Chapter VI: Part II (2)

[Footnote 15: See _Sanskrit Grammar_, § 497. I doubt whether in
Greek ἀγγελλω is a denominative verb and stands for ἀγγελ(ο)ϳω
(Curtius, _Chronologie_, p. 58). I should prefer to explain it as
ἀνα-γαρ-ίω, to proclaim, as a verb of the fourth class.]

[Footnote 16: Lex Repetund. “ceivis romanus ex hac lege fiet,
nepotesque -- ceiveis romanei justei sunto.” Cf. Egger, _Lat,
Serm. Vetust. Reliq._, p. 245. Meunier, in _Mémoires de la Societé
de Linguistique de Paris_, vol. i. p. 34.]

[Footnote 17: Still used as long by Plautus; of. Neue,
_Formenlehre_, ii. p. 340.]

[Footnote 18: In old Latin the termination of the first person
singular was _em_. Thus Quintilian, i. 7, 23, says: “Quid? non
Cato Censorius _dicam_ et _faciam_, _dicem_ et _faciem_ scripsit,
eundemque in ceteris, quæ similiter cadunt, modum tenuit? quod et
ex veteribus ejus libris manifestum est, et a Messala in libro de
s. littera positum.” Neue, _Formenlehre_, ii. p. 348. The
introduction of _feram_, originally a subjunctive, to express the
future in the first person, reminds us of the distinction in
English between _I shall_ and _thou wilt_, though the analogy
fails in the first person plural. In Homer the use of the
subjunctive for the future is well known. See Curtius,
_Chronologie_, p. 50.]

[Footnote 19: Historically the _i_ in _tuleritis_ should be long
in the subjunctive of the perfect, short in the future.]

[Footnote 20: Bleek, _On the Concord_, p. lxvi.]

[Footnote 21: In δώ-σω, for δωσίω, the _i_ or _y_ is lost in Greek
as usual. In other verbs _s_ and _y_ are both lost. Hence τενεσίω
becomes τενέσω, and τενῶ the so-called Attic future. Bopp,
_Vergleich-Grammatik_, first ed., p. 903. In Latin we have traces
of a similar future in forms like _fac-so_, _cap-so_, etc. See
Neue, _Formenlehre_, ii. p. 421. The Epic dialect sometimes
doubles the σ when the vowel is short, αἰδέσσομαι. But this can
hardly be considered a relic of the original σι, because the same
reduplication takes places sometimes in the Aorist, ἐγέλασσα.]

[Footnote 22: See Bopp, _Vergleichende Grammatik_, §§ 897, 898.
These verbal adjectives should be carefully distinguished from
nominal adjectives, such as Sanskrit +div-yá-s+, divinus,
originally +div-i-a-s+, _i.e._, divi-bhavas, being in heaven;
ὀίκεῖος, domesticus, originally οἴκει-ο-ς, being in the house.
These are adjectives formed, it would seem, from old locatives,
just as in Bask we can form from _etche_, house, _etche-tic_, of
the house, and _etche-tic-acoa_, he who is of the house; or from
_seme_, son, _semea-ren_, of the son, and _semea-ren-a_, he who is
of the son. See W. J. van Eys, _Essai de Grammaire de la Langue
Basque_, 1867, p. 16.]

[Footnote 23: Bopp, _Vergleichende Grammatik_, §§ 888-898.]

[Footnote 24: Bacon, _Novum Organum_, i. 55.]

[Footnote 25: Until a rational account of these changes,
comprehended under the name of _Lautverschiebung_, is given, we
must continue to look upon them, not as the result of phonetic
decay, but of dialectic growth. I am glad to find that this is
more and more admitted by those who think for themselves, instead
of simply repeating the opinions of others. Grimm’s Law stands no
longer alone, as peculiar to the Teutonic languages, but analogous
changes have been pointed out in the South-African, the Chinese,
the Polynesian dialects, showing that these changes are everywhere
collateral, not successive. I agree with Professor Curtius and
other scholars that the impulse to what we call _Lautverschiebung_
was given by the third modification in each series of consonants,
by the _gh_, _dh_, _bh_ in Sanskrit, the χ, θ, φ, in Greek.
I differ from him in considering the changes of _Lautverschiebung_
as the result of dialectic variety, while he sees their motive
power in phonetic corruption. But whether we take the one view or
the other, I do not see that Dr. Scherer has removed any of our
difficulties. See Curtius, _Grundzüge_, 4th ed., p. 426, note. Dr.
Scherer, in his thoughtful work, _Zur Geschichte der Deutschen
Sprache_, has very nearly, though not quite, apprehended the
meaning of my explanation as to the effects of dialectic change
contrasted with those of phonetic decay. If it is allowable to use
a more homely illustration, one might say with perfect truth, that
each dialect chooses its own phonetic garment, as people choose
the coats and trousers which best fit them. The simile, like all
similes, is imperfect, yet it is far more exact than if we compare
the ravages of phonetic decay, as is frequently done, to the wear
and tear of these phonetic suits.]

[Footnote 26: Edkins, _Grammar_, p. 84.]

[Footnote 27: Having stated this on the authority of Mr. Edkins,
one of our best living Chinese scholars, it is but fair that I
should give the opinion of another Chinese scholar, the late
Stanislas Julien, whose competence to give an opinion on this
subject Mr. Edkins would probably be the first to acknowledge. All
that we really want is the truth, not a momentary triumph of our
own opinions. M. Julien wrote to me in July, 1868:--

“Je ne suis pas du tout de l’avis d’Edkins qui dit qu’un grand
nombre de mots mongols sont chinois; c’est faux, archifaux.

_Sain_ est mandchou et veut dire bon, en chinois _chen_.
_begen_, low: en chinois _hia_.
_itchi_, droit; en chinois _yeou_.
_sologaï_, left, gauche; en chinois _tso_.
_c’hihe_, straight; en chinois _tchi_ (rectus).
_gadan_, outside; en chinois _waï_.
_logon_, green; en chinois _tsing_.
_c’hohon_, few; en chinois _chao_.
_hungun_, light (not heavy); en chinois _king_.

“Je voudrais bien savoir comment M. Edkins prouve que les mots
qu’il cite sont chinois.

“Foucaux a échoué également en voulant prouver, autrefois, que
200 mots thibétains qu’il avait choisis ressemblaïent aux mots
chinois correspondants.”

M. Stanislas Julien wrote again to me on the 21st of July:--

“J’ai peur que vous ne soyez fâché du jugemont sevère que j’ai
porté sur les identifications faites par Edkins du mongol avec
le chinois. J’ai d’abord pris dans votre savant article les mots
mongols qu’il cite et je vous ai montré qu’ils ne ressemblent pas
le moins du monde au chinois.

“Je vais vous en citer d’autres tirés du Dictionnaire de
Khienlung chinois mandchou-mongol.

Mongol Chinois
_tegri_, ciel _thien._
_naran_, soleil _ji._
_naram barimoni_, } _ji-chi._
éclipse de soleil }
_saran_, lune _youeï._
_oudoun_, étoile _sing._
_egoulé_, nuages, _yun._
_ayounga_, le tonnerre _louï._
_tchagilgan_, éclair _tien._
_borogan_, la pluie _yu._
_sigouderi_, la rosée _lou._
_kirago_, la gelée _choang_.
_lapsa_, la neige _ sioue._
_salgin_, le vent _fong._
_ousoun_, l’eau _chouï._
_gal_, le feu _ho._
_siroi_, la terre _thou._
_aisin_, l’or _altan._

“Je vous donnerai, si vous le désirez, 1000 mots mongols avec
leurs synonymes chinois, et je défie M. Edkins de trouver dans les
1000 mots mongols un seul qui ressemble au mot chinois synonyme.

“Comme j’ai fait assez de thibétain, je puis vous fournir aussi
une multitude de mots thibétains avec leurs correspondants en
chinois, et je défierai également M. Edkins de trouver un seul mot
thibétain dans mille qui ressemble au mot chinois qui a le même
sens.”

My old friend, M. Stanislas Julien, wrote to me once more on this
subject, the 6th of August, 1868:--

“Depuis une quinzaine d’anneés, j’ai l’avantage d’entretenir les
meilleures relations avec M. Edkins. J’ai lu, anciennement dans un
journal que publie M. Léon de Rosny (actuellement professeur
titulaire de la langue Japanaise) le travail où M. Edkins a tâché
de rapprocher et d’identifier, par les sons, des mots mongols et
chinois ayant la même signification. Son systême m’a paru mal
fondé. Quelques mots chinois peuvent être entrés dans la langue
mongole par suite du contact des deux peuples, comme cela est
arrivé pour le mandchou, dont beaucoup de mots sont entrés dans la
langue mongole en en prenant les terminaisons; mais il ne faudrait
pas se servir de ces exemples pour montrer l’identité ou les
ressemblances des deux langues.

“Quand les mandchous ont voulu traduire les livres chinois, ils
ont rencontré un grand nombre de mots dont les synonymes
n’existaient pas dans leur langue. Ils se sont alors emparé des
mots chinois en leur donnant des terminaisons mandchoues, mais
cette quasi-ressemblance de certains mots mandchous ne prouve
point le moins du monde l’identité des deux langues. Par exemple,
un préfet se dit en chinois _tchi-fou_, et un sous-préfet
_tchi-hien_; les mandchous qui ne possédaient point ces
fonctionaires se sont contentés de transcire les sons chinois
_dchhifou_, _dchhikhiyan_.

“Le tafetas se dit en chinois _tcheou-tse_; les mandchous, n’ayant
point de mots pour dire tafetas, ont transcrit les sons chinois
par _tchousé_. Le bambou se dit _tchou-tze_; ils ont écrit l’arbre
(moo) _tchousé_. Un titre de noblesse écrit sur du papier doré
s’appelle _tsĕ_; les mandchous écrivent _tche_. Je pourrais vous
citer un nombre considérable de mots du même genre, qui ne
prouvent pas du tout l’identité du mandchou et du chinois.

“L’ambre s’appelle _hou-pe_; les mandchous écrivent _khôba_. La
barbe s’appelle _hou-tse_, ils écrivent _khôsé_.

“Voici de quelle manière les mandchous ont fait certains verbes.
Une balance s’appelle en chinois _thien ping_, ils écrivent
_p’ing-sé_; puis pour dire peser avec une balance, ils ont fait le
verbe _p’ingselembi_; _lembi_ est une terminaison commune à
beaucoup de verbes.

“Pour dire faire peser, ordonner de peser avec une balance, ils
écrivent _p’ingseleboumbi_; _boumbi_ est la forme factive ou
causative; cette terminaison sert aussi pour le passif; de sorte
que ce verbe peut signifier aussi _être pesé avec une balance_.

“Je pourrais citer aussi des mots mandchous auxquels on a donné la
terminaison mongole, et _vice versâ_.”

These remarks, made by one who, during his lifetime, was
recognised by friend and foe as the first Chinese scholar in
Europe, ought to have their proper weight. They ought certainly to
make us cautious before persuading ourselves that the connection
between the northern and southern branches of the Turanian
languages has been found in Chinese. On the other hand I am quite
aware that all that M. Stanislas Julien says against Mr. Edkins
may be true, and that nevertheless Chinese may have been the
central language from which Mongolian in the north and Tibetan in
the south branched off. A language, such as Chinese, with a small
number of sounds and an immense number of meanings, can easily
give birth to dialects which, in their later development, might
branch off in totally different directions. Even with languages so
closely connected as Sanskrit and Latin, it would be easy to make
out a list of a thousand words in Latin which could not be matched
in Sanskrit. The question, therefore, is not decided. What is
wanted are researches carried on by competent scholars, in an
unprejudiced and at the same time thoroughly scientific spirit.]

[Footnote 28: If Mr. Chalmers’ comparison of the Chinese and
Bohemian names for daughter is so unpardonable, what shall we say
of Bopp’s comparison of the Bengali and Sanskrit names for sister?
Sister in Bengali is +bohinî+, the Hindi +bahin+ and +bhân+, the
Prakrit +bahiṇî+, the Sanskrit +bhaginî+. Bopp, in the most
elaborate way, derives +bohinî+ from the Sanskrit +svasṛ+, sister.
Bopp, _Vergleichende Grammatik_, Vorrede zur vierten Abtheilung,
p. x.]

[Footnote 29: Curtius, _Verbum_, p. 72.]

[Footnote 30: Pott, E. F., 1871, p. 21.]

[Footnote 31: Dr. Callaway, in his _Remarks on the Zulu Language_
(1870), p. 2, says: “The Zulu Language contains upwards of 20,000
words in _bonâ fide_ use among the people. Those curious
appellations for different colored cattle, or for different maize
cobs, to express certain minute peculiarities of color or
arrangement of color, which it is difficult for us to grasp, are
not synonymous, but instances in which a new noun or name is used
instead of adding adjectives to one name to express the various
conditions of an object. Neither are these various verbs used to
express varieties of the same action, synonyms, such as _ukupata_,
to carry in the hand, _ukwetshata_, to carry on the shoulder,
_ukubeleta_, to carry on the back.”]

[Footnote 32: Bruppacher, _Lantlere der Oskischen Sprache_, p. 48.
Büchler, _Grundriss der Lateinischen Declination_, p. 1.]

[Footnote 33: “Die Entstehung der Casus ist noch das
allerdunkelste im weiten Bereich des indogermanischen
Formensystems.” Curtius, _Chronologie_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 34: Corssen, ii. 888.]

[Footnote 35: Cf. Clemm, _Die neusten Forschungen auf dem Gebiet
der Griechischen Composita_, p. 9.]

III.

ON THE MIGRATION OF FABLES.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, ON FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1870.

“Count not your chickens before they be hatched,” is a well-known proverb in English, and most people, if asked what was its origin, would probably appeal to La Fontaine’s delightful fable, _La Laitière et le Pot au Lait_.[1] We all know Perrette, lightly stepping along from her village to the town, carrying the milk-pail on her head, and in her day-dreams selling her milk for a good sum, then buying a hundred eggs, then selling the chickens, then buying a pig, fattening it, selling it again, and buying a cow with a calf. The calf frolics about, and kicks up his legs--so does Perrette, and, alas! the pail falls down, the milk is spilt, her riches gone, and she only hopes when she comes home that she may escape a flogging from her husband.

Did La Fontaine invent this fable? or did he merely follow the example of Sokrates, who, as we know from the Phædon,[2] occupied himself in prison, during the last days of his life, with turning into verse some of the fables, or, as he calls them, the myths of Æsop.

La Fontaine published the first six books of his fables in 1668,[3] and it is well known that the subjects of most of these early fables were taken from Æsop, Phædrus, Horace, and other classical fabulists, if we may adopt this word “fabuliste,” which La Fontaine was the first to introduce into French.

In 1678 a second edition of these six books was published, enriched by five books of new fables, and in 1694 a new edition appeared, containing one additional book, thus completing the collection of his charming poems.

The fable of Perrette stands in the seventh book, and was published, therefore, for the first time in the edition of 1678. In the preface to that edition La Fontaine says: “It is not necessary that I should say whence I have taken the subjects of these new fables. I shall only say, from a sense of gratitude, that I owe the largest portion of them to Pilpay the Indian sage.”

If, then, La Fontaine tells us himself that he borrowed the subjects of most of his new fables from Pilpay, the Indian sage, we have clearly a right to look to India in order to see whether, in the ancient literature of that country, any traces can be discovered of Perrette with the milk-pail.

Sanskrit literature is very rich in fables and stories; no other literature can vie with it in that respect; nay, it is extremely likely that fables, in particular animal fables, had their principal source in India. In the sacred literature of the Buddhists, fables held a most prominent place. The Buddhist preachers, addressing themselves chiefly to the people, to the untaught, the uncared for, the outcast, spoke to them, as we still speak to children, in fables, in proverbs and parables. Many of these fables and parables must have existed before the rise of the Buddhist religion; others, no doubt, were added on the spur of the moment, just as Sokrates would invent a myth or fable whenever that form of argument seemed to him most likely to impress and convince his hearers. But Buddhism gave a new and permanent sanction to this whole branch of moral mythology, and in the sacred canon, as it was settled in the third century before Christ, many a fable received, and holds to the present day, its recognized place. After the fall of Buddhism in India, and even during its decline, the Brahmans claimed the inheritance of their enemies, and used their popular fables for educational purposes. The best known of these collections of fables in Sanskrit is the Pañcatantra, literally the Pentateuch, or Pentamerone. From it and from other sources another collection was made, well known to all Sanskrit scholars by the name of Hitopadesa, _i.e._, Salutary Advice. Both these books have been published in England and Germany, and there are translations of them in English, German, French, and other languages.[4]

The first question which we have to answer refers to the date of these collections, and dates in the history of Sanskrit literature are always difficult points. Fortunately, as we shall see, we can in this case fix the date of the Pañcatantra at least, by means of a translation into ancient Persian, which was made about 550 years after Christ, though even then we can only prove that a collection somewhat like the Pañkatantra must have existed at that time; but we cannot refer the book, in exactly that form in which we now possess it, to that distant period.

If we look for La Fontaine’s fable in the Sanskrit stories of the Pañcatantra, we do not find, indeed, the milkmaid counting her chickens before they are hatched, but we meet with the following story:--

“There lived in a certain place a Brâhman, whose name was
Svabhâvakṛpaṇa, which means ‘a born miser.’ He had collected a
quantity of rice by begging (this reminds us somewhat of the
Buddhist mendicants), and after having dined off it, he filled a pot
with what was left over. He hung the pot on a peg on the wall,
placed his couch beneath, and looking intently at it all the night,
he thought, ‘Ah, that pot is indeed brimful of rice. Now, if there
should be a famine, I should certainly make a hundred rupees by it.
With this I shall buy a couple of goats. They will have young ones
every six months, and thus I shall have a whole herd of goats. Then,
with the goats, I shall buy cows. As soon as they have calved,
I shall sell the calves. Then, with the cows, I shall buy buffaloes;
with the buffaloes, mares. When the mares have foaled, I shall have
plenty of horses; and when I sell them, plenty of gold. With that
gold I shall get a house with four wings. And then a Brâhman will
come to my house, and will give me his beautiful daughter, with a
large dowry. She will have a son, and I shall call him Somaśarman.
When he is old enough to be danced on his father’s knee, I shall sit
with a book at the back of the stable, and while I am reading the
boy will see me, jump from his mother’s lap, and run towards me to
be danced on my knee. He will come too near the horse’s hoof, and,
full of anger, I shall call to my wife, “Take the baby; take him!”
But she, distracted by some domestic work does not hear me. Then I
get up, and give her such a kick with my foot.’ While he thought
this, he gave a kick with his foot, and broke the pot. All the rice
fell over him, and made him quite white. Therefore, I say, ‘He who
makes foolish plans for the future will be white all over, like the
father of Somaśarman.’”[5]

I shall at once proceed to read you the same story, though slightly modified, from the Hitopadeśa.[6] The Hitopadeśa professes to be taken from the Pañcatantra and some other books; and in this case it would seem as if some other authority had been followed. You will see, at all events, how much freedom there was in telling the old story of the man who built castles in the air.

“In the town of Devîkoṭṭa there lived a Brâhman of the name of
Devaśarman. At the feast of the great equinox he received a plate
full of rice. He took it, went into a potter’s shop, which was full
of crockery, and, overcome by the heat, he lay down in a corner and
began to doze. In order to protect his plate of rice, he kept a
stick in his hand, and began to think, ‘Now, if I sell this plate of
rice, I shall receive ten cowries (kapardaka). I shall then, on the
spot, buy pots and plates, and after having increased my capital
again and again, I shall buy and sell betel nuts and dresses till I
become enormously rich. Then I shall marry four wives, and the
youngest and prettiest of the four I shall make a great pet of. Then
the other wives will be so angry, and begin to quarrel. But I shall
be in a great rage, and take a stick, and give them a good
flogging.’ . . . . While he said this, he flung his stick away; the
plate of rice was smashed to pieces, and many of the pots in the
shop were broken. The potter, hearing the noise, ran into the shop,
and when he saw his pots broken, he gave the Brâhman a good
scolding, and drove him out of his shop. Therefore I say, ‘He who
rejoices over plans for the future will come to grief, like the
Brâhman who broke the pots.’”

In spite of the change of a Brahman into a milkmaid, no one, I suppose, will doubt that we have here in the stories of the Pañcatantra and Hitopadeśa the first germs of La Fontaine’s fable.[7] But how did that fable travel all the way from India to France? How did it doff its Sanskrit garment and don the light dress of modern French? How was the stupid Brahman born again as the brisk milkmaid, “_cotillon simple et souliers plats_?”

It seems a startling case of longevity that while languages have changed, while works of art have perished, while empires have risen and vanished again, this simple children’s story should have lived on, and maintained its place of honor and its undisputed sway in every school-room of the East and every nursery of the West. And yet it is a case of longevity so well attested that even the most skeptical would hardly venture to question it. We have the passport of these stories _viséed_ at every place through which they have passed, and, as far as I can judge, _parfaitement en règle_. The story of the migration of these Indian fables from East to West is indeed wonderful; more wonderful and more instructive than many of these fables themselves. Will it be believed that we, in this Christian country and in the nineteenth century, teach our children the first, the most important lessons of worldly wisdom, nay, of a more than worldly wisdom, from books borrowed from Buddhists and Brahmans, from heretics and idolaters, and that wise words, spoken a thousand, nay, two thousand years ago, in a lonely village of India, like precious seed scattered broadcast all over the world, still bear fruit a hundred and a thousand-fold in that soil which is the most precious before God and man, the soul of a child? No lawgiver, no philosopher, has made his influence felt so widely, so deeply, and so permanently as the author of these children’s fables. But who was he? We do not know. His name, like the name of many a benefactor of the human race, is forgotten. We only know he was an Indian--a nigger, as some people would call him--and that he lived at least two thousand years ago.

No doubt, when we first hear of the Indian origin of these fables, and of their migration from India to Europe, we wonder whether it can be so; but the fact is, that the story of this Indo-European migration is not, like the migration of the Indo-European languages, myths, and legends, a matter of theory, but of history, and that it was never quite forgotten either in the East or in the West. Each translator, as he handed on his treasure, seems to have been anxious to show how he came by it.

Several writers who have treated of the origin and spreading of Indo-European stories and fables, have mixed up two or three questions which ought to be treated each on its own merits.

The first question is whether the Aryans, when they broke up their pro-ethnic community, carried away with them, not only their common grammar and dictionary, but likewise some myths and legends which we find that Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, Slaves, when they emerge into the light of history, share in common? That certain deities occur in India, Greece, and Germany, having the same names and the same character, is a fact that can no longer be denied. That certain heroes, too, known to Indians, Greeks, and Romans, point to one and the same origin, both by their name and by their history, is a fact by this time admitted by all whose admission is of real value. As heroes are in most cases gods in disguise, there is nothing very startling in the fact that nations, who had worshipped the same gods, should also have preserved some common legends of demi-gods or heroes, nay, even in a later phase of thought, of fairies and ghosts. The case, however, becomes much more problematical when we ask, whether stories also, fables told with a decided moral purpose, formed part of that earliest Aryan inheritance? This is still doubted by many who have no doubts whatever as to common Aryan myths and legends, and even those who, like myself, have tried to establish by tentative arguments the existence of common Aryan fables, dating from before the Aryan separation, have done so only by showing a possible connection between ancient popular saws and mythological ideas, capable of a moral application. To any one, for instance, who knows how in the poetical mythology of the Aryan tribes, the golden splendor of the rising sun leads to conceptions of the wealth of the Dawn in gold and jewels and her readiness to shower them upon her worshippers, the modern German proverb, _Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde_, seems to have a kind of mythological ring, and the stories of benign fairies, changing everything into gold, sound likewise like an echo from the long-forgotten forest of our common Aryan home. If we know how the trick of dragging stolen cattle backwards into their place of hiding, so that their footprints might not lead to the discovery of the thief, appears again and again in the mythology of different Aryan nations, then the pointing of the same trick as a kind of proverb, intended to convey a moral lesson, and illustrated by fables of the same or a very similar character in India and Greece, makes one feel inclined to suspect that here too the roots of these fables may reach to a pro-ethnic period. _Vestigia nulla retrorsum_ is clearly an ancient proverb, dating from a nomadic period, and when we see how Plato (“Alcibiades,” i. 123) was perfectly familiar with the Æsopian myth or fable,--κατὰ τὸν Αἰσώπου μῦθον, he says--of the fox declining to enter the lion’s cave, because all footsteps went into it and none came out, and how the Sanskrit Pañcatantra (III. 14) tells of a jackal hesitating to enter his own cave, because he sees the footsteps of a lion going in, but not coming out, we feel strongly inclined to admit a common origin for both fables. Here, however, the idea that the Greeks, like La Fontaine, had borrowed their fable from the Pañcatantra would be simply absurd, and it would be much more rational, if the process must be one of borrowing, to admit, as Benfey (“Pantschatantra,” i. 381) does, that the Hindus, after Alexander’s discovery of India, borrowed this story from the Greeks. But if we consider that each of the two fables has its own peculiar tendency, the one deriving its lesson from the absence of backward footprints of the victims, the other from the absence of backward footprints of the lion himself, the admission of a common Aryan proverb such as “_vestigia nulla retrorsum_” would far better explain the facts such as we find them. I am not ignorant of the difficulties of this explanation, and I would myself point to the fact that among the Hottentots, too, Dr. Bleek has found a fable of the jackal declining to visit the sick lion, “because the traces of the animals who went to see him did not turn back.”[8] Without, however, pronouncing any decided opinion on this vexed question, what I wish to place clearly before you is this, that the spreading of Aryan myths, legends, and fables, dating from a pro-ethnic period, has nothing whatever to do with the spreading of fables taking place in strictly historical times from India to Arabia, to Greece and the rest of Europe, not by means of oral tradition, but through more or less faithful translations of literary works. Those who like may doubt whether _Zeus_ was +Dyaus+, whether _Daphne_ was +Ahanâ+, whether _La Belle au Bois_ was the mother of two children, called _L’Aurore_ and _Le Jour_,[9] but the fact that a collection of fables was, in the sixth century of our era, brought from India to Persia, and by means of various translations naturalized among Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, and all the rest, admits of no doubt or cavil. Several thousand years have passed between those two migrations, and to mix them up together, to suppose that Comparative Mythology has anything to do with the migration of such fables as that of Perrette, would be an anachronism of a portentous character.

There is a third question, viz., whether besides the two channels just mentioned, there were others through which Eastern fables could have reached Europe, or Æsopian and other European fables have been transferred to the East. There are such channels, no doubt. Persian and Arab stories, of Indian origin, were through the crusaders brought back to Constantinople, Italy, and France; Buddhist fables were through Mongolian[10] conquerors (13th century) carried to Russia and the eastern parts of Europe. Greek stories may have reached Persia and India at the time of Alexander’s conquests and during the reigns of the Diadochi, and even Christian legends may have found their way to the East through missionaries, travellers, or slaves.

Lastly, there comes the question, how far our common human nature is sufficient to account for coincidences in beliefs, customs, proverbs, and fables, which, at first sight, seem to require an historical explanation. I shall mention but one instance. Professor Wilson (“Essays on Sanskrit Literature,” i. p. 201) pointed out that the story of the Trojan horse occurs in a Hindu tale, only that instead of the horse we have an elephant. But he rightly remarked that the coincidence was accidental. In the one case, after a siege of nine years, the principal heroes of the Greek army are concealed in a wooden horse, dragged into Troy by a stratagem, and the story ends by their falling upon the Trojans and conquering the city of Priam. In the other story a king bent on securing a son-in-law, had an elephant constructed by able artists, and filled with armed men. The elephant was placed in a forest, and when the young prince came to hunt, the armed men sprang out, overpowered the prince and brought him to the king, whose daughter he was to marry. However striking the similarity may seem to one unaccustomed to deal with ancient legends, I doubt whether any comparative mythologist has postulated a common Aryan origin for these two stories. They feel that, as far as the mere construction of a wooden animal is concerned, all that was necessary to explain the origin of the idea in one place was present also in the other, and that while the Trojan horse forms an essential part of a mythological cycle, there is nothing truly mythological or legendary in the Indian story. The idea of a hunter disguising himself in the skin of an animal, or even of one animal assuming the disguise of another,[11] are familiar in every part of the world, and if that is so, then the step from hiding under the skin of a large animal to that of hiding in a wooden animal is not very great.

Every one of these questions, as I said before, must be treated on its own merits, and while the traces of the first migration of Aryan fables can be rediscovered only by the most minute and complex inductive processes, the documents of the latter are to be found in the library of every intelligent collector of books. Thus, to return to Perrette and the fables of Pilpay, Huet, the learned bishop of Avranches, the friend of La Fontaine, had only to examine the prefaces of the principal translations of the Indian fables in order to track their wanderings, as he did in his famous “Traite de l’Origine des Romans,” published at Paris in 1670, two years after the appearance of the first collection of La Fontaine’s fables. Since his time the evidence has become more plentiful, and the whole subject has been more fully and more profoundly treated by Sylvestre de Sacy,[12] Loiseleur Deslongchamps,[13] and Professor Benfey.[14] But though we have a more accurate knowledge of the stations by which the Eastern fables reached their last home in the West, Bishop Huet knew as well as we do that they came originally from India through Persia by way of Bagdad and Constantinople.

In order to gain a commanding view of the countries traversed by these fables, let us take our position at Bagdad in the middle of the eighth century, and watch from that central point the movements of our literary caravan in its progress from the far East to the far West. In the middle of the eighth century, during the reign of the great Khalif Almansur, Abdallah ibn Almokaffa wrote his famous collection of fables, the “Kalila and Dimnah,” which we still possess. The Arabic text of these fables has been published by Sylvestre de Sacy, and there is an English translation of it by Mr. Knatchbull, formerly Professor of Arabic at Oxford. Abdallah ibn Almokaffa was a Persian by birth, who after the fall of the Omeyyades became a convert to Mohammedanism, and rose to high office at the court of the Khalifs. Being in possession of important secrets of state, he became dangerous in the eyes of the Khalif Almansur, and was foully murdered.[15] In the preface, Abdallah ibn Almokaffa tells us that he translated these fables from Pehlevi, the ancient language of Persia; and that they had been translated into Pehlevi (about two hundred years before his time) by Barzûyeh, the physician of Khosru Nushirvan, the King of Persia, the contemporary of the Emperor Justinian. The King of Persia had heard that there existed in India a book full of wisdom, and he had commanded his Vezier, Buzurjmihr, to find a man acquainted with the languages both of Persia and India. The man chosen was Barzûyeh. He travelled to India, got possession of the book, translated it into Persian, and brought it back to the court of Khosru. Declining all rewards beyond a dress of honor, he only stipulated that an account of his own life and opinions should be added to the book. This account, probably written by himself, is extremely curious. It is a kind of _Religio Medici_ of the sixth century, and shows us a soul dissatisfied with traditions and formularies, striving after truth, and finding rest only where many other seekers after truth have found rest before and after him, in a life devoted to alleviating the sufferings of mankind.

There is another account of the journey of this Persian physician to India. It has the sanction of Firdúsi, in the great Persian epic, the Shah Nâmeh, and it is considered by some[16] as more original than the one just quoted. According to it, the Persian physician read in a book that there existed in India trees or herbs supplying a medicine with which the dead could be restored to life. At the command of the king he went to India in search of those trees and herbs; but, after spending a year in vain researches, he consulted some wise people on the subject. They told him that the medicine of which he had read as having the power of restoring men to life had to be understood in a higher and more spiritual sense, and that what was really meant by it were ancient books of wisdom preserved in India, which imparted life to those who were dead in their folly and sins.[17] Thereupon the physician translated these books, and one of them was the collection of fables, the “Kalila and Dimnah.”

It is possible that both these stories were later inventions; the preface also by Ali, the son of Alshah Farési, in which the names of Bidpai and King Dabshelim are mentioned for the first time, is of later date. But the fact remains that Abdallah ibn Almokaffa, the author of the oldest Arabic collection of our fables, translated them from Pehlevi, the language of Persia at the time of Khosru Nushirvan, and that the Pehlevi text which he translated was believed to be a translation of a book brought from India in the middle of the sixth century. That Indian book could not have been the Pañcatantra, as we now possess it, but must have been a much larger collection of fables, for the Arabic translation, the “Kalilah and Dimnah,” contains eighteen chapters instead of the five of the Pañcatantra, and it is only in the fifth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth chapters that we find the same stories which form the five books of the Pañkatantra in the _textus ornatior_. Even in these chapters the Arabic translator omits stories which we find in the Sanskrit text, and adds others which are not to be found there.

In this Arabic translation the story of the Brahman and the pot of rice runs as follows:--

“A religious man was in the habit of receiving every day from the
house of a merchant a certain quantity of butter (oil) and honey, of
which, having eaten as much as he wanted, he put the rest into a
jar, which he hung on a nail in a corner of the room, hoping that
the jar would in time be filled. Now, as he was leaning back one day
on his couch, with a stick in his hand, and the jar suspended over
his head, he thought of the high price of butter and honey, and said
to himself, ‘I will sell what is in the jar, and buy with the money
which I obtain for it ten goats, which, producing each of them a
young one every five months, in addition to the produce of the kids
as soon as they begin to bear, it will not be long before there is a
large flock.’ He continued to make his calculations, and found that
he should at this rate, in the course of two years, have more than
four hundred goats. ‘At the expiration of this term I will buy,’
said he, ‘a hundred black cattle, in the proportion of a bull or a
cow for every four goats. I will then purchase land, and hire
workmen to plough it with the beasts, and put it into tillage, so
that before five years are over I shall, no doubt, have realized a
great fortune by the sale of the milk which the cows will give, and
of the produce of my land. My next business will be to build a
magnificent house, and engage a number of servants, both male and
female; and, when my establishment is completed, I will marry the
handsomest woman I can find, who, in due time becoming a mother,
will present me with an heir to my possessions, who, as he advances
in age, shall receive the best masters that can be procured; and, if
the progress which he makes in learning is equal to my reasonable
expectations, I shall be amply repaid for the pains and expense
which I have bestowed upon him; but if, on the other hand, he
disappoints my hopes, the rod which I have here shall be the
instrument with which I will make him feel the displeasure of a
justly-offended parent.’ At these words he suddenly raised the hand
which held the stick towards the jar, and broke it, and the contents
ran down upon his head and face.”[18] . . . .

You will have observed the coincidences between the Arabic and the Sanskrit versions, but also a considerable divergence, particularly in the winding up of the story. The Brahman and the holy man both build their castles in the air; but, while the former kicks his wife, the latter only chastises his son. How this change came to pass we cannot tell. One might suppose that, at the time when the book was translated from Sanskrit into Pehlevi, or from Pehlevi into Arabic, the Sanskrit story was exactly like the Arabic story, and that it was changed afterwards. But another explanation is equally admissible, viz., that the Pehlevi or the Arabic translator wished to avoid the offensive behavior of the husband kicking his wife, and therefore substituted the son as a more deserving object of castigation.

We have thus traced our story from Sanskrit to Pehlevi, and from Pehlevi to Arabic; we have followed it in its migrations from the hermitages of Indian sages to the court of the kings of Persia, and from thence to the residence of the powerful Khalifs at Bagdad. Let us recollect that the Khalif Almansur, for whom the Arabic translation was made, was the contemporary of Abderrhaman, who ruled in Spain, and that both were but little anterior to Harun al Rashid and Charlemagne. At that time, therefore, the way was perfectly open for these Eastern fables, after they had once reached Bagdad, to penetrate into the seats of Western learning, and to spread to every part of the new empire of Charlemagne. They may have done so, for all we know; but nearly three hundred years pass before these fables meet us again in the literature of Europe. The Carlovingian empire had fallen to pieces, Spain had been rescued from the Mohammedans, William the Conqueror had landed in England, and the Crusades had begun to turn the thoughts of Europe towards the East, when, about the year 1080, we hear of a Jew of the name of Symeon, the son of Seth, who translated these fables from Arabic into Greek. He states in his preface that the book came originally from India, that it was brought to the King Chosroes of Persia, and then translated into Arabic. His own translation into Greek must have been made from an Arabic MS. of the “Kalila and Dimna,” in some places more perfect, in others less perfect, than the one published by De Sacy. The Greek text has been published, though very imperfectly, under the title of “Stephanites and Ichnelates.”[19] Here our fable is told as follows (p. 337):--

“It is said that a beggar kept some honey and butter in a jar close
to where he slept. One night he thus thought within himself:
‘I shall sell this honey and butter for however small a sum; with it
I shall buy ten goats, and these in five months will produce as many
again. In five years they will become four hundred. With them I
shall buy one hundred cows, and with them I shall cultivate some
land. And what with their calves and the harvests, I shall become
rich in five years, and build a house with four wings,[20]
ornamented with gold, and buy all kinds of servants, and marry a
wife. She will give me a child, and I shall call him Beauty. It will
be a boy, and I shall educate him properly; and if I see him lazy,
I shall give him such a flogging with this stick. . . . .’ With
these words he took a stick that was near him, struck the jar, and
broke it, so that the honey and milk ran down on his beard.”

This Greek translation might, no doubt, have reached La Fontaine; but as the French poet was not a great scholar, least of all a reader of Greek MSS., and as the fables of Symeon Seth were not published till 1697, we must look for other channels through which the old fable was carried along from East to West.

There is, first of all, an Italian translation of the “Stephanites and Ichnelates,” which was published at Ferrara in 1583.[21] The title is, “Del Governo de’ Regni. Sotto morali essempi di animali ragionanti tra loro. Tratti prima di lingua Indiana in Agarena da Lelo Demno Saraceno. Et poi dall’ Agarena nella Greca da Simeone Setto, philosopho Antiocheno. Et hora tradotti di Greco in Italiano.” This translation was probably the work of Giulio Nuti.

There is, besides, a Latin translation, or rather a free rendering of the Greek translation by the learned Jesuit, Petrus Possinus, which was published at Rome in 1666.[22] This may have been, and, according to some authorities, has really been one of the sources from which La Fontaine drew his inspirations. But though La Fontaine may have consulted this work for other fables, I do not think that he took from it the fable of Perrette and the milk-pail.

The fact is, these fables had found several other channels through which, as early as the thirteenth century, they reached the literary market of Europe, and became familiar as household words, at least among the higher and educated classes. We shall follow the course of some of these channels. First, then, a learned Jew, whose name seems to have been Joel, translated our fables from Arabic into Hebrew (1250?). His work has been preserved in one MS. at Paris, but has not yet been published, except the tenth book, which was communicated by Dr. Neubauer to Benfey’s journal, “Orient und Occident” (vol. i. p. 658). This Hebrew translation was translated by another converted Jew, Johannes of Capua, into Latin. His translation was finished between 1263-1278, and, under the title of “Directorium Humanæ Vitæ,” it became very soon a popular work with the select reading public of the thirteenth century.[23] In the “Directorium,” and in Joel’s translation, the name of Sendebar is substituted for that of Bidpay. The “Directorium” was translated into German at the command of Eberhard, the great Duke of Würtemberg,[24] and both the Latin text and the German translation occur, in repeated editions, among the rare books printed between 1480 and the end of the fifteenth century.[25] A Spanish translation, founded both on the German and the Latin texts, appeared at Burgos in 1493;[26] and from these different sources flowed in the sixteenth century the Italian renderings of Firenzuola (1548)[27] and Doni (1552).[28] As these Italian translations were repeated in French[29] and English, before the end of the sixteenth century, they might no doubt have supplied La Fontaine with subjects for his fables.

But, as far as we know, it was a third channel that really brought the Indian fables to the immediate notice of the French poet. A Persian poet, of the name of Nasr Allah, translated the work of Abdallah ibn Almokaffa into Persian about 1150. This Persian translation was enlarged in the fifteenth century by another Persian poet, Husain ben Ali called el Vaez, under the title of “Anvári Suhaili.”[30] This name will be familiar to many members of the Indian Civil Service, as being one of the old Haileybury class-books which had to be construed by all who wished to gain high honors in Persia. This work, or at least the first books of it, were translated into French by David Sahid of Ispahan, and published at Paris in 1644, under the title of “Livre des Lumières, ou, la Conduite des Rois, composé par le Sage Pilpay, Indien.” This translation, we know, fell into the hands of La Fontaine, and a number of his most charming fables were certainly borrowed from it.

But Perrette with the milk-pail has not yet arrived at the end of her journey, for if we look at the “Livre des Lumières,” as published at Paris, we find neither the milkmaid nor her prototype, the Brahman who kicks his wife, or the religious man who flogs his boy. That story occurs in the later chapters, which were left out in the French translation; and La Fontaine, therefore, must have met with his model elsewhere.

Remember that in all our wanderings we have not yet found the milkmaid, but only the Brahman or the religious man. What we want to know is who first brought about this metamorphosis.

No doubt La Fontaine was quite the man to seize on any jewel which was contained in the Oriental fables, to remove the cumbersome and foreign-looking setting, and then to place the principal figure in that pretty frame in which most of us have first become acquainted with it. But in this case the charmer’s wand did not belong to La Fontaine, but to some forgotten worthy, whose very name it will be difficult to fix upon with certainty.

We have, as yet, traced three streams only, all starting from the Arabic translation of Abdallah ibn Almokaffa, one in the eleventh, another in the twelfth, a third in the thirteenth century, all reaching Europe, some touching the very steps of the throne of Louis XIV., yet none of them carrying the leaf which contained the story of “Perrette,” or of the “Brahman,” to the threshold of La Fontaine’s home. We must, therefore, try again.

After the conquest of Spain by the Mohammedans, Arabic literature had found a new home in Western Europe, and among the numerous works translated from Arabic into Latin or Spanish, we find towards the end of the thirteenth century (1289) a Spanish translation of our fables, called “Calila é Dymna.”[31] In this the name of the philosopher is changed from Bidpai to Bundobel. This, or another translation from Arabic, was turned into Latin verse by Raimond de Béziers in 1313 (not published).

Lastly, we find in the same century another translation from Arabic straight into Latin verse, by Baldo, which became known under the name of “Æsopus alter.”[32]

From these frequent translations, and translations of translations, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, we see quite clearly that these Indian fables were extremely popular, and were, in fact, more widely read in Europe than the Bible, or any other book. They were not only read in translations, but having been introduced into sermons,[33] homilies, and works on morality, they were improved upon, acclimatized, localized, moralized, till at last it is almost impossible to recognize their Oriental features under their homely disguises.

I shall give you one instance only.

Rabelais, in his “Gargantua,” gives a long description how a man might conquer the whole world. At the end of this dialogue, which was meant as a satire on Charles V., we read:--

“There was there present at that time an old gentleman well
experienced in the wars, a stern soldier, and who had been in many
great hazards, named Echephron, who, hearing this discourse, said:
‘J’ay grand peur que toute ceste entreprise sera semblable à la
farce _du pot au laict_ duquel un cordavanier se faisoit riche par
resverie, puis le pot cassé, n’eut de quoy disner.’”

This is clearly our story, only the Brahman has, as yet, been changed into a shoemaker only, and the pot of rice or the jar of butter and honey into a pitcher of milk. Now it is perfectly true that if a writer of the fifteenth century changed the Brahman into a shoemaker, La Fontaine might, with the same right, have replaced the Brahman by his milkmaid. Knowing that the story was current, was, in fact, common property in the fifteenth century, nay, even at a much earlier date, we might really be satisfied after having brought the germs of “Perrette” within easy reach of La Fontaine. But, fortunately, we can make at least one step further, a step of about two centuries. This step backwards brings us to the thirteenth century, and there we find our old Indian friend again, and this time really changed into a milkmaid. The book I refer to is written in Latin, and is called, “Dialogus Creaturarum optime moralizatus;” in English, the “Dialogue of Creatures moralized.” It was a book intended to teach the principles of Christian morality by examples taken from ancient fables. It was evidently a most successful book, and was translated into several modern languages. There is an old translation of it in English, first printed by Rastell,[34] and afterwards repeated in 1816. I shall read you from it the fable in which, as far as I can find, the milkmaid appears for the first time on the stage, surrounded already by much of that scenery which, four hundred years later, received its last touches at the hand of La Fontaine.