iron gates; a storm of hail has on the garden poured, and not a leaf of all our rose-bower now remains. The moon has fallen from the firmament, and prostrate on the mead that waving cypress lies! Laylá was, but from the world has now departed; and from the wound thy love had caused she died.”
Scarce had these accents reached his listening ear e’er, senseless, Majnún fell as one by lightning struck. A short time, fainting, thus he lay; recovered, then he raised his head to heaven and thus exclaimed: “O merciless! what fate severe is this on one so helpless? Why such wrath? Why blast a blade of grass with lightning, and on the ant [i.e. himself] thy power exert? One ant and a thousand pains of hell, when one single spark would be enough! Why thus with blood the goblet crown, and all my hopes deceive? I burned with flames that by that lamp were fed; and by that breath which quenched its light I too expire.” Thus, like Asra, did he complain, and, like Wamik, traversed on every side the desert,124 his heart broken, and his garments rent; while, as the beasts gazed on him, his tears so constant flowed, that in their eyes the tear-drop stood; and like a shadow Zayd his footsteps still pursued. When, weeping and mourning, Majnún thus o’er many a hill and many a vale had passed, as grief his path directed, he wished to view the tomb of all he loved; and then inquired of Zayd where was the spot that held her grave, and where the turf that o’er it grew.
But soon as to the tomb he came, struck with its view, his senses fled. Recovering, then he thus exclaimed: “O Heaven! what shall I do, or what resource attempt, as like a lamp I waste away? Alas! that heart-enslaver was all that in this world I prized: and now, alas! in wrath, dire Fate with ruthless blow has snatched her from me. In my hand I held a lovely flower; the wind came and scattered all its leaves. I chose a cypress that in the garden graceful grew; but soon the wind of fate destroyed it. Spring bade a blossom bloom; but Fortune would not guard the flower. A group of lilies I preserved, pure as the thoughts that in my bosom rose; but one unjust purloined them. I sowed, but he the harvest reaped.”
Then, resting within the tomb his head, he mourning wept, and said: “O lovely floweret, struck by autumn’s blast, and from this world departed ere thou knewest it! A garden once in bloom, but now laid waste! O fruit matured, but not enjoyed! To earth’s mortality can such as thou be subject, and such as thou within the darkness of the tomb repose? And where is now that mole which seemed a grain of musk?125 And where those eyes soft as the gazelle’s? Where those ruby lips? And where those curling ringlets? In what bright hues is now thy form adorned? And through the love of whom does now thy lamp consume? To whose fond eyes are now thy charms displayed? And whom to captivate do now thy tresses wave? Beside the margin of what stream is now that cypress seen? And in what bower is now the banquet spread? Ah, can such as thou have felt the pangs of death, and be reclined within this narrow cave?126 But o’er thy cell I mourn, as thou wast all I loved; and ere my grief shall cease, the grave shall be my friend. Thou wast agitated like the sand of the desert; but now thou reposest as the water of the lake. Thou, like the moon, hast disappeared; but, though unseen, the moon is still the same; and now, although thy form from me is hid, still in my breast remains the loved remembrance. Though far removed beyond my aching sight, still is thy image in my heart beheld. Thy form is now departed, but grief eternal fills its place. On thee my soul was fixed, and never will thy memory be forgot. Thou art gone, and from this wilderness escaped, and now reposest in the bowers of Paradise. I, too, after some little time will shake off these bonds, and there rejoin thee. Till then, faithful to the love I vowed, around thy tomb my footsteps will I bend. Until I come to thee within this narrow cell, pure be thy shroud! May Paradise everlasting be thy mansion blest! And be thy soul received into the mercy of thy God! And may thy spirit by his grace be vivified to all eternity!”
“This,” methinks I hear some misogynist exclaim, after reading it—“this is rank nonsense—it is stark lunacy!” And so it is, perhaps. At all events, these impassioned words are supposed to be uttered by a poor youth who had gone mad from love. Our misogynist—and may I venture to include the experienced married man?—will probably retort, that all love between young folks is not only folly but sheer madness; and he will be the more confirmed in this opinion when he learns that, according to certain grave Persian writers, Laylá was really of a swarthy visage, and far from being the beauty her infatuated lover conceived her to be: thus verifying the dictum of our great dramatist, in the ever-fresh passage where he makes “the lunatic, the lover, and the poet” to be “of imagination all compact,” the lover seeing “Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt!”—Notwithstanding all this, the ancient legend of Laylá and Majnún has proved an inspiring theme to more than one great poet of Persia, during the most flourishing period of the literature of that country—for which let us all be duly thankful.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
‘WAMIK AND ASRA,’ p. 289.
This is the title of an ancient Persian poem, composed in the reign of Núshírván, A.D. 531-579, of which some fragments only now remain, incorporated with an Arabian poem. In 1833, Von Hammer published a German translation, at Vienna: Wamik und Asra; das ist, Glühende und die Blühende. Das älteste Persische romantische Gedicht. Jun fünftelsaft abgezogen, von Joseph von Hammer (Wamik and Asra; that is, the Glowing and the Blowing. The most ancient Persian Romantic Poem. Transfer the Fifth, etc.) The hero and heroine, namely, Wamik and Asra, are personifications of the two great principles of heat and vegetation, the vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of earth.—This noble poem is the subject of a very interesting article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xviii, 1836-7, giving some of the more striking passages in English verse, of which the following may serve as a specimen:
‘The Blowing One’ Asra was justly named,
For she, in mind and form, a blossom stood;
Of beauty, youth, and grace divinely framed,
Of holiest spirit, filled with heavenly good.
The Spring, when warm, in fullest splendour showing,
Breathing gay wishes to the inmost core
Of youthful hearts, and fondest influence throwing,
Yet veiled its bloom, her beauty’s bloom before;
For her the devotee his very creed forswore.
Her hair was bright as hyacinthine dyes;
Her cheek was blushing, sheen as Eden’s rose;
The soft narcissus tinged her sleeping eyes,
And white her forehead, as the lotus shows
’Gainst Summer’s earliest sunbeams shimmering fair.
A curious story is related by Dawlat Sháh regarding this poem, which bears a close resemblance to the story of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, by order of the fanatical khalíf ‘Umar: One day when Amír Abdullah Tahir, governor of Khurasán under the Abbasside khalífs, was giving audience, a person laid before him a book, as a rare and valuable present. He asked: “What book is this?” The man replied: “It is the story of Wamik and Asra.” The Amír observed: “We are the readers of the Kurán, and we read nothing except that sacred volume, and the traditions of the Prophet, and such accounts as relate to him, and we have therefore no use for books of this kind. They are besides compositions of infidels, and the productions of worshippers of fire, and are therefore to be rejected and contemned by us.” He then ordered the book to be thrown into the water, and issued his command that whatever books could be found in the kingdom which were the composition of the Persian infidels should be immediately burnt.
ANOTHER FAMOUS ARABIAN LOVER.
Scarcely less celebrated than the story of Majnún and Laylá—among the Arabs, at least—is that of the poet Jamíl and the beauteous damsel Buthayna. It is said that Jamíl fell in love with her while he was yet a boy, and on attaining manhood asked her in marriage, but her father refused. He then composed verses in her honour and visited her secretly at Wádi-’l Kura, a delightful valley near Medína, much celebrated by the poets. Jamíl afterwards went to Egypt, with the intention of reciting to Abdu-’l Azíz Ibn Marwán a poem he had composed in his honour. This governor admitted Jamíl into his presence, and, after hearing his eulogistic verses and rewarding him generously, he asked him concerning his love for Buthayna, and was told of his ardent and painful passion. On this Abdu-’l Azíz promised to unite Jamíl to her, and bade him stay at Misr (Cairo), where he assigned him a habitation and furnished him with all he required. But Jamíl died there shortly after, A.H. 82 (A.D. 701).
The following narrative is given in the Kitabal-Aghání, on the authority of the famous poet and philologist Al-Asma’í, who flourished in the 8th century:
A person who was present at the death of Jamíl in Egypt relates that the poet called him and said: “If I give you all I leave after me, will you perform one thing which I shall enjoin you?” “By Allah, yes,” said the other. “When I am dead,” said Jamíl, “take this cloak of mine and put it aside, but keep everything else for yourself. Then go to Buthayna’s tribe, and when you are near them, saddle this camel of mine and mount her; then put on my cloak and rend it, and mounting on a hill, shout out these verses: ‘A messenger hath openly proclaimed the death of Jamíl. He hath now a dwelling in Egypt from which he will never return. There was a time when, intoxicated with love, he trained his mantle proudly in the fields and palm-groves of Wádi-’l Kura! Arise, Buthayna! and lament aloud: weep for the best of all thy lovers!’” The man did what Jamíl ordered, and had scarcely finished the verses when Buthayna came forth, beautiful as the moon when it appears from behind a cloud. She was muffled in a cloak, and on coming up to him said: “Man, if what thou sayest be true, thou hast killed me; if false, thou hast dishonoured me!” [i.e. by associating her name with that of a strange man, still alive.] He replied: “By Allah! I only tell the truth,” and he showed her Jamíl’s mantle, on seeing which she uttered a loud cry and smote her face, and the women of the tribe gathered around, weeping with her and lamenting her lover’s death. Her strength at length failed her, and she swooned away. After some time she revived, and said [in verse]: “Never for an instant shall I feel consolation for the loss of Jamíl! That time shall never come. Since thou art dead, O Jamíl, son of Mamar! the pains of life and its pleasures are alike to me.” And quoth the lover’s messenger: “I never saw man or woman weep more than I saw that day.”—Abridged from Ibn Khallikan’s great Biographical Dictionary as translated by Baron De Slane, vol. i, pp. 331-326.
APOCRYPHAL LIFE OF ESOP, THE FABULIST.
The origin of the Beast-Fable is still a vexed question among scholars, some of whom ascribe it to the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of human souls into different animal forms; others, again, are of the opinion that beasts and birds were first adopted as characters of fictitious narratives, in order to safely convey reproof or impart wholesome counsel to the minds of absolute princes, who would signally resent “plain speaking.”127 Several nations of antiquity—notably the Greeks, the Hindús, the Egyptians—have been credited with the invention of the beast-fable, and there is no reason to believe that it may not have been independently devised in different countries. It is very certain, however, that Esop was not the inventor of this kind of narrative in Greece, while those fables ascribed to him, which have been familiar to us from our nursery days, are mostly spurious, and have been traced to ancient Oriental sources. The so-called Esopic apologue of the Lion and the House is found in an Egyptian papyrus preserved at Leyden.128 Many of them are quite modern rechauffés of Hindú apologues, such as the Milkmaid and her Pot of Milk, which gave rise to our popular saying, “Don’t count your chickens until they be hatched.” Nevertheless, genuine fables of Esop were current in Athens at the best period of its literary history, though it does not appear that they existed in writing during his lifetime. Aristophanes represents a character in one of his plays as learning Esop’s fables from oral recitation. When first reduced to writing they were in prose, and Socrates is said to have turned some of them into verse, his example being followed by Babrius, amongst others, of whose version but few fables remain entire. The most celebrated of his Latin translators is Phædrus, who takes care to inform us that
If any thoughts in these Iambics shine,
The invention’s Esop’s, and the verse is mine.129
According to Planudes,130 Esop was born at Amorium, in the Greater Phrygia, a slave, ugly exceedingly: he was sharp-chinned, snub-nosed, bull-necked, blubber-lipped, and extremely swarthy (whence his name, Ais-ôpos, or Aith-ôpos: burnt-face, blackamoor); pot-bellied, crook-legged, and crook-backed; perhaps uglier even than the Thersites of Homer; worst of all, tongue-tied, obscure and inarticulate in his speech; in short, everything but his mind seemed to mark him out for a slave. His first master sent him out to dig one day. A husbandman having presented the master with some fine fresh figs, they were given to a slave to be set before him after his bath. Esop had occasion to go into the house; meanwhile the other slaves ate the figs, and when the master missed them they accused Esop, who begged a moment’s respite: he then drank some warm water and caused himself to vomit, and as he had not broken his fast his innocence was thus manifest. The same test discovered the thieves, who by their punishment illustrated the proverb:
Whoso against another worketh guile
Thereby himself doth injure unaware.131
Next day the master goes to town. Esop works in the field, and entertains with his own food some travellers who had lost their way, and sets them on the right road again. They are really priests of Artemis, and having received their blessing he falls asleep, and dreams that Tychê (i.e. Fortune) looses his tongue, and gives him eloquence. Waking, he finds he can say bous, onos, dikella, (ox, ass, mattock). This is the reward of piety, for “well-doing is full of good hopes.” Zenas, the overseer, is rebuked by Esop for beating a slave. This is the first time he has been heard to speak distinctly. Zenas goes to his master and accuses Esop of having blasphemed him and the gods, and is given Esop to sell or give away as he pleases. He sells him to a trader for three obols (4½d.), Esop pleading that, if useless for aught else, he will do for a bugbear to keep his children quiet. When they arrive home the little ones begin to cry. “Was I not right?” quoth Esop, and the other slaves think he has been bought to avert the Evil Eye.
The merchant sets out for Asia with all his house-hold. Esop is offered the lightest load, as being a raw recruit. From among the bags, beds, and baskets he chooses a basket full of bread—“a load for two men.” They laugh at his folly, but let him have his will, and he staggers under the burden to the wonder of his master. But at the first halt for ariston, or breakfast, the basket is half-emptied, and by the evening wholly so, and then Esop marches triumphantly ahead, all commending his wit. At Ephesus the merchant sells all his slaves, excepting a musician, a scribe, and Esop. Thence he goes to Samos, where he puts new garments on the two former (he had none left for Esop), and sets them out for sale, Esop between them. Xanthus, the philospher, lived at Samos. He goes to the slave market, and, seeing the three, praises the dealer’s cunning in making the two look handsomer than they were by contrast with the ugly one. Asking the scribe and the musician what they know, their answer is, “Everything,” upon which Esop laughs. The price of the musician (1000 obols, or six guineas) and of the scribe (three times that sum) prevents the philosopher from buying them, and he turns to Esop to see what he is made of. He gives him the customary salutation, “Khaire!” (Rejoice). “I wasn’t grieving,” retorts Esop. “I greet thee,” says Xanthus. “And I thee,” replies Esop. “What are thou?” “Black.” “I don’t mean that, but in what sort of place wast thou born?” “My mother didn’t tell me whether in the second floor or the cellar.” “What can you do?” “Nothing.” “How?” “Why, these fellows here say they know how to do everything, and they haven’t left me a single thing.” “By Jove,” cries Xanthus, “he has answered right well; for there is no man who knows everything. That was why he laughed, it is clear.” In the end, Xanthus buys Esop for sixty obols (about 7s. 6d.) and takes him home, where his wife (who is “very cleanly”) receives him only on sufferance.
One day Xanthus, meeting friends at the bath, sends Esop home to boil pease (idiomatically using the word in the singular), for his friends are coming to eat with him. Esop boils one pea and sets it before Xanthus, who tastes it and bids him serve up. The water is then placed on the table, and Esop justifies himself to his distracted master, who then sends him for four pig’s feet. While they boil, Xanthus slyly abstracts one, and when Esop discovers this he takes it for a plot against him of the other slaves. He runs into the yard, cuts a foot from the pig feeding there, and tosses it into the pot. Presently the other foot is put back, and Esop is confounded to see five trotters on the boil. He serves them up, however, and when Xanthus asks him what the five mean he replies: “How many feet have two pigs?” Xanthus saying, “Eight,” quoth Esop: “Then here are five, and the porker feeding below goes on three.” On being reproached he urges: “But, master, there is no harm in doing a sum in addition and subtraction, is there?” For very shame Xanthus forbears whipping him.
One morning Xanthus gives a breakfast, for which Esop is sent to buy “the best and most useful.” He buys tongues, and the guests (philosophers all) have nothing else. “What could be better for man than tongue?” quoth Esop. Another time he is ordered to get “the worst and most worthless”; again he brings tongues, and again is ready with a similar defence.132 A guest reviles him, and Esop retorts that he is “malicious and a busybody.” On hearing this Xanthus commands him to find some one who is not a busybody. In the road Esop finds a simple soul and brings him home to his master, who persuades his wife to bear with him in anything he should pretend to do to her; if the guest is a busybody (or one who meddles) Esop will get a beating. The plan fails; for the good man continues eating and takes no notice of the wife-cuffing going on, and when his host seems about to burn her, he only asks leave to bring his own wife to be also placed on the pile.
At a symposium Xanthus takes too much wine, and in bravado wagers his house and all that it contains that he will drink up the waters of the sea. Out of this scrape Esop rescues him by suggesting that he should demand that all the rivers be stopped from flowing into the sea, for he did not undertake to drink them too, and the other party is satisfied.133
A party of scientific guests are coming to dinner one day, and Esop is set just within the door to keep out “all but the wise.” When there is a knock at the door Esop shouts: “What does the dog shake?” and all save one go away in high dudgeon, thinking he means them; but this last answers: “His tail,” and is admitted.
At a public festival an eagle carries off the municipal ring, and Esop obtains his freedom by order of the state for his interpretation of this omen—that some king purposes to annex Samos. This, it turns out, is Crœsus, who sends to claim tribute. Hereupon Esop relates his first fable, that of the Wolf, the Dog, and the Sheep, and, going on an embassy to Crœsus, that of the Grasshopper who was caught by the Locust-gatherer. He brings home “peace with honour.” After this Esop travels over the world, showing his wisdom and wit. At Babylon he is made much of by the king. He then visits Egypt and confounds the sages in his monarch’s behalf. Once more he returns to Greece, and at Delphi is accused of stealing a sacred golden bowl and condemned to be hurled from a rock. He pleads the fables of the Matron of Ephesus,134 the Frog and the Mouse, the Beetle and the Eagle, the Old Farmer and his Ass-waggon, and others, but all is of no avail, and the villains break his neck.
Such are some of the apocryphal sayings and doings of Esop the fabulist—the manner of his death being the only circumstance for which there is any authority. The idea of his bodily deformity is utterly without foundation, and may have been adopted as a foil to his extraordinary shrewdness and wit, as exhibited in the anecdotes related of him by Planudes. That there was nothing uncouth in the person of Esop is evident from the fact that the Athenians erected a fine statue of him, by the famed sculptor Lysippus.—The Latin collection of the fables ascribed to Esop was first printed at Rome in 1473 and soon afterwards translated into most of the languages of Europe. About the year 1480 the Greek text was printed at Milan. From a French version Caxton printed them in English at Westminster in 1484, with woodcuts: “Here begynneth the Book of the subtyl History and Fables of Esope. Translated out of Frenssche into Englissche, by William Caxton,” etc. In this version Planudes’ description of Esop’s personal appearance is reproduced135 He was “deformed and evil shapen, for he had a great head, large visage, long jaws, sharp eyes, a short neck, curb backed, great belly, great legs, and large feet; and yet that which was worse, he was dumb and could not speak; but, notwithstanding all this, he had a great wit and was greatly ingenious, subtle in cavillection and joyous in words”—an inconsistency which is done away in a later edition by the statement that afterwards he found his tongue.—It is curious to find the Scottish poet Robert Henryson (15th century), in one of the prologues to his metrical versions of some of the Fables, draw a very different portrait of Esop.136 He tells us that one day in the midst of June, “that joly sweit seasoun,” he went alone to a wood, where he was charmed with the “noyis of birdis richt delitious,” and “sweit was the smell of flowris quhyte and reid,” and, sheltering himself under a green hawthorn from the heat of the sun, he fell asleep:
And, in my dreme, methocht come throw the schaw137
The fairest man that ever befoir I saw.
His gowne wes of ane claith als quhyte as milk,
His chymeris138 wes of chambelote purpour broun;
His hude139 of scarlet, bordourit140 weill with silk,
On hekellit-wyis,141 untill his girdill doun;
His bonat round, and of the auld fassoun,142
His beird was quhyte, his ene was greit and gray,
With lokker143 hair, quilk ouer his schulderis lay.
Ane roll of paper in his hand he bair,
Ane swannis pen stikkand144 under his eir,
Ane inkhorne, with ane prettie gilt pennair,145
Ane bag of silk, all at his belt can beir:
Thus was he gudelie graithit146 in his geir.
Of stature large, and with ane feirfull147 face;
Evin quhair I lay, he came ane sturdie pace.
The Arabian sage Lokinan is represented by tradition to have been a black slave, and of hideous appearance, from which, and from the identity of the apologues in the Arabian collection that bears his name as the author with the so-called Esopic fables, some writers have supposed that Esop and Lokman are simply different names of one and the same individual. But the fables ascribed to Lokman have been for the most part (if not indeed entirely) derived from the Greek; and there is no authority whatever that Lokman composed any apologues. Various traditions exist regarding Lokman’s origin and history. It is said that he was an Ethiopian, and was sold as a slave to the Israelites during the reign of David. According to one version, he was a carpenter; another describes him as having been originally a tailor; while a third account states that he was a shepherd. If the Arabs may be credited, he was nearly related to the patriarch Job. Among the anecdotes which are recounted of his amiable disposition is the following: His master once gave him a bitter lemon to eat. Lokman ate it all, upon which his master, greatly astonished, asked him: “How was it possible for you to eat so unpalatable a fruit?” Lokman replied: “I have received so many favours from you, that it is no wonder I should once in my life eat a bitter melon from your hand.” Struck with this generous answer, the master, it is said, immediately gave him his freedom.—A man of eminence among the Jews, observing a great crowd around Lokman, eagerly listening to his discourse, asked him whether he was not the black slave who lately tended the sheep of such a person, to which Lokman replying in the affirmative, “How was it possible,” continued his questioner, “for thee to attain so exalted a degree of wisdom and piety?” Lokman answered: “By always speaking the truth; keeping my word; and never intermeddling in affairs that did not concern me.”—Being asked from whom he had learned urbanity, he replied: “From men of rude manners, for whatever I saw in them that was disagreeable I avoided doing myself.” And when asked from whom he had acquired his philosophy, he said: “From the blind, who never advance a step until they have tried the ground.” Lokman is also credited with this apothegm: “Be a learned man, a disciple of the learned, or an auditor of the learned; at least, be a lover of knowledge and desirous of improvement.”—In Persian and Turkish tales Lokman sometimes figures as a highly skilled physician, and “wise as Lokman” is proverbial throughout the Muhammedan world.
ADDITIONAL NOTE.
DRINKING THE SEA DRY, p. 306.
The same jest is also found in Aino Folk-Tales, translated by Prof. Basil Hall Chamberlain, and published in the Folk-Lore Journal, 1888, as follows:
There was the Chief of the Mouth of the River and the Chief of the Upper Current of the River. The former was very vain-glorious, and therefore wished to put the latter to shame or to kill him by engaging him in an attempt to perform something impossible. So he sent for him and said: “The sea is a useful thing, in so far as it is the original home of the fish which come up the river. But it is very destructive in stormy weather, when it beats wildly upon the beach. Do you now drink it dry, so that there may be rivers and dry land only. If you cannot do so, then forfeit all your possessions.” The other said, greatly to the vain-glorious man’s surprise: “I accept the challenge.” So, on their going down to the beach, the Chief of the Upper Current of the River took a cup and scooped up a little of the sea-water with it, drank a few drops, and said: “In the sea-water itself there is no harm. It is some of the rivers flowing into it that are poisonous. Do you, therefore, first close the mouths of all the rivers both in Aino-land and in Japan, and prevent them from flowing into the sea, and then I will undertake to drink the sea dry.” Hereupon the Chief of the Mouth of the River felt ashamed, acknowledged his error, and gave all his treasures to his rival.
Such an idea as this of first “stopping the rivers” might well have been conceived independently by different peoples, but surely not by such a race so low in the scale of humanity as the Ainos, who must have got the story from the Japanese, who in their turn probably derived it from some Indian-Buddhist source—perhaps a version of the Book of Sindibád. Of course, the several European versions and variants have been copied out of one book into another, and independent invention is out of the question.