all, and caused another servant to
give the rogue a good beating. When the culprit had received such a
caning that his skin and bones were sore, he cried out: 'Enough, prince,
my master! Wait until I tell you another thing that the young girl said
to me, and I have forgotten to tell you.' 'Come, what have you to
say?--be quick.' 'Master, the young girl added, "But, to please the
partridge, let him not beat the sow."' 'Ah, blockhead!' said the prince
to him. 'Why did you not tell me this before? Then you would not have
tasted the cane. But so be it.' A few days later the prince married the
young girl, and fętes and great rejoicings were held."
THE FOX AND THE BEAR, p. 240.
In no other version of this fable does the Fox take a stone with him
when he enters one of the buckets and then throw it away--nor indeed
does he go into the bucket at all; he simply induces the other animal to
descend into the well, in order to procure the "fine cheese." La
Fontaine gives a variant of the fable, in which a fox goes down into a
well with the same purpose, and gets out by asking a wolf to come down
and feast on the "cheese": as the wolf descends in one bucket he draws
up the fox in the other one, and so the wolf, like Lord Ullin, is "left
lamenting."[114] M. Bérenger-Féraud thinks this version somewhat
analogous to a fable in his French collection of popular Senegambian
Tales,[115] of the Clever Monkey and the Silly Wolf, of which, as it is
short, I may offer a free translation, as follows:
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]
[114] _Fables de La Fontaine_, Livre xi^e, fable v^e: "Le Loup
et le Renard."
[115] _Recueil de Contes Populaires de la Sénégambie_,
recueillis par L.-J.-B.-Bérenger-Féraud. Paris, 1885.
Page 51.
[116] I have to thank my friend Dr. David Ross, Principal,
E. C. Training College, Glasgow, for kindly drawing my
attention to this diverting tale.
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 Facetić 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.
[117] Nothing is more hackneyed in Asiatic poetry than the
comparison of a pretty girl's face to the moon, and not
seldom to the disparagement of that luminary. Solomon,
in his love-songs, exclaims: "Who is she that looketh
forth in the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the
sun?" The greatest of Persian poets, Firdausí, says of a
damsel:
"Love ye the moon? Behold her face,
And there the lucid planet trace."
And Kalidása, the Shakspeare of India (6th century
B.C.), says:
"Her countenance is brighter than the moon."
Amongst ourselves the epithet "moon-faced" is not usually
regarded as complimentary, yet Spenser speaks of a
beautiful damsel's "moon-like forehead."--Be sure, the
poets are right!
[118] The lithe figure of a pretty girl is
