Chapter XIII: Part 13

There is a great tract of land assigned to Br�hmans in the country of Anga, called Vrikshaghata. In it there lived a rich sacrificing Br�hman named Vishnusv�min. And he had a wife equal to himself in birth. And by her he had three sons born to him, who were distinguished for preternatural acuteness. In course of time they grew up to be young men. One day, when he had begun a sacrifice, he sent those three brothers to the sea to fetch a turtle. So off they went, and when they had found a turtle, the eldest said to his two brothers, "Let one of you take the turtle for our father's sacrifice; I cannot take it, as it is all slippery with slime." When the eldest said this, the two younger ones answered him, "If you hesitate about taking it, why should not we?" When the eldest heard that, he said, "You two must take the turtle; if you do not, you will have obstructed your father's sacrifice, and then you will certainly sink down to hell." When he told the younger brothers this, they laughed and said to him, "If you see our duty so clearly, why do you not see that your own is the same?" Then the eldest said, "What, do you not know how fastidious I am? I am very fastidious about eating, and I cannot be expected to touch what is repulsive." The middle brother, when he heard this speech of his, said to his brother, "Then I am a more fastidious person than you, for I am a most fastidious connoisseur of the fair sex." When the middle one said this, the eldest went on to say, "Then let the younger of you two take the turtle." Then the youngest brother frowned, and in his turn said to the two elder, "You fools, I am very fastidious about beds; so I am the most fastidious of the lot."

So the three brothers fell to quarrelling with one another, and being completely under the dominion of conceit, they left that turtle and went off immediately to the court of the king of that country, whose name was Prasenajit, and who lived in a city named Vitankapura, in order to have the dispute decided. There they had themselves announced by the warder, and went in, and gave the king a circumstantial account of their case. The king said, "Wait here, and I will put you all in turn to the proof;" so they agreed and remained there. And at the time that the king took his meal, he had them conducted to a seat of honour, and given delicious food fit for a king, possessing all the six flavours. And while all were feasting around him, the Br�hman who was fastidious about eating along of the company did not eat, but sat there with his face puckered up with disgust. The king himself asked the Br�hman why he did not eat his food, though it was sweet and fragrant, and he slowly answered him, "I perceive in this food an evil smell of the reek from corpses, so I cannot bring myself to eat it, however delicious it may be." When he said this before the assembled multitude, they all smelled it by the king's orders, and said, "This food is prepared from white rice and is good and fragrant." But the Br�hman who was so fastidious about eating would not touch it, but stopped his nose. Then the king reflected, and proceeded to inquire into the matter, and found out from his officers that the food had been made from rice which had been grown in a field near the burning gh�t of a certain village. Then the king was much astonished, and, being pleased, he said to him, "In truth you are very particular as to what you eat; so eat of some other dish."

And after they had finished their dinner, the king dismissed the Br�hmans to their apartments and sent for the loveliest lady of his court. And in the evening he sent that fair one, all whose limbs were of faultless beauty, splendidly adorned, to the second Br�hman, who was so squeamish about the fair sex. And that matchless kindler of Cupid's flame, with a face like the full moon of midnight, went, escorted by the king's servants, to the chamber of the Br�hman. But when she entered, lighting up the chamber with her brightness, that gentleman who was so fastidious about the fair sex felt quite faint, and stopping his nose with his left hand, said to the king's servants, "Take her away; if you do not, I am a dead man: a smell comes from her like that of a goat." When the king's servants heard this, they took the bewildered fair one to their sovereign, and told him what had taken place. And the king immediately had the squeamish gentleman sent for, and said to him, "How can this lovely woman, who has perfumed herself with sandal-wood, camphor, black aloes, and other splendid scents, so that she diffuses exquisite fragrance through the world, smell like a goat?" But though the king used this argument to the squeamish gentleman he stuck to his point; and then the king began to have his doubts on the subject, and at last, by artfully framed questions, he elicited from the lady herself that, having been separated in her childhood from her mother and nurse, she had been brought up on goat's milk.

Then the king was much astonished, and praised highly the discernment of the man who was fastidious about the fair sex, and immediately had given to the third Br�hman, who was fastidious about beds, in accordance with his taste, a bed composed of seven mattresses placed upon a bedstead. White smooth sheets and coverlets were laid upon the bed, and the fastidious man slept upon it in a splendid room. But, before half a watch of the night had passed, he rose up from that bed, with his hand pressed to his side, screaming in an agony of pain. And the king's officers, who were there, saw a red crooked mark on his side, as if a hair had been pressed deep into it. And they went and told the king, and the king said to them, "Look and see if there is not something under the mattress." So they went and examined the bottom of the mattresses one by one, and they found a hair in the middle of the bedstead underneath them all. And they took it and showed it to the king, and they also brought the man who was fastidious about beds, and when the king saw the state of his body, he was astonished. And he spent the whole night in wondering how a hair could make so deep an impression on his skin through seven mattresses.[FN#499]

And the next morning the king gave three hundred thousand gold pieces to those fastidious men, because they were persons of wonderful discernment and refinement. And they remained in great comfort in the king's court, forgetting all about the turtle, and little did they reck of the fact that they had incurred sin by obstructing their father's sacrifice.[FN#500]

The story of the brothers who were so very "knowing" is common to most countries, with occasional local modifications. It is not often we find the knowledge of the "quintessence of things" concentrated in a single individual, as in the case of the ex- king of our tale, but we have his exact counterpart--and the circumstance is significant--in No. 2 of the "Cento Novelle Antiche," the first Italian collection of short stories, made in the 13th century, where a prisoner informs the king of Greece that a certain horse has been suckled by a she-ass, that a jewel contains a flaw, and that the king himself is a baker. Mr. Tawney, in a note on the Vet�la story, as above, refers also to the decisions of Hamlet in Saxo Grammaticus, 1839, p. 138, in Simrock's "Quellen des Shakespeare," I, 81-85; 5, 170; he lays down that some bread tastes of blood (the corn was grown on a battlefield); that some liquor tastes of iron (the malt was mixed with water taken from a well in which some rusty swords had lain); that some bacon tastes of corpses (the pig had eaten a corpse); lastly, that the king is a servant and his wife a serving-maid. But in most versions of the story three brothers are the gifted heroes.

In "M�lusine"[FN#501] for 5 Nov. 1885, M. Ren� Basset cites an interesting variant (in which, as is often the case, the "Lost Camel" plays a part, but we are not concerned about it at present) from Radloff's "Proben der Volksliteratur der t�rkischen St�mme S�d-Sibiriens," as follows:

SIBERIAN VERSION

Meat and bread were set before the three brothers, and the prince went out. The eldest said, "The prince is a slave;" the second, "This is dog's flesh;" the youngest, "This bread has grown over the legs of a dead body." The prince heard them. He took a knife and ran to find his mother. "Tell me the truth," cried he- -"were you unfaithful to my father during his absence? A man who is here has called me a slave." "My son," replied she, "If I don't tell the truth, I shall die; if I tell it, I shall die. When thy father was absent, I gave myself up to a slave." The prince left his mother and ran to the house of the shepherd: "The meat which you have cooked to-day--what is it? Tell the truth, otherwise I'll cut your head off." "Master, if I tell it, I shall die; if I don't, I shall die. I will be truthful. It was a lamb whose mother had no milk; on the day of its birth, it was suckled by a bitch: that is to-day's ewe." The prince left the shepherd and ran to the house of the husbandman: "Tell the truth, or else I'll cut off your head. Three young men have come to my house. I have placed bread before them, and they say that the grain has grown over the limbs of a dead man." "I will be frank with you. I ploughed with my plough in a place where were (buried) the limbs of a man; without knowing it, I sowed some wheat, which grew up." The prince quitted his slave and returned to his house, where were seated the strangers. He said to the first, "Young man, how do you know that I am a slave?" "Because you went out as soon as the repast was brought in." He asked the second, "How do you know that the meat which was served was that of a dog?" "Because it has a disagreeable taste like the flesh of a dog." Then to the third: "How come you to know that this bread was grown over the limbs of a dead person?" "What shall I say? It smells of the limbs of a dead body; that is why I recognised it. If you do not believe me, ask your slave; he will tell you that what I say is true."

In the same paper (col. 516) M. Ren� Basset cites a somewhat elaborate variant, from Stier's "Ungarische Sagen und Märchen," in which, once more, the knowledge of the "quintessence of things" is concentrated in a single individual.

HUNGARIAN VERSION

A clever Magyar is introduced with his companions in disguise into the camp of the king of the T�t�rs, who is menacing his country. The prince, suspicious, causes him to be carefully watched by his mother, a skilful sorceress. They brought in the evening's repast. "What good wine the prince has!" said she. "Yes," replied one, "but it contains human blood." The sorceress took note of the bed from whence these words proceeded, and when all were asleep she deftly cut a lock of hair from him who had spoken, crept stealthily out of the room, and brought this mark to her son. The strangers started up, and when our hero discovered what had been done to him, he cut a lock from all, to render his detection impossible. When they came to dinner, the king knew not from whom the lock had been taken. The following night the mother of the prince again slipped into the room, and said, "What good bread has the prince of the T�t�rs!" "Very good," replied one, "it is made with the milk of a woman." When all were asleep, she cut a little off the moustache of him who was lying in the bed from which the voice proceeded. This time the Magyars were still more on the alert, and when they were apprised of the matter, they all cut a little from their moustaches, so that next morning the prince found himself again foiled. The third night the old lady hid herself, and said in a loud voice, "What a handsome man is the prince of the T�t�rs!" "Yes," replied one, "but he is a bastard." When all were asleep, the old lady made a mark on the visor of the helmet of the one from whence had come the words, and then acquainted her son of what she had done. In the morning the prince perceived that all the helmets were similarly marked.[FN#502] At length he refrained, and said, "I see that there is among you a master greater than myself; that is why I desire very earnestly to know him. He may make himself known; I should like to see and know this extraordinary man, who is more clever and powerful than myself." The young man started up from his seat and said, "I have not wished to be stronger or wiser than yourself. I have only wished to find out what you had preconcerted for us. I am the person who has been marked three nights." "It is well, young man. But prove now your words: How is there human blood in the wine?" "Call your butler and he will tell you." The butler came in trembling all over, and confessed that when he corked the wine he had cut his finger with the knife, and a drop of blood had fallen into the cask. "But how is there woman's milk in the bread?" asked the king. "Call the bakeress," he replied, "and she will tell it you." When they questioned her, she confessed that she was kneading the bread and at the same time suckling her baby, and that on pressing it to her breast some milk flowed and was mixed with the bread. The sorceress, the mother of the king, when they came to the third revelation of the young man, confessed in her turn that the king was illegitimate.

Mr. Tawney refers to the Chevalier de Mailly's version of the Three Princes of Serendip (Ceylon): The three are sitting at table, and eating a leg of lamb, sent with some splendid wine from the table of the emperor Bahr�m. The eldest maintains that the wine was made of grapes that grew in a cemetery; the second, that the lamb was brought up on dog's milk; while the third asserts that the emperor had put to death the son of the waz�r. And that the latter is bent on vengeance. All these statements turn out to be well-grounded. Mr. Tawney also refers to parallel stories in the Breslau edition of The Nights; namely, in Night 458, it is similarly conjectured that the bread was baked by a sick woman; that the kid was suckled by a bitch, and that the sultan is illegitimate; and in Night 459, a gem-cutter guesses that a jewel has an internal flaw, a man skilled in the pedigrees of horses divines that a horse is the offspring of a female buffalo, and a man skilled in human pedigrees that the mother of the favourite queen was a rope-dancer. Similar incidents occur in "The Sultan of Yemen and his Three Sons," one of the Additional Tales translated by Scott, from the Wortley-Montague MS., now in the Bodleian Library, and comprised in vol. vi. of his edition of "The Arabian Nights Entertainments," published at London in 1811.

An analogous tale occurs in Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's recently- published translation of the "History of the Forty Vezirs (the Lady's Fourth Story, p. 69 ff.), the motif of which is that "all things return to their origin:"

TURKISH ANALOGUE.

There was in the palace of the world a king who was very desirous of seeing Khizr[FN#503] (peace on him!), and he would even say, "If there be any one who will show me Khizr, I will give him whatsoever he may wish." Now there was at that time a man poor of estate, and from the stress of his poverty he said to himself, "Let me go and speak to the king, that if he provide for me during three years, either I shall be dead, or the king will be dead, or he will forgive me my fault, or I shall on somewise win to escape, and in this way shall I make merry for a time." So he went to the king and spake these words to him.[FN#504] The king said, "An thou show him not, then I will kill thee," and that poor man consented. Then the king let give him much wealth and money, and the poor man took that wealth and money and went to his house. Three years he spent in merriment and delight, and he rested at ease till the term was accomplished. At the end of that time he fled and hid himself in a trackless place and he began to quake for fear. Of a sudden he saw a personage with white raiment and shining face, who saluted him. The poor man returned the salutation, and the radiant being asked, "Why art thou thus sad?" but he gave no answer. Again the radiant being asked him and sware to him, saying, "Do indeed tell to me thy plight, that I may find thee some remedy." So that hapless one narrated his story from its beginning to its end, and the radiant being said, "Come, I will go with thee to the king, and I will answer for thee." So they arose.

Now the king wanted that hapless one, and while they were going some of the king's officers who were seeking met them, and they straightway seized the poor man and brought him to the king. Quoth the king, "Lo, the three years are accomplished; come now, and show me Khizr." The poor man said, "My king, grace and bounty are the work of kings--forgive my sin." Quoth the king, "I made a pact; till I have killed thee, I shall not have fulfilled it." And he looked to his chief vez�r and said, "How should this be done?" Quoth the vez�r, "This man should be hewn in many pieces and then hung up on butchers' hooks, that others may see and lie not before the king." Said that radiant being, "True spake the vez�r;--all things return to their origin." Then the king looked to the second vez�r and said, "What sayest thou?" He replied, "This man should be boiled in a cauldron." Said that radiant being, "True spake the vez�r;--all things return to their origin." The king looked to the third vezir and said, "What sayest though?" The vez�r replied, "This man should be hewn in small pieces and baked in an oven." Again said that elder, "True spake the vez�r;--all things return to their origin." Then quoth the king to the fourth vez�r, "Let us see what sayest thou?" The vez�r replied, "O king, the wealth thou gavest this poor creature was for the love of Khizr (peace on him!). he, thinking to find him, accepted it; now that he has not found him he seeks pardon. This were befitting, that thou set free this poor creature for the love of Khizr." Said that elder, "True spake the vez�r;--all things return to their origin." Then the king said to the elder, "O elder, my vez�rs have said different things contrary the one to the other, and thou hast said concerning each of them, 'True spake the vez�r; - all things return to their origin.' What is the reason thereof?" That elder replied, "O king, thy first vez�r is a butcher's son; therefore did he draw to his origin. Thy second vez�r is a cook's son, and he likewise proposed a punishment as became his origin. Thy third vez�r is a baker's son; he likewise proposed a punishment as became his origin. But thy fourth vez�r is of gentle birth; compassion therefore becomes his origin, so he had compassion on that hapless one, and sought to do good and counselled liberation. O king, all things return to their origin."[FN#505] And he gave the king much counsel, and at last said, "Lo, I am Khizr," and vanished.[FN#506]

The discovery of the king's illegitimate birth, which occurs in so many versions, has its parallels in the story of the Nephew of Hippocrates in the "Seven Wise Masters," and the Lady's 2nd Story in Mr. Gibb's translation of the "Forty Vez�rs." The extraordinary sensitiveness of the third young Br�hman, in the Vet�la story, whose side was scratched by a hair that was under the seventh of the mattresses on which he lay, Rohde (says Tawney), in his "Griechische Novellistik," p. 62, compares with a story told by Aelian of the Sybarite Smindyrides, who slept on a bed of rose-leaves and got up in the morning covered with blisters. He also quotes from the Chronicle of Tabari a story of a princess who was made to bleed by a rose-leaf lying in her bed.[FN#507]

The eleventh recital of the Vet�la is about a king's three sensitive wives: As one of the queens was playfully pulling the hair of the king, a blue lotus leaped from her ear and fell on her lap; immediately a wound was produced on the front of her thigh by the blow, and the delicate princess exclaimed, "Oh! oh!" and fainted. At night, the second retired with the king to an apartment on the roof of the palace exposed to the rays of the moon, which fell on the body of the queen, who was sleeping by the king's side, where it was exposed by her garment blowing aside; immediately she woke up, exclaiming, "Alas! I am burnt," and rose up from the bed rubbing her limbs. The king woke up in a state of alarm, crying out, "What is the meaning of this?" Then he got up and saw that blisters had been produced on the queen's body. In the meanwhile the king's third wife heard of it and left her palace to come to him. And when she got into the open air, she heard distinctly, as the night was still, the sound of a pestle pounding in a distant house. The moment the gazelle- eyed one heard it, she said, "Alas! I am killed," and she sat down on the path, shaking her hands in an agony of pain. Then the girl turned back, and was conducted by her attendants to her own chamber, where she fell on her bed and groaned. And when her weeping attendants examined her, they saw that her hands were covered with bruises, and looked like lotuses upon which black beetles had settled.

To this piteous tale of the three very sensitive queens Tawney appends the following note: Rohde, in his "Griechische Novellistik," p. 62, compares with this a story told by Tim�us, of a Sybarite who saw a husbandman hoeing a field, and contracted rupture from it. Another Sybarite, to whom he told the tale of his sad mishap, got ear-ache from hearing it. Oesterley, in his German translation of the Bait�l Pach�s�, points out that Grimm, in his "Kindermärchen," iii. p. 238, quotes a similar incident from the travels of the Three sons of Giaffar: out of four princesses, one faints because a rose-twig is thrown into her face among some roses; a second shuts her eyes in order not to see the statue of a man; a third says, "Go away; the hairs in your fur cloak run into me;" and the fourth covers her face, fearing that some of the fish in a tank may belong to the male sex. He also quotes a striking parallel from the "Elites des contes du Sieur d'Onville:" Four ladies dispute as to which of them is the most delicate. One has been lame for three months owing to a rose-leaf having fallen on her foot; another has had three ribs broken by a sheet in her bed having been crumpled; a third has held her head on one side for six weeks owing to one half of her head having three more hairs on it than the other; a fourth has broken a blood-vessel by a slight movement, and the rupture cannot be healed without breaking the whole limb.[Poor things!]

THE PRINCE WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PICTURE.--Vol. XI. p. 226.

In the Persian tales of "The Thousand and One Days," a young prince entered his father's treasury one day, and saw there a little cedar chest "set with pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and topazes;" on opening it (for the key was in the lock) he beheld the picture of an exceedingly beautiful woman, with whom he immediately fell in love. Ascertaining the name of the lady from an inscription on the back of the portrait, he set off with a companion to discover her, and having been told by an old man at Baghdad that her father at one time reigned in Ceylon, he continued his journey thither, encountering many unheard-of adventures by the way. Ultimately he is informed that the lady with whose portrait he had become enamoured was one of the favourites of King Solomon. One should suppose that his would have effectually cured the love-sick prince; but no: he "could never banish her sweet image from his heart."[FN#508]

Two instances of falling in love with the picture of a pretty woman occur in the "Kath� Sar�t S�gara." In Book ix., chap. 51, a painter shows King Prithvir�pa the "counterfeit presentment" of the beauteous Princess Rapalat�, and "as the king gazed on it his eye was drowned in that sea of beauty her person, so that he could not draw it out again. For the king, whose longing was excessive, could not be satisfied with devouring her form, which poured forth a stream of the nectar of beauty, as the partridge cannot be satisfied with devouring the moonlight." In Book xii., chap. 100, a female ascetic shows a wandering prince the portrait of the Princess Mand�ravat�, "and Sundarasena when he beheld that maiden, who, though she was present there only in a picture, seemed to be of romantic beauty and like a flowing forth of joy, immediately felt as if he had been pierced with the arrows of the god of the flowery bow [i.e. K�ma]." In chapter 35 of Scott's translation of the "Bah�r-i-D�nish," Prince Ferokh-Faul opens a volume, "which he had scarcely done when the fatal portrait of the fair princess who, the astrologers had foretold, was to occasion him so many perils, presented itself to his view. He instantly fainted, when the slave, alarmed, conveyed intelligence of his condition to the sultan, and related the unhappy cause of the disorder." In Gomberville's romance of Polexandre, the African prince, Abd-el-Malik, falls in love with the portrait of Alcidiana, and similar incidents occur in the romance of Agesilaus of Colchos and in the Story of the Seven Waz�rs (vol. vi.); but why multiply instances? Nothing is more common in Asiatic fictions.

THE FULLER, HIS WIFE, AND THE TROOPER.--Vol. XI. p. 231.

In addition to the versions of this amusing story referred to on p. 231--all of which will be found in the second volume of my work on "Popular Tales and Fictions," pp. 212-228--there is yet another in a Persian story-book, of unknown date, entitled, "Shamsa � Kuhkuha," written by Mirza Berkhorder Turkman, of which an account, together with specimens, is given in a recently- published little book (Quaritch), "Persian Portraits: a sketch of Persian History, Literature, and Politics," by Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, author of "Early Ideas: a Group of Hindoo Stories."

This version occurs in a tale of three artful wives--or, to employ the story-teller's own graphic terms, "three whales of the sea of fraud and deceit: three dragons of the nature of thunder and the quickness of lightning; three defamers of honour and reputation; namely, three men-deceiving, lascivious women, each of whom had from the chicanery of her cunning issued the diploma of turmoil to a hundred cities and countries, and in the arts of fraud they accounted Satan as an admiring spectator in the theatre of their stratagems.[FN#509] One of them was sitting in the court of justice of the kazi's embrace; the second was the precious gem of the bazaar-master's diadem of compliance; and the third was the beazle and ornament of the signet-ring of the life and soul of the superintendent of police. They were constantly entrapping the fawns of the prairie of deceit within the grasp of cunning, and plundered the wares of the caravans of tranquillity of hearts of strangers and acquaintances, by means of the edge of the scimitar of fraud. One day this trefoil of roguery met at the public bath, and, according to their homogeneous nature they intermingled as intimately as the comb with the hair; they tucked up their garment of amity to the waist of union, entered the tank of agreement, seated themselves in the hot-house of love, and poured from the dish of folly, by means of the key of hypocrisy, the water of profusion upon the head of intercourse; they rubbed with the brush of familiarity and the soap of affection the stains of jealousies from each other's limbs. After a while, when they had brought the pot of concord to boil by the fire of mutual laudation, they warmed the bath of association with the breeze of kindness, and came out. In the dressing-room all three of them happened simultaneously to find a ring, the gem of which surpassed the imagination of the jeweler of destiny, and the like of which he had never beheld in the storehouse of possibility. In short, these worthy ladies contended with each other for possession of the ring, until at length the mother of the bathman came forward and proposed that they should entrust the ring to her in the meanwhile, and it should be the prize of the one who most cleverly deceived and befooled her husband, to which they all agreed, and then departed for their respective domiciles.[FN#510]

Mr. Arbuthnot's limits pertained only of abstracts of the tricks played upon their husbands by the three ladies--which the story- teller gives at great length--and that of the kazi's wife is as follows:

The kazi's wife knows that a certain carpenter, who lived close to her, was very much in love with her. She sends her maid to him with a message to say that the flame of his love had taken effect upon her heart, and that he must make an underground passage between his house and her dwelling, so that they might communicate with each other freely by means of the mine. The carpenter digs the passage, and the lady pays him a visit, and says to him, "To-morrow I shall come here, and you must bring the kazi to marry me to you." The next day the kazi goes to his office; the lady goes to the carpenter's house, and sends him to bring her husband, the kazi, to marry them. The carpenter fetches him, and, as the kazi hopes for a good present, he comes willingly enough, but is much surprised at the extreme likeness between the bride and his own wife. The more he looks at her, the more he is in doubt; and at last, offering an excuse to fetch something, he rushes off to his own house, but is forestalled by his spouse, who had gone thither by the passage, and on his arrival is lying on her bed. The kazi makes some excuses for his sudden entry into her room, and, after some words, goes back to the carpenter's house; but his wife had preceded him, and is sitting in her place. Again he begins the ceremony, but is attracted by a black mole on the corner of the bride's lip, which he could have sworn was the same as that possessed by his wife. Making more excuses, and in spite of the remonstrances of the carpenter, he hurries back to his house once more; but his wife had again got there before him, and he finds her reading a book, and much astonished at his second visit. She suggests that he is mad, and he admits that his conduct is curious, and returns to the carpenter's house to complete the ceremony. This is again frequently interrupted, but finally he marries his own wife to the carpenter, and, having behaved in such an extraordinary manner throughout, is sent off to a lunatic asylum.

For the tricks of the two other ladies, and for many other equally diverting tales, I refer the reader to Mr. Arbuthnot's pleasing and instructive little book, which is indeed an admirable epitome of the history and literature of Persia, and one which was greatly wanted in these days, when most men, "like the dogs in Egypt for fear of the crocodiles, must drink of the waters of information as they run, in dread of the old enemy Time."

I have discussed the question of the genealogy of this tale elsewhere, but, after a somewhat more minute comparative analysis of the several versions, am disposed to modify the opinion which I then entertained. I think we must consider as the direct or indirect source of the versions and variants the "Miles Gloriosus" of Plautus, the plot of which, it is stated in the prologue to the second act, was taken from a Greek play. It is, however, not very clear whether Berni adapted his story from Plautus or the "Seven Wise Masters"; probably from the former, since in both the lady is represented, to the captain and the cuckold, as a twin sister, while in the S. W. M. the crafty knight pretends that she is his leman, come from Hungary with tidings that he may now with safety return home. On the other hand, in the S. W. M., as in Plautus, the lovers make their escape by sea, an incident which Berni has altered to a journey by land--no doubt, in order to introduce further adventures for the development of his main plot. But then we find a point of resemblance between Berni and the S. W. M., in the incident of the cuckold accompanying the lovers part of their way--in the latter to the sea-shore; while in Plautus the deceived captain remains at home to prosecute an amour and get a thrashing for his reward (in Plautus, instead of a wife, it is the captain's slave- girl). It is curious that amidst all the masquerade of the Arabian story the cuckold's wife also personates her supposititious twin-sister, as in Plautus and Berni. In Plautus the houses of the lover and the captain adjoin, as is also the case in the modern Italian and Sicilian versions; while in Berni, the S. W. M., the Arabian, and the Persian story cited in this note they are at some distance. With these resemblances and variations it is not easy to say which version was derived from another. Evidently the Arabian story has been deliberately modified by the compiler, and he has, I think, considerably improved upon the original: the ludicrous perplexity of the poor fuller when he awakes, to find himself apparently transformed into a Turkish trooper, recalls the nursery rhyme of the little woman "who went to market her eggs for to sell," and falling asleep on the king's highway a pedlar cut off her petticoats up to the knees, and when she awoke and saw her condition she exclaimed, "Lawk-a-mercy me, this is none of I!" and so on. And not less diverting is the pelting the blockhead receives from his brother fullers--altogether, a capital story.

TALE OF THE SIMPLETON HUSBAND.--Vol. XI. p. 239.

The "curious" reader will find European and Asiatic versions of this amusing story in "Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," published for the Chaucer Society, pp. 177-188 and (in a paper contributed by me: "The Enchanted Tree") p. 341-364.

TALE OF THE THREE MEN AND OUR LORD ISA.--Vol XI. p. 250.

Under the title of "The Robbers and the Treasure-Trove" I have brought together many European and Asiatic versions of this wide- spread tale in "Chaucer Analogues," pp. 415-436.

THE MELANCHOLIST AND THE SHARPER. -- Vol. XI. p. 264.

A similar but much shorter story is found in Gladwin's "Persian Moonshee," and story-books in several of the Indian vernaculars which have been rendered into English:

A miser said to a friend, "I have now a thousand rupees, which I will bury out of the city, and I will not tell the secret to any one besides yourself." They went out of the city together, and buried the money under a tree. Some days after the miser went alone to the tree and found no signs of his money. He said to himself, "Excepting that friend, no other has taken it away; but if I question him he will never confess." He therefore went to his (the friend's) house and said, "A great deal of money is come into my hands, which I want to put in the same place; if you will come to-morrow, we will go together." The friend, by coveting this large sum, replaced the former money, and the miser next day went there alone and found it. He was delighted with his own contrivance, and never again placed any confidence in friends.

One should suppose a miser the last person to confide the secret of his wealth to any one; but the Italian versions bear a closer resemblance to the Arabian story. From No. 74 of the "Cento Novelle Antiche" Sacchetti, who was born in 1335 and is ranked by Crescimbini as next to Boccaccio, adapted his 198th novella, which is a most pleasing version of the Asiatic story:

ITALIAN VERSION.

A blind man of Orvieto, of the name of Cola, hit upon a device to recover a hundred florins he had been cheated of, which showed he was possessed of all the eyes of Argus, though he had unluckily lost his own. And this he did without wasting a farthing either upon law or arbitration, by sheer dexterity; for he had formerly been a barber, and accustomed to shave very close, having then all his eyes about him, which had been now closed for about thirty years. Alms seemed then the only resource to which he could betake himself, and such was the surprising progress he in a short time made in his new trade that he counted a hundred florins in his purse, which he secretly carried about him until he could find a safer place. His gains far surpassed anything he had realised with his razor and scissors; indeed, they increased so fast that he no longer knew where to bestow them; until one morning happening to remain the last, as he believed, in the church, he thought of depositing his purse of a hundred florins under a loose tile in the floor behind the door, knowing the situation of the place perfectly well. After listening some time without hearing a foot stirring, he very cautiously laid it in the spot; but unluckily there remained a certain Juccio Pezzichernolo, offering his adoration before an image of San Giovanni Boccadoro, who happened to see Cola busily engaged behind the door. He continued his adorations until he saw the blind man depart, when, not in the least suspecting the truth, he approached and searched the place. He soon found the identical tile, and on removing it with the help of his knife, he found the purse, which he very quietly put into his pocket, replacing the tiles just as they were, and, resolving to say nothing about it, he went home.

At the end of three days the blind mendicant, desirous of inspecting his treasure, took a quiet time for visiting the place, and removing the tile searched a long while in great perturbation, but all in vain, to find his beloved purse. At last, replacing things just as they were, he was compelled to return in no very enviable state of mind to his dwelling; and there meditating on his loss, the harvest of the toil of so many days, by dint of intense thinking a bright thought struck him (as frequently happens by cogitating in the dark), how he had yet a kind of chance of redeeming his lost spoils. Accordingly in the morning he called his young guide, a lad about nine years old, saying, "My son, lead me to church," and before setting out he tutored him how he was to behave, seating himself at his side before the entrance, and particularly remarking every person who should enter into the church. "Now, if you happen to see any one who takes particular notice of me, and who either laughs or makes any sign, be sure you observe it and tell me." The boy promised he would; and they proceeded accordingly and took their station before the church

When the dinner-hour arrived, the father and son prepared to leave the place, the former inquiring by the way whether his son had observed any one looking hard at him as he passed along. "That I did," answered the lad, "but only one, and he laughed as he went past us. I do not know his name, but he is strongly marked with the small-pox and lives somewhere near the Frati Minori." "Do you think, my dear lad," said his father, "that you could take me to his shop, and tell me when you see him there?" "To be sure I could," said the lad. "Then come, let us lose no time," replied the father, "and when we are there tell me, and while I speak to him you can step on one side and wait for me." So the sharp little fellow led him along the way until he reached a cheesemonger's stall, when he acquainted his father, and brought him close to it. No sooner did the blind man hear him speaking with his customers than he recognised him for the same Juccio with whom he had formerly been acquainted during his days of light. When the coast was a little clear, our blind hero entreated some moments' conversation, and Juccio, half suspecting the occasion took him on one side into a little room, saying, "Cola, friend, what good news?" "Why," said Cola, "I am come to consult you, in great hopes you will be of use to me. You know it is a long time since I lost my sight, and being in a destitute condition, I was compelled to earn my subsistence by begging alms. Now, by the grace of God, and with the help of you and of other good people of Orvieto, I have saved a sum of two hundred florins, one hundred of which I have deposited in a safe place, and the other is in the hands of my relations, which I expect to receive with interest in the course of a week. Now if you would consent to receive, and to employ for me to the best advantage, the whole sum of two hundred florins it would be doing me a great kindness, for there is no one besides in all Orvieto in whom I dare to confide; nor do I like to be at the expense of paying a notary for doing business which we can as well transact ourselves. Only I wish you would say nothing about it, but receive the two hundred florins from me to employ as you think best. Say not a word about it, for there would be an end of my calling were it known I had received so large a sum in alms." Here the blind mendicant stopped; and the sly Juccio, imagining he might thus become master of the entire sum, said he should be very happy to serve him in every way he could and would return an answer the next morning as to the best way of laying out the money. Cola then took his leave, while Juccio, going directly for the purse, deposited it in its old place being in full expectation of soon receiving it again with the addition of the other hundred, as it was clear that Cola had not yet missed the money. The cunning old mendicant on his part expected that he would do no less, and trusting that his plot might have succeeded, he set out the very same day to the church, and had the delight, on removing the tile, to find his purse really there. Seizing upon it with the utmost eagerness, he concealed it under his clothes, and placing the tiles exactly in the same position, he hastened home whistling, troubling himself very little about his appointment of the next day.

The sly thief Juccio set out accordingly the next morning to see his friend Cola, and actually met him on the road. "Whither are you going?" inquired Juccio. "I was going," said Cola, "to your house." The former, then taking the blind man aside, said, "I am resolved to do what you ask; and since you are pleased to confide in me, I will tell you of a plan that I have in hand for laying out your money to advantage. If you will put the two hundred florins into my possession, I will make a purchase in cheese and salt meat, a speculation which cannot fail to turn to good account." "Thank you," quoth Cola, "I am going to-day for the other hundred, which I mean to bring, and when you have got them both, you can do with them what you think proper." Juccio said, "Then let me have them soon, for I think I can secure this bargain; and as the soldiers are come into the town, who are fond of these articles, I think it cannot fail to answer; so go, and Heaven speed you." And Cola went; but with very different intentions from those imagined by his friend--Cola being now clear-sighted, and Juccio truly blind. The next day Cola called on his friend with very downcast and melancholy looks, and when Juccio bade him good day, he said, "I wish from my soul it were a good, or even a middling, day for me." "Why, what is the matter?" "The matter?" echoed Cola; "why, it is all over with me: some rascal has stolen a hundred florins from the place where they were hidden, and I cannot recover a penny from my relations, so that I may eat my fingers off or anything I have to expect." Juccio replied, "This is like all the rest of my speculations. I have invariably lost where I expected to make a good hit. What I shall do I know not; for if the person should choose to keep me to the agreement I made for you, I shall be in a pretty dilemma indeed." "Yet," said Cola, "I think my condition is still worse than yours. I shall be sadly distressed and shall have to amass a fresh capital, which will take me ever so long. And when I have got it, I will take care not to conceal it in a hole in the floor, or trust it, Juccio, into any friend's hands." "But," said Juccio, "if we could contrive to recover what is owing by your relations, we might still make some pretty profit of it, I doubt not." For he thought, if he could only get hold of the hundred he had returned it would still be something in his way. "Why," said Cola, "to tell the truth, if I were to proceed against my relations I believe I might get it; but such a thing would ruin my business, my dear Juccio, for ever: the world would know I was worth money, and I should get no more money from the world; so I fear I shall hardly be able to profit by your kindness, though I shall always consider myself as much obliged as if I had actually cleared a large sum. Moreover, I am going to teach another blind man my profession, and if we have luck you shall see me again, and we can venture a speculation together." So far the wily mendicant, to whom Juccio said, "Well, go and try to get money soon, and bring it; you know where to find me, but look sharp about you and the Lord speed you; farewell." "Farewell," said Cola; "and I am well rid of thee," he whispered to himself, and going upon his way, in a short time he doubled his capital; but he no longer went near his friend Juccio to know how he should invest it. He had great diversion in telling the story to his companions during their feasts, always concluding, "By St. Lucia! Juccio is the blinder man of the two: he thought it was a bold stroke to risk his hundred to double the amount."

For my own part, I think the blind must possess a more acute intellect than other people, inasmuch as the light, exhibiting such a variety of objects to view, is apt to distract the attention, of which many examples might be adduced. For instance, two gentlemen may be conversing together on some matter of business, and in the middle of a sentence a fine woman happens to pass by, and they will suddenly stop, gazing after her; or a fine equipage or any other object is enough to turn the current of their thoughts. And then we are obliged to recollect ourselves, saying, "Where was I?" "What was it that I was observing?"--a thing which never occurs to a blind man. The philosopher Democritus very properly on this account knocked his eyes out in order to catch objects in a juster light with his mind's eye.

It is impossible to describe Juccio's vexation on going to church and finding the florins were gone. His regret was far greater than if he had actually lost a hundred of his own; as is known to be the case with all inveterate rogues, half of whose pleasure consists in depriving others of their lawful property.

There are many analogous stories, one of which is the well-known tale of the merchant who, before going on a journey, deposited with a dervish 1,000 sequins, which he thought it prudent to reserve in case of accidents. When he returned and requested his deposit, the dervish flatly denied that he ever had any of his money. Upon this the merchant went and laid his case before the kazi, who advised him to return to the dervish and speak pleasantly to him, which he does, but receives nothing but abuse. He informed the kazi of this, and was told not to go near the dervish for the present, but to be at ease for he should have his money next day. The kazi then sent for the dervish, and after entertaining him sumptuously, told him that, for certain reasons, he was desirous of removing a considerable sum of money from his house; that he knew of no person in whom he could confide so much as himself; and that if he would come the following evening at a late hour, he should have the precious deposit. On hearing this, the dervish expressed his gratification that so much confidence should be placed in his integrity, and agreed to take charge of the treasure. Next day the merchant returned to the kazi, who bade him go back to the dervish and demand his money once more, and should he refuse, threaten to complain to the kazi. The result may be readily guessed: no sooner did the merchant mention the kazi than the rascally dervish said, "My good friend, what need is there to complain to the kazi? Here is your money; it was only a little joke on my part." But in the evening, when he went to receive the kazi's pretended deposit, he experienced the truth of the saw, that "covetousness sews up the eyes of cunning."

A variant of this is found in the continental "Gesta Romanorum" (ch. cxviii. of Swan's translation), in which a knight deposits ten talents with a respectable old man, who when called upon to refund the money denies all knowledge of it. By the advice of an old woman the knight has ten chests made, and employs a person to take them to the old man and represent them as containing treasure; and while one of them is being carried into his house the knight enters and in the stranger's presence demands his money, which is at once delivered to him.