The Katha Sarit Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story Part 89

[166] Atavi is generally translated "forest." I believe the English word "forest" does not necessarily imply trees, but it is perhaps better to avoid it here.

[167] For the vritam of the text I read kritam. Cp. this incident with Joseph's adventure in the 6th story of the Sicilianische Marchen. He is sewn up in a horse's skin, and carried by ravens to the top of a high mountain. There he stamps and finds a wooden trap-door under his feet. In the notes Dr. Kohler refers to this pa.s.sage, Campbell No. 44, the Story of Sindbad and other parallels. Cp. also Veckenstedt's Wendische Sagen, p. 124. See also the story of Heinrich der Lowe, Simrock's Deutsche Volksbucher, Vol. I, p. 8. Dr. Kohler refers to the story of Herzog Ernst. The incident will be found in Simrock's version of the story, at page 308 of the IIIrd Volume of his Deutsche Volksbucher.

[168] Names of Vishnu, who became incarnate in the hero Krishna.

[169] See Chapter 22 sl. 181 and ff. Kasyapa's two wives disputed about the colour of the sun's horses. They agreed that whichever was in the wrong should become a slave to the other. Kadru, the mother of the snakes, won by getting her children to darken the horses. So Garuda's mother Vinata became a slave.

[170] Divine personages of the size of a thumb; sixty thousand were produced from Brahma's body and surrounded the chariot of the sun. The legend of Garuda and the Balakhilyas is found in the Mahabharata, see De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, p. 95.

[171] A yojana is probably 9 miles, some say 2-1/2, some 4 or 5. See Monier Williams s. v.

[172] Compare the 5th story in the first book of the Panchatantra, in Benfey's translation.

Benfey shows that this story found its way into Mahometan collections, such as the Thousand and one Nights, and the Thousand and one Days, as also into the Decamerone of Boccaccio, and other European story-books, Vol. I, p. 159, and ff.

The story, as given in the Panchatantra, reminds us of the Squire's Tale in Chaucer, but Josephus in Ant. Jud. XVIII, 3, tells it of a Roman knight named Mundus, who fell in love with Paulina the wife of Saturninus, and by corrupting the priestess of Isis was enabled to pa.s.s himself off as Anubis. On the matter coming to the ears of Tiberius, he had the temple of Isis destroyed, and the priests crucified. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, Vol. II, p. 27. Liebrecht's German translation, p. 232). A similar story is told by the Pseudo-Callisthenes of Nectanebos and Olympias. Cp. Coelho's Contos Populares Portuguezes, No. LXXI, p. 155.

[173] Thus she represented the Arddhanarisvara, or Siva half male, and half female, which compound figure is to be painted in this manner.

[174] She held on to it by her hands.

[175] Wilson remarks that this presents some a.n.a.logy to the story in the Decamerone (Nov. 7 Gior. 8) of the scholar and the widow "la quale egli poi, con un suo consiglio, di mezzo Luglio, ignuda, tutto un d fa stare in su una torre." It also bears some resemblance to the story of the Master Thief in Thorpe's Yule-tide Stories, page 272. The Master thief persuades the priest that he will take him to heaven. He thus induces him to get into a sack, and then he throws him into the goose-house, and when the geese peck him, tells him that he is in purgatory. The story is Norwegian. See also Sir G. W. c.o.x's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Vol. 1. p. 127.

[176] Cp. the way in which Rudiger carries off the daughter of king Osantrix, Hagen's Helden-Sagen, Vol. I, p. 227.

[177] teresantes nykta cheimerion hydati kai anemo kai ham' aselenon exesan. Thucyd. III. 22.

[178] The word dasyu here means savage, barbarian. These wild mountain tribes called indiscriminately Savaras, Pulindas, Bhillas &c., seem to have been addicted to cattle-lifting and brigandage. So the word dasyu comes to mean robber. Even the virtuous Savara prince described in the story of Jimutavahana plunders a caravan.

[179] Cathay?

[180] Compare the rose garland in the story of the Wright's Chaste Wife; edited for the early English Text Society by Frederick J. Furnivall, especially lines 58 and ff.

"Wete thou wele withowtyn fable "Alle the whyle thy wife is stable "The chaplett wolle holde hewe; "And yf thy wyfe use putry "Or telle eny man to lye her by Then welle yt change hewe, And by the garland thou may see, Fekylle or fals yf that sche be, Or elles yf she be true.

See also note in Wilson's Essays on Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I, p. 218. He tells us that in Perce Forest the lily of the Katha Sarit Sagara is represented by a rose. In Amadis de Gaul it is a garland which blooms on the head of her that is faithful, and fades on the brow of the inconstant. In Les Contes a rire, it is also a flower. In Ariosto, the test applied to both male and female is a cup, the wine of which is spilled by the unfaithful lover. This fiction also occurs in the romances of Tristan, Perceval and La Morte d'Arthur, and is well known by La Fontaine's version, La Coupe Enchantee. In La Lai du Corn, it is a drinking-horn. Spenser has derived his girdle of Florimel from these sources or more immediately from the Fabliau, Le Manteau mal taille or Le Court Mantel, an English version of which is published in Percy's Reliques, the Boy and the Mantel (Vol. III.) In the Gesta Romanorum (c. 69) the test is the whimsical one of a s.h.i.+rt, which will neither require was.h.i.+ng nor mending as long as the wearer is constant. (Not the wearer only but the wearer and his wife). Davenant has subst.i.tuted an emerald for a flower.

The bridal stone, And much renowned, because it chasteness loves, And will, when worn by the neglected wife, Shew when her absent lord disloyal proves By faintness and a pale decay of life.

I may remark that there is a certain resemblance in this story to that of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, which is founded on the 9th Story of the 2nd day in the Decamerone, and to the 7th Story in Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Marchen.

See also "The king of Spain and his queen" in Thorpe's Yule-tide Stories, pp. 452-455. Thorpe remarks that the tale agrees in substance with the ballad of the "Graf Von Rom" in Uhland, II, 784; and with the Flemish story of "Ritter Alexander aus Metz und Seine Frau Florentina." In the 21st of Bandello's novels the test is a mirror (Liebrecht's Dunlop, p. 287). See also pp. 85 and 86 of Liebrecht's Dunlop, with the notes at the end of the volume.

[181] A man of low caste now called Dom. They officiate as executioners.

[182] Compare the way in which the widow's son, the s.h.i.+fty lad, treats Black Rogue in Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands (Tale XVII d. Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 303.)

[183] Datura is still employed, I believe, to stupefy people whom it is thought desirable to rob.

[184] I read iva for the eva of Dr. Brockhaus's text.

[185] A precisely similar story occurs in the Bahar Danish. The turn of the chief incident, although not the same, is similar to that of Nov VII, Part 4 of Bandello's Novelle, or the Accorto Avvedimento di una Fantesca a liberare la padrona e l' innamorato di quella de la morte. (Wilson's Essays, Vol. I, p. 224.) Cp. also the Mongolian version of the story in Sagas from the Far East, p. 320. The story of Saktimati is the 19th in the Suka Saptati. I have been presented by Professor Nilmani Mukhopadhyaya with a copy of a MS. of this work made by Babu Umesa Chandra Gupta.

[186] Cp. the story of the Chest in Campbell's Stories from the Western Highlands. It is the first story in the 2nd volume and contains one or two incidents which remind us of this story.

[187] I read mahakulodgatah.

[188] Alluding to Indra's having cut the wings of the mountains.

[189] The peafowl are delighted at the approach of the rainy season, when "their sorrow" comes to an end.

[190] It is often the duty of these minstrels to wake the king with their songs.

[191] Weapons well known in Hindu mythology. See the 6th act of the Uttara Rama Charita.

[192] Sutrapatam akarot she tested, so to speak. Cp. Taranga 21, sl. 93. The fact is, the smoke made her eyes as red as if she had been drinking.

[193] Or "like Kuvera." There is a pun here.

[194] Young Deformed.

[195] Cp. the distribution of presents on the occasion of King Etzel's marriage in the Nibelungen Lied.

[196] It must be remembered that a king among the Hindus was inaugurated with water, not oil.

[197] The word "adders" must here do duty for all venomous kinds of serpents.

[198] A similar story is found in the IVth book of the Panchatantra, Fable 5, where Benfey compares the story of Yayati and his son Puru. Benfey Panchatantra I. 436. Bernhard Schmidt in his Griechische Marchen, page 37, mentions a very similar story, which he connects with that of Admetos and Alkestis. In a popular ballad of Trebisond, a young man named Jannis, the only son of his parents, is about to be married, when Charon comes to fetch him. He supplicates St. George, who obtains for him the concession, that his life may be spared, in case his father will give him half the period of life still remaining to him. His father refuses, and in the same way his mother. At last his betrothed gives him half her allotted period of life, and the marriage takes place. The story of Ruru is found in the adiparva of the Mahabharata, see Leveque, Mythes et Legendes de l'Inde, pp. 278, and 374.

[199] I read dhata for dhatra.

[200] i. e. Hastinapura.

[201] Here Wilson observes: The circ.u.mstances here related are not without a.n.a.logies in fact. It is not marvellous therefore that we may trace them in fiction. The point of the story is the same as that of the "Deux Anglais a Paris," a Fabliau, and of "Une femme a l'extremite qui se mit en si grosse colere voyant son mari qui baisait sa servante qu'elle recouvra la sante" of Margaret of Navarre, (Heptameron. Nouvelle 71). Cp. Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 131.

Webster, d.u.c.h.ess of Malfi, Act IV, Sc. 2, tells a similar story,

"A great physician, when the Pope was sick Of a deep melancholy, presented him With several sorts of madmen, which wild object, Being full of change and sport, freed him to laugh, And so the imposthume broke."

[202] Cp. Sagas from the far East, Tale XI, pp. 123, 124. Here the crime contemplated is murder, and the ape is represented by a tiger. This story bears a certain resemblance to the termination of Alles aus einer Erbse, Kaden's Unter den Olivenbaumen, p. 22. See also page 220 of the same collection. In the Pentamerone of Basile, Tale 22, a princess is set afloat in a box, and found by a king, whose wife she eventually becomes. There is a similar incident in Kaden's Unter den Olivenbaumen, p. 220.

[203] Literally a handful of water, such as is offered to the Manes, is offered to Fortune. It is all over with his chance of attaining glory.