Kathasaritsagara (the Ocean of Story)

by Somadeva | 1924 | 1,023,469 words | ISBN-13: 9789350501351

This is the English translation of the Kathasaritsagara written by Somadeva around 1070. The principle story line revolves around prince Naravāhanadatta and his quest to become the emperor of the Vidhyādharas (‘celestial beings’). The work is one of the adoptations of the now lost Bṛhatkathā, a great Indian epic tale said to have been composed by ...

Appendix 5.2 - The Origin of the Story of Ghaṭa and Karpara

The story of Ghaṭa and Karpara as told by Somadeva (pp. 142-151) is composed of two distinct tales. The first, ending with the final success of Ghaṭa’s tricks, is a Sanskrit version of the well-known tale of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus (ii, 121). The second consists of several incidents, quite likely of Kashmirian origin, dealing with the favourite subject among Orientals—the inconstancy of woman.

It is only with the first of these stories that we are here concerned. The general appeal of the tale of Rhampsinitus, added to the fact that it appears in what is perhaps the most interesting and popular book of Herodotus, has made it travel far and wide to the most diverse parts of the world.

Versions of the story have found their way into nearly every important collection. To such an extent, indeed, has the tale circulated, that it would require a volume to give all the versions in their entirety. In the present appendix, then, I can do no more than give an occasional extract, but

I shall add full references which will show the extensive ramifications of this most interesting story. Thus readers, who so wish, will be able to follow up the subject to any length.

Before tracing the different versions in both Eastern and Western collections, it will be of considerable interest to try to determine whether the tale told to Herodotus was really Egyptian in origin or an early migrant from another country altogether.

First, then, let us look at the story as told by Herodotus (ii, 121).[1]

This king [Rhampsinitus], they said, possessed a great quantity of money, such as no one of the succeeding kings was able to surpass, or even nearly come up to; and he, wishing to treasure up his wealth in safety, built a chamber of stone, of which one of the walls adjoined the outside of the palace. But the builder, forming a plan against it, devised the following contrivance: he fitted one of the stones so that it might be easily taken out by two men, or even one. When the chamber was finished, the king laid up his treasures in it; but in course of time the builder, finding his end approaching, called his sons to him, for he had two, and described to them how (providing for them that they might have abundant sustenance) he had contrived when building the king’s treasury; and having clearly explained to them everything relating to the removal of the stone, he gave them its dimensions, and told them, if they would observe his instructions, they would be stewards of the king’s riches. He accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to the work; but having come by night to the palace, and having found the stone in the building, they easily removed it, and carried off a great quantity of treasure.

When the king happened to open the chamber, he was astonished at seeing the vessels deficient in treasure; but he was not able to accuse anyone, as the seals were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently diminished (for the thieves did not cease plundering), he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made, and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when the thieves came as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he went near a vessel he was straightway caught in the trap. Perceiving, therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his brother, and told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quick as possible and cut off his head, lest, if he was seen and recognised, he should ruin him also. The other thought that he spoke well, and did as he was advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking with him his brother’s head.

When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the chamber secure, and without any means of entrance or exit. In this perplexity he contrived the following plan: he hung up the body of the thief from the wall, and having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing commiseration at the spectacle.

The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of his brother; but, should he neglect to do so, she threatened to go to the king, and inform him that he had the treasures.

When the mother treated her surviving son harshly, and when with many entreaties he was unable to persuade her, he contrived the following plan: having got some asses, and having filled some skins with wine, he put them on the asses and then drove them along; but when he came near the sentinels that guarded the suspended corpse, having drawn out two or three of the necks of the skins that hung down, he loosened them; and when the wine ran out he beat his head and cried out aloud, as if he knew not to which of the asses he should turn first. But the sentinels, when they saw wine flowing in abundance, ran into the road, with vessels in their hands, and caught the wine that was being spilt, thinking it all their own gain; but the man, feigning anger, railed bitterly against them all. However, as the sentinels soothed him, he at length pretended to be pacified, and to forgo his anger. At last he drove his asses out of the road, and set them to rights again.

When more conversation passed, and one of the sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, he gave them another of the skins; and they, just as they were, lay down and set to to drink, and joined him to their party, and invited him to stay and drink with them. He was persuaded, forsooth, and remained with them. And as they treated him kindly during the drinking, he gave them another of the skins; and the sentinels, having taken very copious draughts, became exceedingly drunk, and being overpowered by the wine, fell asleep on the spot where they had been drinking.

But he, as the night was far advanced, took down the body of his brother, and by way of insult shaved the right cheeks of all the sentinels; then having laid the corpse on the asses, he drove home, having performed his mother’s injunctions.

The king, when he was informed that the body of the thief had been stolen, was exceedingly indignant, and, resolving by any means to find out the contriver of this artifice, had recourse, as it is said, to the following plan—a design which to me seems incredible: he placed his own daughter in a brothel, and ordered her to admit all alike to her embraces, but before they had intercourse with her, to compel each one to tell her what he had done during his life most clever and most wicked, and whosoever should tell her the facts relating to the thief she was to seize, and not suffer him to escape.

When, therefore, the daughter did what her father commanded, the thief having ascertained for what purpose this contrivance was had recourse to, and being desirous to outdo the king in craftiness, did as follows: having cut off the arm of a fresh corpse at the shoulder, he took it with him under his cloak, and having gone in to the king's daughter, and being asked the same questions as all the rest were, he related that lie had done the most wicked thing when he cut off his brother’s head, who was caught in a trap in the king’s treasury; and the most clever tiling when, having made the sentinels drunk, he took away the corpse of his brother that was hung up. She. when she heard this, endeavoured to seize him, but the thief in the dark held out to her the dead man's arm. and she seized it and held it fast, imagining that she had got hold of the man's own arm. Then the thief, having let it go, made his escape through the door.

When this also was reported to the king, he was astonished at the shrewdness and daring of the man; and at last, sending throughout all the cities, he caused a proclamation to be made, offering a free pardon, and promising great reward to the man, if he should discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the king’s palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the Egyptians.

There arc several points to notice about this story which seem to indicate that Herodotus heard only an abridged version of a more detailed tale, the complete incidents of which had either been long since forgotten or which his informers did not happen to know.

In the first place the builder is represented as entirely devoid of all principles. Although he is apparently the chief architect at the court of the richest of all the Egyptian kings, and as such would be a very wealthy man, yet he deliberately arranges matters so that if necessary he can rob the king of all his treasures. Such a necessity, however, never arises; but when on his death-bed he tells his secret to his two sons without any scruples, knowing that by doing so he is almost bound to turn them into a couple of thieves. Had there been some motive for such an action, such as revenge or poverty, it would be more comprehensible.

Then, again, it seems curious that when the one brother is caught in the trap, the other cuts his head off without any expressions of sorrow whatever. As we shall see later, many suosequent versions (e.g. Dolopathos and its derivates) particularly mention the bitter anguish which fills his heart before he can bring himself to do such a terrible deed.

But of most importance is the fact that we have a detailed description of how the king hung up the body of the thief, and surrounded it with guards, in the hope that some relation of the dead man would give himself away by excessive grief at such a terrible sight. Yet we hear nothing more of this, and no one goes near it. The one person who would obviously be most likely to act thus is the mother, who, as far as we are given to understand, never leaves her house at all. Several writers seem to have noticed this, as in many versions we find the thief is nearly given away by this ruse. It seems such an obvious omission that because we find it restored in later versions, I do not think we need conclude for a moment that there was another, and hitherto unknown, source of the story.

It will be seen that the difference between the tale of Herodotus and that of Somadeva is considerable.

In fact, the only points of similarity, apart from the general outline being similar, are:

  1. The number of the thieves is two.
  2. One of them is caught.
  3. Guards watch the body to see if anyone laments.
  4. They are overcome by trickery.
  5. The king’s efforts are futile.
  6. Pardon (or a reward) is offered.

There is no mention in our tale of a treasury, and consequently the trap and beheading of the brother do not occur. No mother appears, and neither the shaving of the guards nor the prostitution of the king’s daughter is found.

The hand of the Hindu is clear, however, in many places. The favourite Indian methods of thieving—digging through a wall and digging a mine into the house—are brought in twice. The incident of a princess falling in love with the thief is not uncommon in Sanskrit literature, and occurs twice in the Ocean of Story (Chapters LXXXVIII and CXII).

The incident of the guards waiting to see if anyone laments has a sequel, for the desire to pay the last homage to his dead friend makes Ghaṭa conceive a plan by which he can personally lament and purify the body with milk. Here we have the gap in the Herodotus story filled. But according to Hindu ritual other rites have to be performed over the body, so our story-teller introduces a second device by which he can burn the corpse and throw the bones into the holy Ganges.

The ending of the story has naturally been altered, because Somadeva is tacking on to it another story altogether, and does not want the princess and the thief to dwell happily together.

We can now proceed to the crux of our inquiry. Was the tale of Rhampsinitus as told to Herodotus of true Egyptian origin?

The first question one naturally asks is whether the identity of King Rhampsinitus can be ascertained. Is he purely legendary, or is he a real Pharaoh to whom the above story has been attributed, either rightly or wrongly? The generally accepted theory' is that by Rhampsinitus is meant Rameses III, although nothing definite can be said on this point.

The reasons for the supposition are twofold, etymological and general.

The true etymology of Rhampsinitus is unknown, and thus we are handicapped from the start, but it seems to be connected in some way with Rameses. According to Brugsch it is a Greek form of Ramesu pa nuter, “Rameses the God,” but most scholars now agree with Maspero, who would derive the first half from Rameses III and the second half from Amasis II. Some further explanation is necessary.

Rameses III was a Pharaoh of the twentieth dynasty, and had his capital at Thebes, with Amon as chief deity. Amasis II was a Pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty, with his capital at Sai’s, in the Delta, and Neith, the goddess of the hunt, as deity.

The correct form of his name is Aah-mes-si-neit, aah meaning “moon,” and si-neit, “son of Neith.” Now in order to arrive at the Greek form Rhampsinitus, the two words si-neit must be added to Rameses, making Ra-mes-si-neit. Thus half the name belongs to one Pharaoh of one dynasty, and half to another Pharaoh of another dynasty.

“It is,” says Sir Flinders Petrie in a letter to me on the subject,

“as if a cathedral verger talked now of ‘our sailor King William III,’ unconsciously borrowing from William IV.”

It is quite conceivable that the jumbled name was due to ignorance, and at any rate was good enough for foreigners.

When describing the Ægean coasts we may consider Herodotus to have had sufficient personal knowledge of what he was writing about to check any traditions he heard, or accounts he may have read. But in Egypt matters were very different. Here he went as an ordinary tourist, even without “letters of introduction,” and, being unable to speak the tongue, he was dependent on the half-caste dragomans and any inferior temple-servants who were not above receiving bakhshish for answering questions put to them by the inquisitive Greeks.

Most of the ciceroni were Karians, who acted as interpreters between natives and the travellers, like the Maltese in modern times. As Herodotus himself was born in Karia, we can imagine his preferring a fellow-countryman through whom to make his searching inquiries.

Professor Sayce considers the tale to be “colonial Greek,” and he explains this view in a letter to me.

“It is,” he says,

“the kind of story the Greek tourist delighted to hear from his Karian or other semi-Greek dragoman. He was anxious about the origin or causes of what he saw, and the dragoman had a story to account for each of them which was sufficiently non-Oriental to appeal to the Greek mind.”

Supposing that Ra-mes-si-neit was the original form in which Herodotus heard the name, we must not be surprised at his accepting it, for he knew si-neit was a correct appendage to a royal name, as it is he who supplies us with most of our information about Amasis II.

Turning to general considerations, the first thing to strike us in the story about the king is his great wealth and the fact that he built a treasury. This could well refer to Rameses III, for, as the Papyrus Harris shows, his riches were enormous and not only did he build a treasury, but it has actually been discovered in the temple at Medinet Habu.

In one record Rameses himself says:

“I filled its treasury with the products of the land of Egypt: gold, silver, every costly stone by the hundred-thousand....”

The great victories of Rameses III against such Levantine peoples as the Thekel, Pulesti, Washasha, etc., and the consequent saving of the Egyptian Empire in Asia, would naturally make him the hero of many a tale. The increased wealth of the temples, the elaborate ritual observed and encouraged by Rameses, and, above all, the fact that Amon-Ra became the figurehead of the Egyptian religion, were all factors which would help to keep the memory of this Pharaoh green, especially when his death marked the beginning of the final catastrophe which led to the collapse of the Empire.

Thus, quite apart from etymological evidence, Rhampsinitus might well be intended for Rameses III.

There is, however, another point to be considered. Immediately following this story Herodotus (ii, 122) tells a further tale about the same king:

“After this they said, that this king descended alive into the place which the Greeks call Hades, and there played at dice with Ceres, and sometimes won, and other times lost; and that he came up again and brought with him as a present from her a napkin of gold.”

This curious statement has an echo in the ancient Egyptian tales occurring in the cycle of Satni-Khamoîs (Maspero, Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt, pp. 133, 134), where Satni descends into the tomb of Nenoferkephtah and plays dice for the magic book of Thoth. Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, records an old Egyptian myth connected with the birth of Osiris to account for the five supplementary days in the Egyptian calendar. The god Hermes (i.e. Thoth) played dice or draughts with the moon and won from her a seventy-second part of every day, and from these parts compounded the five intercalary days (cf. the Mayan “Uayeyab”).

Now the connection of this dice-playing story with Rameses III may have arisen from the fact that on the outer wall of his palace at Medinet Habu is a relief of the king seated at draughts with a woman.

Thus if the etymological derivation of Rhampsinitus is even only approximately correct, the fact that Herodotus heard the story of this king’s descent into Hades and his playing dice would strengthen the supposition that the king referred to is none other than Rameses III.

We now pass on to the incidents in the story. It is these, as I have already emphasised (Vol. I, p. 29), which form the real clues to the origin or migration of a story.

Several leading Egyptologists of the past century (see e.g. G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, 4th edition, 4 vols., 1880, vol. ii, p. 193n4) considered that the story under discussion could not be of Egyptian origin for the following reasons:—

  1. Egyptians did not wear beards.
  2. The practice of hanging a criminal from a wall to the public gaze was unknown in Egypt.
  3. The idea of a Pharaoh prostituting his daughter is absurd.

Let us take each of these points in turn.

1. The note in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, already referred to, was written by Wilkinson, and shows the results of a too hasty study of the monuments, for although the majority of pure Egyptians were clean-shaven, the custom was not compulsory, and monuments of all periods have revealed men with beards. But in this particular case we are dealing only with police, who were not all natives. They were usually recruited from a Nubian or Sūdānī tribe, called Mazaiu or Matiu by Maspero, and Matchaiu by Budge. All foreigners were exempt from general usages, so there is nothing surprising or un-Egyptian in the police being bearded. Wilkinson quoted the shaving of Joseph before entering the presence of Pharaoh (Gen. xli, 14) as showing it was customary to shave, but to me it rather proves that the lower-class Egyptian troubled little about shaving, and any sudden honour such as being taken before Pharaoh would necessitate shaving. This was, of course, exactly opposite to the customs of Babylon and Assyria, where commoners were clean-shaven and royalty heavily bearded. The veneration of the beard does not seem to have been nearly so developed in early Egypt as in other parts of the East and with the advent of Mohammedanism, although the false beard was worn by a Pharaoh as a symbol of dignity at certain festivals. In the present story, I feel the shaving of the beards was not done so much for insult (as in 1 Chron. xix, 4, etc.), as to show the consummate cleverness of the thief, a motif which has an international appeal.

2. As another proof that the tale is not Egyptian, Wilkinson and other Egyptologists have stated that in a country where social ties were so much regarded, the civil law would not permit such an exhibition as stated to have been held by Rhampsinitus.

It will suffice to quote the well-known case of Ȧmenḥetep II, who hung the bodies of seven vanquished chiefs at the bow of his boat, and later exposed them on the walls of Thebes and Napata. (See Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, vol. i, p. xxii.) As Maspero says, that which was done by a real Pharaoh may well have been done by the Pharaoh of a romance, even if it were exceptional.

3. The proceeding of the king in sending his daughter to a public brothel (οἴκημα can only have this meaning here, it being most improbable that he would use a “certain room” in the palace for such a purpose, as translated by A. D. Godley in the Loeb Library edition) may seem strange to us, but it must not be dismissed as merely the invention of the ciceroni, nor must we believe, with Wilkinson, that it would be repeated by Greeks just because it gave them particular pleasure to recount such tales about kings and their daughters.

Unfortunately our knowledge of the intimate social customs of the Egyptians is as yet very small, so that we are practically restricted to the evidence found in tales current at the time of Herodotus or incidents which occur in stories found in papyri. Sir Ernest Budge tells me, however, that he believes certain classes of prostitutes were held in respect, but can give no details.

I take it, however, that these are the sacred prostitutes such as were connected with the temple of Amon at Thebes in the twenty-first dynasty (see G. Maspero, Guide du Visiteur au Musée du Caire, p. 145. Cairo, 1920).

According to Herodotus (ii, 126), when Cheops was in sore need of money

“he prostituted his own daughter in a brothel, and ordered her to extort, they did not say how much; but she exacted a certain sum of money, privately, as much as her father ordered her....”

Apart from the possibility of such occurrences being historical, there are several examples in Egyptian tales of prostitution in order to obtain some desired end.

For instance, in the “Adventure of Satni-Khamoîs with the Mummies” (Maspero, Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt, pp. 137-140), Tbubuî invites Satni into her chamber in order to get from him the magical book of Thoth at the cost of her body.

Professor Elliot Smith considers it probable that the story of a king publicly prostituting his daughter is a perversion of the ancient myth of Osiris, the dead king, being seduced by Isis, his own daughter (and wife).

However this may be, the incident of a Pharaoh acting in such a manner must not be dismissed as absurd, and even if such an action has no historical foundation, both Egyptian mythology and folk-tales can supply examples.

Taking all the above evidence as a whole, I can see little to support the view that the tale in question is not of Egyptian origin. Gaston Paris, however, in an excellent monograph in the Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, vol. lv, 1907, pp. 151 et seq., 267 et seq., does not believe in the Egyptian origin of the tale.[2] Professor Maspero will not commit himself too far. He says that if it was not actually invented in Egypt, it had been Egyptianised long before Herodotus wrote it down. The evidence of several of our leading Egyptologists appears to favour its being an Egyptian tale, and I am indebted to them for their valuable opinions. Sir Flinders Petrie considers it to be of late Egyptian origin, with some of its details affected by outside influence. Sir Ernest Budge says that to him the story smells Egyptian. Professor Griffith can see nothing seriously un-Egyptian in it, while Dr Hall says he has little doubt about its true Egyptian origin.

 

CLASSICAL VERSIONS

In classical Greece there was a story resembling the tale of Rhampsinitus in several points. It concerns the two master-builders, Agamedes and Trophonius. In some accounts Agamedes is described as the stepfather of Trophonius, whose own father was commonly said to be Apollo. In other versions it was Agamedes who was the son of Apollo and Epicaste, while Trophonius was his son. The best-known story, however, is that the two were sons of Erginus, King of Orehomenus, and that they built a treasury for Hyrieus, King of Hyria in Boœtia.

Pausanias (ix. 37, 4, 5) tells us that after the Minyae (the original inhabitants of Orchomenus) had been conquered by the Thebans. Erginus made peace with Hercules, and gradually retrieved his former wealth. Rut in so doing he was ov ertaken by a wifeless and childless old age.

So he consulted the Oracle at Delphi, where the Pythian priestess bade him marry and so “put a new tip to the old plough-tree.”

“So he married a young wife, according to the oracle, and had by her Trophonius and Agamedes. Rut Trophonius is said to have been a son of Apollo, and not of Erginus, and I believe it, and so does everyone who has gone to inquire of the oracle of Trophonius [for this see Pausanias ix, 39, 5-14, with Krazer’s Commentary, vol. v, pp. 201-204, and under ‘oraeulum’ in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities ]. It is said that when Trophonius and Agamedes were grown up they became skilful at building sanctuaries for gods and palaces for men; for they built the temple at Delphi [see Pausanias x, 5, 13] for Apollo and the treasury for Hyrieus. In the treasury they contrived that one of the stones could be removed from the outside, and they always ke pt pilfering the hoard; but Hyricus was speechless, seeing the keys and all the tokens undisturbed, but the treasures steadily decreasing. Wherefore over the coffers in which were his silver and gold he set traps, or at any rate something that would hold fast anyone who should enter and meddle with the treasures. So when Agamedes entered he was held fast in the snare; but Trophonius cut off his head, lest at daybreak his brother should be put to the torture and he himself detected as an accomplice in the crime. The earth yawned and received Trophonius at that point in the grove at Lebadea where is the pit of Agamedes, as it is called, with a monument beside it.”

(J. G. Frazer’s translation, vol. i, p. 490 et seq.)

Aristophanes, Nubes 508, speaks of the oracle of Trophonius. and the scholiast on the passage, quoting from the historian Charax, gives a version different from that of Pausanias.

Agamedes, Prince of Stymphalus, had two sons, Trophonius and Cercyon, by his wife Epicaste. Trophonius was born out of wedlock, but Cercyon was legitimate. Now Agamedes and Trophonius were famed for their skill; they built the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and they made a golden treasury for King Augeas at Elis. But they took care to leave a seeret entrance into the treasury, by means of which they and Cercyon used to enter and rob the king. Augeas was at a loss what to make of it, but by the advice of Dædalus, who was staying with him, he set traps about his coffers. Agamedes was accordingly caught in one of them, but Trophonius, to prevent recognition, cut off his father’s head and escaped with Cercyon to Orchomenus. Hither they were pursued by the messengers of Augeas; so Cercyon fled to Athens and Trophonius to Lebadea, where he made for himself an underground chamber in which he lived. (Frazer, op. cit., vol. v, p. 177.)

For a useful note on the passage see Starkie’s edition of the Clouds, 1911, pp. 325, 326.

Apart from the mention of Trophonius by Aristophanes, later writings also show the antiquity of mythical tales about these two men. For instance, Plutarch, in his Consolatio ad Apollonium, 14, says that Pindar relates of Agamedes and Trophonius that after building the temple at Delphi, they asked Apollo to grant them a reward for their work. He replied that they would have one in seven days, but in the meanwhile they were to go on living freely and indulge their genius. Accordingly they obeyed the dictate, and on the seventh, night they died in their beds.

The same legend is also mentioned by Cicero, Tusc. Disp., i, 47, but here the interim is given as only three days.

From the above evidence, then, we notice that whereas myths connected with the two master-builders were current in Greece from at least 500 b.c. (Aristophanes’ Nubes was first produced in 423 b.c.) the incident of the robbery of the treasury as one of their exploits does not appear, as far as we know, till the time of Pausanias (second century a.d.), while the priest and historian Charax Pergamenus post-dates Cæsar and Nero.

All this seems to point to Herodotus as the introducer of the incident into Greece. I cannot see sufficient evidence to justify the view of K. O. Müller in his Geschichten hellenischer Stämme und Städte: Orchomenos und die Minyer, Breslau, 1820-1824, p. 94 et seq., where he states that it is very probable that the tradition took its rise among the Minyae, was transferred from them to King Augeas, and was known in Greece long before the reign of Psammetichus (664-610 b.c), the Saïite king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, during whose reign intimate relations between Egypt and Greece were opened. His theory may be correct, but until further evidence is available I am inclined to favour the Egyptian origin of the story. (See álso his Fragmenta Historiconim Græconim, Paris, 1849, vol. iii, p. 637.[3]) Herodotus wrote his History about 430 B.C., and it is only natural to suppose that, as time went on, any arresting stories it contained would attach themselves to popular Greek myths already in existence. It certainly seems quite probable that this is exactly what happened to the tale of Rhampsinitus. Here on the one hand was an old Greek legend, or number of legends, about two master-builders who constructed a famous temple at Delphi and after their death became divine (Trophonius was to some extent actually identified with Zeus); and on the other hand there was a clever Egyptian tale also about a master-builder (and his two sons), which, when generally known, was sure to appeal to the imagination of the Greeks. Any attractive incidents in the latter would become attached to the former, while those which proved less attractive would gradually drop out and be forgotten.

Nor would such incidents be resurrected unless the original story chanced to be reintroduced through some fresh channel. In such a case forgotten incidents might be restored and the story would bear a much closer resemblance to its original than had formerly been the case. This seems to be what happened to the tale under discussion. The wave of Oriental story migration in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries not only brought Indian, Persian and Arabian tales to Europe, but introduced a form of presentation hitherto unknown in the West—the “tale-within-tale” system. Its popularity was due not only to its novelty, but also to the opportunities it offered the story-teller, for he could add and subtract as he thought fit without altering the “frame” of the work in any way. The crusader, the pilgrim, and the merchant would, on their return home, relate any stories heard on their travels which had made a strong appeal to their imaginations, and as the stories circulated, the compilers would naturally enough substitute tales from their own stock-in-trade, if they liked them better, or if any tale had become confused and pointless in course of repetition. Thus many an Eastern collection has become greatly altered in the hands of Western editors, translators, and the like, so as to leave little of the Eastern original except the “frame.” The husk would remain, but the kernel would be different. No better example of such alterations could be quoted than those connected with the great cycle of stories known as the Book of Sindibād, to which we have referred several times in the course of this work. The collection was so called owing to the tradition that a certain Indian philosopher named Sindibād was its chief character. In all the main Eastern versions the name varies but little: the Syriac is Sindban, the Greek, Syntipas, and the Hebrew, Sendebar. Only eight Eastern versions survive and all have the same “frame” tale. Briefly this is as follows:—

A young prince is taught wisdom by his tutor. He learns but slowly, and the tutor realises that some evil star is for the time being in the ascendant. Further investigations show that a fatal seven days is at hand, and accordingly the prince is warned not to speak a word during this period. The king is much concerned at his son’s silence, and one of his wives says she will find out the reason. Accordingly she sees him alone, but tempts him to adultery with the promise of the kingdom. He repulses her, and realising her position if he does speak, she hastens to the king with the tale that he has attempted to ravish her. The king orders him to be killed, but seven wise men of the court each tell stories to show the wickedness of women. In reply the wife tells counter-stories, and thus the ill-omened period is past. The prince speaks and the queen is executed.[4]

 

MEDIÆVAL VERSIONS

Now when the Book of Sindibād reached Europe it retained this frame-story, but little else. The title was changed to The Seven Wise Masters or Seven Sages of Rome and Sindibād himself disappeared.

Research seems to show that from India the work passed to Persia, Arabia, Syria and the Holy Land. Thence it was probably brought to Europe by some crusader who was attracted by the novelty and merit of the tales. Unfortunately the parent Western version is lost, so that we cannot say exactly which of the Eastern versions gave rise to the European version. Evidence is slightly in favour of the Hebrew version, but nothing definite can be said on the point. The date of the parent Western version is probably not later than a.d. 1150.[5]

The popularity of the work in Europe was enormous, and at least forty different versions have been preserved. So altered have been the tales in the Western versions that only four have survived from the East. Then again, in the Western versions the sages only tell one story each, and with the queen’s counter-stories there are only fifteen, but in the Eastern versions the sages usually tell two stories.

There are several other differences which need not be detailed here. The important point to notice is that the reason of the great difference must be that, whereas the Book of Sindibād was written, the Seven Sages derived its stories from oral tradition. In fact, the compiler probably never saw an Eastern version.

Now among the tales which found their way into the Seven Sages was a version of the tale of Rhampsinitus. It might easily have been brought over from Egypt or Syria by some pilgrim or traveller and become incorporated with the “frame” story of the Seven Sages, and owing to its excellence as a good story, would quite naturally be chosen in lieu of many others known to the compiler.

The oldest form in which the Western type is known to us is that bearing the title of Dolopathos. It seems very probable, however, that the better-known Seven Sages of Rome, MSS. of which date from only a little later than the earliest MS. of Dolopathos, preserves more closely the original form of the Western parent version. It was under this form that it acquired its immense popularity. The Dolopathos exists in two versions, one in Latin prose by Joannes de Alta Silva, and the other in an old French poem by Herbert.

Silva, whose proper name was Jean de Hautesville, translated the work from the Greek. It was edited by Oesterley[6] in 1873, and by Hilka[7] in 1913, and contains the “Gaza[8] or “treasure” story as its second tale. This version is very curious as containing numerous details which are found nowhere else.

The lack of any motive for the treasurer turning thief, or making his sons thieves, must have struck the compiler, for at the beginning of the story we are told that the father had been driven to steal owing to the reckless extravagance of his son. After the theft has been detected, the king, on the advice of a blind old man who is an ex-thief himself, burns a pile of green grass in the treasury. Then, having closed the door, he walks round the building and notices smoke issuing from between the stones where the entrance had been made. The incident found its way into several variants, while in others the king shuts himself in the treasury and observes if any light comes in through the walls. The tricks of the thief in the Dolopathos version are elaborate. He first escapes by stabbing himself, then by stating that a child belonging to his family, who has been discovered crying, is only crying for its mother. But the method by which he retrieves his father’s body is very curious. The blind old man tells the king to get forty men to guard the body, twenty in black armour on black horses, and twenty in white armour on white horses. It will then be impossible for any stranger to make his way unperceived to the body. The thief, however, is not to be put off so easily.

At vero fur ille suum patrisque opprobrium ferre non volens, malensque semel mori, quam diu infeliciter vivere, deliberavit in animo, quod aut patrem turpi ludibrio subtraheret, aut ipse cum eo pariter moreretur. Subtili ergo ingenio arma partita fabricat, tota scilicet ab una parte alba, et nigra ab altera, quibus armatus equum hinc albo, inde nigro panno opertum ascendit. Sicque lucente luna per medios transit milites, ut nigra pars armorum eius viginti albos deluderet et alba pars deciperet nigros, putarentque nigri unum esse ex albis, et albi unum ex nigris fore. Sic ergo pertransiens venit ad patrem depositumque a ligno asportavit. Facto autem mane milites videntes furem furtim sublatum sibi confusi redierunt ad regem, narrantes, quomodo eos miles albos nigrisque armis pertitus[9] decepisset. Desperans ergo iam rex posse recuperari perdita et furem et thesaurum cessavit querere.

At this point the Latin version ends, but the French version of Herbert adds other incidents which were copied largely in subsequent variants.[10]

After the corpse has been recovered, the thief lies with the princess, who marks him with coloured dye for future identification. The following short extract will give some idea of the style of the Old French: —

La pucele nul mot ne dit
Que ces pères l’ot contredit,
Qui la boiste li ot donnée
Ou la coulor fu destremprée,
Et[11] ce li dist k’ele féist[12]
Tout ce ke cil li requéist
Tant k’el’ front l’éust bien seignié,
Einsi com li ot enseignié.
La pucele s’en entremist,
Et tele enseigne el’ front li mist
Que bien pot estre conéuz.
Cil ne s’en est apercéuz;
Tant i demora longuement
Qu’il s’en departi liéement;
A son ostel revint arrière;
Biau semblant fist et bele chière.

                  (Li Romans de Dolopathos,
                        Brunet et Montaiglon, 1856, pp. 215, 216.)

He marks everyone else and escapes detection. Then follows the incident of a child being employed to pick him out from a crowd by giving the “wanted” man a knife. He manages, however, to give the child a bird previously, and so the knife is looked upon as being merely a return gift. Finally he marries the princess.

The Dolopathos agrees with the Book of Sindibād in that there is only one instructor. His name, however, is changed to Virgil. It preserves only one story from the Eastern version, but four stories (including gaza) which also occur in the Seven Sages. This fact seems to indicate that Silva was acquainted with some version of the latter. The contention that the work was derived from oral tradition is borne out by Silva’s own statement that he wrote “non ut visa, sed ut audita.” The Herbert version was made from the above somewhere about 1223, and was edited by Brunet and Montaiglon in 1856 under the title Li Romans di Dolopathos. It is very long, being over 12,000 lines, and is written in the octo-syllabic couplet.

For further details reference should be made to G. Paris, Deux Rédactions du Roman des Sept Sages de Rome, Paris, 1876; and to the work by Campbell already mentioned.

We now come to the Seven Sages of Rome, of which versions exist in nearly every European language. The earliest ones known are in French and must date from about 1150, which, as we have already seen, is the latest date of the Western parent version.

The usual number of stories is fifteen, and the scene of action is laid in Rome. The names of the Emperor, Prince and Sages vary considerably, but this is of no importance in our inquiry. The best work on the whole subject is still that by Gaston Paris mentioned above.

The treasury story is nearly always the fifth, but in two versions it forms the ninth, and in one version the eleventh story.

It is told much more simply than in Dolopathos, and only one trick is employed—the wounding of the thief in order to account for his mother’s (or her children’s) weeping.

In one of the nine Middle English versions[13] (Cambridge University, MS. Dd. i, 17) the tale ends abruptly after the weeping incident.

As an example of the language and style of these versions I will quote from the so-called Cotton Galba E. ix MS., following the edition by Campbell, Seven Sages of Rome, pp. 45-49.

The tale is told of Octavian. He had “klerkes twa.” One was liberal, but the other was a miser. Octavian chooses the miser to guard his treasures (there is no question of his building the treasury), but before long, with his son’s help, the liberal man digs a tunnel and removes a portion of the gold, filling in the hole with the stone On discovering the loss, the miser digs a trench and fills it with tar and pitch, “ter and pik.”

The story then continues:

“Al had þai spended sone sertayn;
þe fader and þe son wendes ogayn.
Bitwene þam toke þai out þe stane;
þe fader crepis in sone onane,[14]
And doun he fals in ter and pik,—
Wit ᵹe wele, þat was ful wik.[15]
Loud he cried and said ‘Allas!’
His son askes him how it was.
He said: ‘I stand vp til þe chin
In pik, þat I mun[16] neuer out win.’
‘Alias,’ said þe son, ‘what sal I do?’
He said: ‘Tak my swerd þe vnto,
And smite my heuid fra my body.’
þe son said, ‘Nai, sir, sekerly[17];
Are[18] I sold myseluen sla.’
‘Son,’ he said, ‘it most be swa,
Or else þou and al þi kyn
Mun be shent,[19] bath mare and myn[20];
And if mi heuid be smeten oway,
Na word sal men of me say.
þarfore, son, for mi benisown,[21]
Smite of my heuid, and wend to town,
And hide it in som preue[22] pit,
So þat na man mai knaw it.’
His fader heuid of smate he þare,
And forth with him oway it bare.
Wele he thoght it for to hide,
For shame þat efter might bitide;
For if men wist, it wald be wer,[23]
And lath[24] him was to bere it fer.
Als he went biside a gang,[25]
Into þe pit þe heuid he slang.
þan went he hame wightli[26] and sone,
And tald his moder how he had done,
þe whif weped, so was her wa;
So did his breþer and sister alswa.
On þe morn þe senatoure
Went arly vnto þe toure;
In þe pit he findes a hedles man,
Bot knaw him for nothin[g] he can.
He kowth noght ken þan his felaw
þat he wont ful wele to knaw.
He gert haue of þe pik bidene,[27]
And wass þe body faire and clene.
He loked byfore þan and bihind;
Knawlageing[28] kowth he none find.
þan gert[29] he bring twa stalworth hors,
And bad þam draw þe hedeles cors;
And whoso þai saw sorow make,
He bad biliue[30] þai sold þam take,
And at[31] þai war to preson led,
For þai er al his awin kinred.
þat hedles body by þe fete
Was drawen in Rome thorgh ilka[32] strete,
Vntil þai come bifor þe dore
Whare þe ded man wond[33] bifore;
pare þai murned and made il chere,
Whif and childer, al in fere.[34]
þe seriantes toke þarto gude kepe,
þam for to tak þat þai saw wepe.
þe childer þan war sare adred;
‘Allas,’ þai said, ‘now er we ded!’
þe son, þat wist of al þe care,
Hirt himseluen wonder sare;
He smate himseluen in þe cheke;
þaire sorow sone so gan þai eke.
þai tald to þam þat wald þam take,
þat þai wepid for þair broker sake.
þai shewed þe wonde of þaire broþer,
And said þai wepid for nane oþer.
þe seriantes saw þe wound sertain;
þai trowed þam wele and turned ogain.”

Apart from the nine Middle English versions already mentioned, there are numerous other versions of the Seven Sages whieh contain the story of the king’s treasury.

Although, even if space permitted, there is no need to discuss them here,[35] mention must be made of the largest group of all—that of which the Latin Historia Septem Sapientum is the type. It was from a version of this group that the English translation, printed by Wynkyn de Worde,[36] was made, and from it were derived the metrical version of Rolland,[37] the Copland edition (now lost), and numerous other English versions, chiefly bearing the title of The Seven Wise Masters.

The Historia became very popular in Europe and is found in nearly every language, including Icelandic and Armenian. A new version of the latter has lately been published with a posthumous introduction by Chauvin.[38]

With at least forty versions of The Seven Sages penetrating to every part of Europe, it is not surprising to find the story of the treasury appearing in all parts of the world.

 

MODERN VERSIONS

Several attempts have been made to enumerate all the modern versions of the tale of Rhampsinitus.

A list of the chief references is given by Chauvin, op. cit., viii, pp. 185, 186.

In his edition of Pausanias’ Description of Greece, vol. v, pp. 176-179, J. G. Frazer gives a list of twenty-eight variants. A much fuller list (of forty-one variants) appears in Campbell’s Seven Sages of Rome, pp. Ixxxvi, lxxxvii.

The latest, and, as yet, by far the most comprehensive bibliography, however, is that by Bolte and Pohvka in their Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Briider Grimm, vol. iii, pp. 395-406. I have verified nearly every reference given, and except for a few minor misprints and the fact that some of the references are much too abbreviated, it would be hard to conceive of a fuller or more carefully compiled bibliography. The languages in which our story is found in one form or another include: —English, Iṛṣ, Scotch, French, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish-Finnish, Finnish, Icelandic, Lettish, Polish, Czech, Gypsy, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, numerous German and Austrian dialects, Greek, Armenian, Tartar, Rumanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, Huṅgarian, Arabic, Berber, Tibetan, etc. Précis of several of these are given by Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. ii, pp. 121-165. See also his Book of Sindibād, pp. 330-332.

I shall here give selections from one or two versions from different countries which will illustrate the effect of local environment on the story and show the introduction of fresh incidents.

First I select the story as told by Ser Giovanni in his II Pecorone. The exact date of this work and the true identity of the author has not yet been determined. The date given in the book itself in an introductory verse is 1378, but scholars consider the work is probably early fifteenth century.

A translation appeared in Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, I, No. xlviii, ed. J. Jacobs, II, p. 8 et seq., London, 1890 (see Bolte and Polívka, vol. iii, p. 399n1).

The following translation is taken from the English edition by W. G. Waters, London, 1897, p. 102 et seq.:—

A certain Florentine master-builder, named Bindo, undertakes to repair the campanile at Venice. So well does he do the work that the Doge gives him an order to build a palace containing a treasury. This Bindo does, but secretly builds a moving stone into one of the treasury walls.

By this time Bindo and his family have moved to Venice, and his son, Ricciardo, becomes so extravagant that Bindo is forced to have resource to the treasury. He tells his son about the secret entrance and together they make their way into the treasury, and remove a valuable golden cup.

The loss would not have been noticed had not a cardinal paid the Doge a visit, in whose honour the gold plate was to be used. The chamberlains, in whose keeping were the keys of the treasury, can find no explanation of the mystery. Grass is burnt in the treasury and the smoke reveals the loose stone. The Doge bids all keep silent and places a cauldron of boiling pitch just under the entrance. Bindo and his son soon call again, and the father is caught in the pitch. Ricciardo weeps bitterly when Bindo bids him cut off his head, but he finally does so.

The body is dragged through the streets and Bindo’s wife cries out with grief and Ricciardo only escapes by stabbing himself with a dagger and saying his mother is weeping at the sight of his wound.

The body is now hung publicly in the piazza. Once again the mother weeps, demanding that Bindo’s body be taken down and properly buried. At this point fresh incidents are introduced which are of considerable interest.

The tale continues:

When the young man perceived that his mother was minded to do this thing, he began to deliberate how he might best rescue from the gibbet his father’s body. He procured twelve black hoods of the sort worn by friars; next he went out one night to the harbour, and brought back with him twelve porters, whom he made enter the house by the door behind, and then he took them into a small room where he gave them to eat and drink all they could desire. And as soon as these fellows were well filled with wine, he made them dress themselves in the monks’ hoods, and put on certain masks made in hideous imitation of the human face. Then he gave to each one of them a torch of lighted fire to bear in his hand, and thus they all seemed to be veritable demons of the pit, so well were they disguised by the masks they wore. And he himself leapt upon a horse, which was covered all over with black housings, the cloth thereof being all studded with hooks, to every one of which was fastened a lighted candle.

Then having donned a mask, wrought in very wonderful fashion, he put himself at the head of his band, and said to them:

“Now every one of you must do what I do.”

And in this wise they took their way to the piazza, where the body was exposed on the gibbet; and when they arrived there they all set themselves to run about the piazza, now here, and now there, the hour being well past midnight, and the night very dark.

When the guards saw what strange thing had come to pass, they were all seized with dread, and fancied that the forms they espied must be those of devils from hell, and that he who sat upon the horse in such guise must be no other than great Lucifer himself. Wherefore, when they saw him making his way towards the gibbet, they all took to their heels through fright, while the young man seized the body and placed it in front of him upon the saddle-bow. Then he drove before him his troop, and took them back with him to his house. After he had given them a certain sum of money, and taken away from them the friars’ hoods, he dismissed them, and then went and buried the corpse in the earth as privily as he could.

The following morning the news was taken to the Doge how the body aforesaid had been snatched away; whereupon he sent for the guards and demanded to know from them how the corpse could have been stolen.

The guards said to him:

“Signor, it is the truth that last night, after midnight had struck, there came into the piazza a great company of devils, amongst whom we distinctly saw the great Lucifer himself, and we believe that he seized, and devoured the body. On this account we all took to flight when we saw this great troop of devils coming against us to carry off the body.”

The Doge saw clearly that this theft had been done by some crafty dealing, and now set his wits to work to contrive how he might find out the one who had done it; so he called together his secret council, and they determined to let publish a decree that for the next twenty days it should not be lawful for anyone to sell fresh meat in Venice, and the decree was issued accordingly, and all the people were greatly astonished at what the Doge had commanded to be done.

But during this time he caused to be slaughtered a very delicate sucking calf, and ordered it to be offered for sale at a florin a pound, charging the man who was to sell the same that he should consider well all those who might come to buy the meat. He deliberated with himself and said:

“As a rule the thief is bound to be a glutton as well; therefore this fellow will not be able to keep himself long from coming for some of this meat, and it will never irk him to spend a florin for a pcund thereof.”

Then he made a proclamation setting forth that whosoever might desire any of the meat must come for it into the piazza. All the merchants and the gentlefolk of the city came to buy some of it, but not one of them deemed it to be worth a florin a pound, wherefore no one bought any of it. The news of what was being done was spread through all the place, and it soon came to the ears of the mother of the young man Ricciardo. As soon as she heard it she said to her son:

“In sooth I feel very great longing for a piece of this veal.”

Then Ricciardo answered and said:

“Mother, be not in too great a hurry, and let some others take the first cut therefrom. Then I will see that you get some of the veal; but I do not desire to be the one who shall take the first portion.”

But his mother, like the foolish woman she was, kept on begging him to do her will, and the son, out of fear lest she might send someone else to purchase the meat, bade her make a pie, and himself took a bottle of wine and mixed in the same certain narcotic drugs; and then when night had fallen he took some loaves of bread, and the pie, and the wine aforesaid, and, having disguised himself in a beard and a large cloak, he went to the stall where the carcass of the calf, which was still entire, was exposed for sale.

After he had knocked, one of those who were on the watch cried out:

“Who is there, and what is your name?”

Whereupon Ricciardo answered:

“Can you tell me where I shall find the stall of a certain one named Ventura?”

The other replied:

“What Ventura is it you seek?”

Ricciardo said:

“In sooth I know not what his surname may be, for, as ill luck will have it, I have never yet come across him.”

Then the watchman went on to say:

“But who is it who sends you to him?”

“It is his wife,” answered Ricciardo,

“who sends me, having given me certain things to take to him in order that he may sup. But I beg you to do me a service, and this is, to take charge of these things for a little, while I go back home to inform myself better where he lives. There is no reason why you should be surprised that I am ignorant of this thing, forasmuch as it is yet but a short time since I came to abide in this place.”

With these words he left in their keeping the pie, and the bread, and the wine, and made pretence of going away, saying:

“I will be back in a very short time.”

The guards took charge of the things, and then one of them said:

“See the Ventura[39] that has come to us this evening”;

and then he put the bottle of wine to his mouth, and drank and passed it on o his neighbour, saying:

“Take some of this, for you never drank better wine in all your life.”

His companion took a draught, and as they sat talking over this adventure, they all of them fell asleep.

All this time Ricciardo had been standing at a crevice of the door, and when he saw that the guards were asleep he straightway entered, and took hold of the carcass of the calf, and carried it, entire as it was, back to his house, and spake thus to his mother:

“Now you can cut as much veal as you like and as often as you like”;

whereupon his mother cooked a portion of the meat in a large broth-pot.

The Doge, as soon as they had let him know how the carcass of the calf had been stolen, and the trick which had been used in compassing the theft, was mightily astonished, and was seized with a desire to learn who this thief might be. Therefore he caused to be brought to him a hundred poor beggars, and after he had taken the names of each one of them he said:

“Now go and call at all the houses in Venice, and make a show of asking for alms, and be sure to keep a careful watch the while to see whether in any house there are signs of flesh being cooked, or a broth-pot over the fire. If you shall find this, do not fail to use such importunity that the people of the house shall give you to eat either of the meat or of the broth, and hasten at once to bring word to me, and whosoever shall bring me this news shall get twenty florins reward.”

Thereupon the hundred scurvy beggars spread themselves abroad through all the streets of Venice, asking for alms, and one of them happened to go into the house of Ricciardo; and, having gone up the stairs, he saw plain before his eyes the meat which was being cooked, and begged the mother in God’s name to give him somewhat of the same, and she, foolish as she was, and deeming that she had enough of meat and to spare, gave him a morsel.

The fellow thanked her and said: “I will pray to God for your sake,” and then made his way down the stairs.

There he met with Ricciardo, who, when he saw the bit of meat in the beggar’s hand, said to him:

“Come up with me, and then I will give you some more.”

The beggar forthwith went upstairs with Ricciardo, who took him into the chamber and there smote him over the head with an axe. As soon as the beggar was dead, Ricciardo threw his body down through the jakes and locked the door.

When evening was come all the beggars returned to the Doge’s presence, as they had promised, and every one of them told how he had failed to find anything. The Doge caused the tale of the beggars to be taken, and called over the names of them; whereupon he found that one of them was lacking. This threw him into astonishment; but after he had pondered over the affair, he said:

“Of a surety this missing man has been killed.”

He called together his council and spake thus:

“In truth it is no more than seemly that I should know who may have done this deed”;

and then a certain one of the council gave his advice in these words:

“Signor, you have tried to fathom this mystery by an appeal to the sin of gluttony; make a trial now by appealing to the sin of lechery.”

The Doge replied:

“Let him who knows of a better scheme than this, speak at once.”

Thereupon the Doge sought out twenty-five of the young men of the city, the most mischievous and the most crafty that were to be found, and those whom he held most in suspicion, and amongst them was numbered Ricciardo. And when these young men found that they were to be kept and entertained in the palace they were all filled with wonder, saying to each other:

“What does the Doge mean by maintaining us in this fashion?”

Afterwards the Doge caused to be prepared in a room of the palace twenty-five beds, one for every one of the twenty-five youths aforesaid. And next there was got ready in the middle of the same room a sumptuous bed in which the Doge’s own daughter, a young woman of the most radiant beauty, was wont to sleep. And every evening, when all those young men had gone to rest, the waiting-woman came and conducted the Doge’s daughter to the bed aforesaid. Her father, meantime, had given to her a basin full of black dye, and had said to her:

“If it should happen that any of these young men should come to bed to you, see that you mark his face with the dye so that you may know him again.”

All the young men were greatly astonished at what the Doge had caused to be done, but not one of them had hardihood enough to go to the damsel, each one saying to himself:

“Of a surety this is nothing but some trick or other.”

Now on a certain night Ricciardo became conscious of a great desire to go to the damsel. It was already past midnight, and all the lights were extinguished; and Ricciardo, being quite mastered by his lustful desire, got out of his bed very softly and went to the bed where the damsel lay. Then he gently went in to her, and began to embrace and kiss her. The damsel was awakened by this, and forthwith dipped her finger into the bowl of dye, and marked therewith the face of Ricciardo, who perceived not what she had done. Then, when he had done what he had come to do and had taken the pleasure he desired, he went back to his own bed, and began to think:

“What can be the meaning of this? What trick may this be?”

And after a short time had passed he bethought him how pleasant was the fare he had just tasted, and again there came upon him the desire to go back to the damsel, which he did straightway. The damsel, feeling the young man about her once more, roused herself and again stained and marked him on the face. But this time Ricciardo perceived what she had done, and took away with him the bowl of dye which stood at the head of the bed in which the damsel lay. Then he went round the room on all sides, and marked with dye the faces of all the other young men that lay in their beds so softly that no one perceived what he was doing; and to some he gave two streaks, and to some six, and to some ten, and to himself he gave four over and above those two with which the damsel herself had marked him. Having done this he replaced the bowl at the head of her bed, and gathered her with the sweetest delight in a farewell embrace, and then made his way back to his own couch.

The next morning early the waiting-woman came to the damsel’s bed to help her dress, and when this was done they took her into the presence of the Doge, who at once asked her how the affair had gone.

Then said the damsel:

“Excellently well, forasmuch as I have done all you charged me to do. One of the young men came to me three times, and every time I marked him on the face with the dye”;

whereupon the Doge sent forthwith for the counsellors who had advised him in the matter, and said to them:

“I have laid hands on my friend at last, and now I am minded that we should go and see for ourselves.”

When they had come into the room, and had looked around on this side and on that, and perceived that all the young men were marked in the face, they raised such a laugh as had never been raised before, and said:

“Of a truth this fellow must have a wit more subtle than any man we have ever seen”;

for after a little they came to the conclusion that one of the young men must have marked all the rest. And when the young men themselves saw how they were all marked with dye they jested over the same with the greatest pleasure and jollity.

Then the Doge made examination of them all, and, finding himself unable to spy out who had done this thing, he determined to fathom the same by one means or another. Therefore he promised to the one concerned that he would give him his daughter to wife, with a rich dowry, and a free pardon for all he had done; for he judged that this man must needs be one of excellent understanding. On this account Ricciardo, when he saw and understood what the Doge was minded to do, went to him privily and narrated to him the whole matter from beginning to end. The Doge embraced him and gave him his pardon, and then with much rejoicing let celebrate the marriage of Ricciardo and his daughter. Ricciardo plucked up heart again and became a man of such worth and valour and magnanimity that well-nigh the whole of the government of the state fell into his hands. And thus he lived many years in peace and in the enjoyment of the love of all the people of Venice.

The above version contains nearly all the important incidents found in so many later variants, but is clearly based on the French version of Dolopathos.

The death of the beggar is not quite so common. It occurs, however, in a Sicilian, French, Kabaīl, Aramaic and Georgian version.

The marking of the thief by the princess is found in several other versions: Old French, Dutch, South Siberian and Swedish-Finnish (see translation below on page 282). In another French version, as well as in two North African variants, the princess clips off a bit of his beard or moustache for future recognition.

In an Italian tale in Comparetti’s Novelline Popolari ltaliane, Torino, 1875, No. 13, p. 52 et seq., she cuts off a portion of his clothes.

This “marking the culprit” motif is, of course, very common in folk-tales: see Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. ii, pp. 164-165; and the numerous examples given in Chauvin, op. cit., v, p. 83 n 2; A. C. Lee, The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues, 1909, pp. 67-70; and Bolte and Polivka, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 543.

We will now look at a Gypsy version from Roumania. It forms No. 6, “îl dui cïor (cei doui Hoṭi)” in Dr Barbu Constantinescu’s Probe de Limba Ṣi Literatura Ṭiganilor din Romãnia, Bucharest, 1878, pp. 79-87. The stories are given in the original Rómani with a Roumanian translation. It then appeared in English with notes by F. H. Groome in the Journal of the Gypsy-Lore Society, vol. iii, July, 1891, pp. 142-151 (cf. also Academy, 29th November 1890, pp. 506-507).

The “thief” variety of story appears to be very popular amongst the gypsies, for in his Gypsy Folk-Tales F. H. Groome gives no less than five “master thief” stories, one of which is a fairly close variant of the tale of Rhampsinitus. The end of it, however, resembles Grimm’s “Meisterdieb,” No. 192, and is found more complete in a Slovak-Gypsy story (see R. von Sowa’s Mundart der Slovakischen Zigeuner, Göttingen, 1887, No. 8, p. 174).

“The Two Thieves,” as the story we are about to discuss is called, is one of the fifteen (not thirteen as stated by Groome, op. cit., p. liii) stories in Constantinescu’s collection. As he notes in his most interesting Introduction, the gypsies form an important channel of story-migration, and one, I would add, which folklorists have rather neglected.

“The gypsies quitted India,” says Groome,

“at an unknown date, probably taking with them some scores of Indian folk-tales, as they certainly took with them many hundreds of Indian words. By way of Persia and Armenia, they arrived in the Greek-speaking Balkan Peninsula, and tarried there for several centuries, probably disseminating their Indian folk-tales, and themselves picking up Greek folk-tales.... From the Balkan Peninsula they have spread since 1417, or possibly earlier, to Siberia, Norway, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Brazil, and the countries between, everywhere probably disseminating the folk-tales they started with and those they picked up by the way, and everywhere probably adding to their store. Thus I take it they picked up the complete Rhampsinitus story in the Balkan Peninsula, and carried it thence to Roumania and Scotland.”

Space will not permit any further discussion of this fascinating and highly important question.

I can merely give here the story of “The Two Thieves,” which appears on pp. 41-46 of Groome’s work. Reference should be made to pp. 46-53, where the Slovak-Gypsy variant of Grimm’s story is given, followed by other versions and some useful notes on the story under discussion.

There was a time when there was. There were two thieves. One was a country thief, and one a town thief. So the time came that the two met, and they asked one another whence they are and what they are.

Then the country thief said to the town one:

“Well, if you’re such a clever thief as to be able to steal the eggs from under a crow, then I shall know that you are a thief.”

He said: “See me, how I’ll steal them.”

And he climbed lightly up the tree, and put his hand under the crow, and stole the eggs from her, and the crow never felt it. Whilst he was stealing the crow’s eggs, the country thief stole his breeches, and the town thief never felt him.

And when he came down and saw that he was naked, he said:

“Brother, I never felt you stealing my breeches; let’s become brothers.”

So they became brothers.

Then what are they to do? They went into the city, and took one wife between them. And the town thief said:

“Brother, it is a sin for two brothers to have one wife. It were better for her to be yours.”

He said: “Mine be she.”

“But, come now, where I shall take you, that we may get money.”

“Come on, brother, since you know.”

So they took and departed. Then they came to the king’s, and considered how to get into his palace. And what did they devise?

Said the town thief:

“Come, brother, and let us break into the palace, and let ourselves down one after the other.”

“Come on.”

So they got on the palace, and broke through the roof; and the country thief lowered himself, and took two hundred purses of money, and came out. And they went home.

Then the king arose in the morning, and looked at his money, and saw that two hundred purses of money were missing. Straightway he arose and went to the prison, where was an old thief.

And when he came to him, he asked him:

“Old thief, I know not who has come into my palace, and stolen from me two hundred purses of money. And I know not where they went out by, for there is no hole anywhere in the palace.”

The old thief said:

“There must be one, O King, only you don’t see it. But go and make a fire in the palace, and come out and watch the palace; and where you see smoke issuing, that was where the thieves entered. And do you put a cask of molasses just there at that hole, for the thief will come again who stole the money.”

Then the king went and made a fire, and saw the hole where the smoke issues in the roof of the palace. And he went and got a cask of molasses, and put it there at the hole. Then the thieves came again there at night to that hole. And the thief from the country let himself down again; and as he did so he fell into the cask of molasses.

And he said to his brother:

“Brother, it is all over with me. But, not to do the king’s pleasure, come and cut off my head, for I am as good as dead.”

So his comrade lowered himself down, and cut off his head, and went and buried it in a wood.

So, when the king arose, he arose early, and went there where the thief had fallen, and sees the thief there in the cask of molasses, and with no head. Then what is he to do? He took and went to the old thief, and told him:

“Look you, old thief, I caught the thief, and he has no head.”

Then the old thief said:

“There! O King, this is a cunning thief. But what are you to do? Why, take the corpse and hang it up outside the city gate. And he who stole his head will come to steal him too. And do you set soldiers to watch him.”

So the king went and took the corpse, and hung it up, and set soldiers to watch it.

Then the thief took and bought a white mare and a cart, and took a jar of twenty measures of wine. And he put it in the cart, and drove straight to the place where his comrade was hanging. He made himself very old, and pretended the cart had broken down, and the jar had fallen out. And he began to weep and tear his hair, and he made himself to cry aloud, that he was a poor man, and his master would kill him.

The soldiers guarding the corpse said one to another:

“Let’s help to put this old fellow’s jar in the cart, mates, for it’s a pity to hear him.”

So they went to help him, and said to him:

“Hullo! old chap, we’ll put your jar in the cart; will you give us a drop to drink?”

That I will, deary.”

So they went and put the jar in the cart. And the old fellow took and said to them:

“Take a pull, deary, for I have nothing to give it you in.”

So the soldiers took and drank till they could drink no more.

And the old fellow made himself to ask: “And what is this?”

The soldiers said: “That is a thief.”

Then the old man said:

“Hullo! deary, I shan’t spend the night here, else that thief will steal my mare.”

Then the soldiers said:

“What a silly you are, old fellow! How will he come and steal your mare?”

“He will, though, deary. Isn’t he a thief?”

Shut up, old fellow. He won’t steal your mare; and if he does, we’ll pay you for her.”

“He will steal her, deary; he’s a thief.”

“Why, old boy, he’s dead. We’ll give you our written word that if he steals your mare we will pay you three hundred groats for her.”

Then the old man said:

“All right, deary, if that’s the case.”

So he stayed there. He placed himself near the fire, and a drowsy fit took him, and he pretended to sleep. The soldiers kept going to the jar of wine, and drank every drop of the wine, and got drunk. And where they fell there they slept, and took no thought. The old chap, the thief, who pretended to sleep, arose and stole the corpse from the gallows, and put it on his mare, and carried it into the forest and buried it. And he left his mare there and went back to the fire and pretended to sleep.

And when the soldiers arose, and saw that neither the corpse was there nor the old man’s mare, they marvelled, and said:

“There! my comrades, the old man said rightly the thief would steal his mare. Let’s make it up to him.”

So by the time the old man arose they gave him four hundred groats, and begged him to say no more about it.

Then when the king arose, and saw there was no thief on the gallows, he went to the old thief in the prison, and said to him:

“There! they have stolen the thief from the gallows, old thief! What am I to do?”

“Did not I tell you, O King, that this is a cunning thief? But do you go and buy up all the joints of meat in the city. And charge a ducat the two pounds, so that no one will care to buy any, unless he has come into a lot of money. But that thief won’t be able to hold out three days.”

Then the king went and bought up all the joints, and left one joint; and that one he priced at a ducat the pound. So nobody came to buy that day. Next day the thief would stay no longer. He took a cart and put a horse in it, and drove to the meat-market. And he pretended he had damaged his cart, and lamented he had not an axe to repair it with. Then a butcher said to him:

“Here, take my axe, and mend your cart.”

The axe was close to the meat. As he passed to take the axe, he picked up a big piece of meat, and stuck it under his coat. And he handed the axe back to the butcher, and departed home.

The same day comes the king, and asks the butchers:

“Have you sold any meat to any one?”

They said:

“We have not sold to any one.”

So the king weighed the meat, and found it twenty pounds short. And he went to the old thief in prison, and said to him:

“He has stolen twenty pounds of meat, and no one saw him.”

“Didn’t I tell you, O King, that this is a cunning thief?”

“Well, what I am to do, old thief?”

“What are you to do? Why, make a proclamation, and offer in it all the money you possess, and say he shall become a king in your stead, merely to tell who he is.”

Then the king went and wrote the proclamation, just as the old thief had told him. And he posted it outside by the gate. And the thief comes and reads it, and thought how he should act. And he took his heart in his teeth and went to the king, and said:

“O King, I am the thief.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

Then the king said:

“If you it be, that I may believe you are really the man, do you see this peasant coming? Well, you must steal the ox from under the yoke without his seeing you.”

Then the thief said:

“I’ll steal it, O King; watch me.”

And he went before the peasant, and began to cry aloud:

“Comedy of Comedies!”

Then the peasant said:

“See there, God! Many a time have I been in the city, and have often heard ‘Comedy of Comedies,’ and have never gone to see what it is like.”

And he left his cart, and went off to the other end of the city; and the thief kept crying out till he had got the peasant some distance from the oxen. Then the thief returns, and takes the ox, and cuts off its tail, and sticks it in the mouth of the other ox, and came away with the first ox to the king. Then the king laughed fit to kill himself. The peasant, when he came back, began to weep; and the king called him, and asked:

“What are you weeping for, my man?”

“Why, O King, whilst I was away to see the play, one of the oxen has gone and eaten up the other.”

When the king heard that, he laughed fit to kill himself, and he told his servant to give him two good oxen. And he gave him also his own ox, and asked him:

“Do you recognise your ox, my man?”

“I do, O King.”

“Well, away you go home.”

And he went to the thief.

“Well, my fine fellow, I will give you my daughter, and you shall become king in my stead, if you will steal the priest for me out of the church.”

Then the thief went into the town, and got three hundred crabs and three hundred candles, and went to the church, and stood up on the pavement. And as the priest chanted, the thief let out the crabs one by one, each with a candle fastened to its claw; and he let it out.

And the priest said:

“So righteous am I in the sight of God that He sends His saints for me.”

The thief let out all the crabs, each with a candle fastened to its claw, and lie said:

“Come, O priest, for God calls thee by His messengers to Himself, for thou art righteous.”

The priest said:

“And how am I to go?”

“Get into this sack.”

And he let down the sack; and the priest got in; and he lifted him up, and dragged him down the steps. And the priest’s head went tronk;, tronk. And he took him on his back, and carried him to the king, and tumbled him down. And the king burst out laughing. And straightway he gave his daughter to the thief, and made him king in his stead.

It will be seen that in its chief incidents the above gypsy version resembles the original Rhampsinitus talc, but, like many other variants, has had portions of another story added to it. As in Dolopathos, and nearly a dozen other variants, it is an “old man,” at one time a thief himself, who tells the king what schemes to employ in order to catch the thief.

The incident of the meat is found in about ten variants, apart from the tale in II Pecorone. The incident of the one thief taking the breeches off the other occurs, with differences, in the Kashmiri tale of “Shabrang, Prince and Thief” (J. II. Knowles, Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2nd edition, 1893, p. Ill), but here the thief has to secure the paijāmas of a labourer by sheer trickery.

As has already been noticed, the latter part of the gypsy variant closely resembles Grimm’s No. 192. Here the crabs crawl about the churchyard, and the thief, disguised as Peter, says they are the spirits of the dead who have just risen, and are now searching for their bones.

Although the “crab and candle” incident is not in the main portion of the gypsy story, we have seen (p. 268) that in the version of Ser Giovanni candles are used on the horses’ trappings to disguise the thief as Lucifer. And in three other versions (Sicilian, French and North African) the guards are frightened by a herd of goats to whose heads are attached pots containing candles.

We will now contrast an interesting Finnish version in Old Swedish, which, as far as I know, has never before been translated into English. The story appears to have been very popular in Finland, where about fifteen versions are found (see Aarne, “Verzeichnis der Märchentypen,” Helsingfors, 1910, and “Finnische Märchenvarianten,” Hamina, 1911, FF Communications 3, p. 40, and 5, p. 77). Bolte describes the version given below as Swedish, but in reality it is Finnish, being written in the Swredish spoken by the Finns about the fifteenth century.

The version in question is to be found in Ȧberg, Nyländska Folksagor, 2 häftet, Helsingfors, 1887, and is here translated literally—the somewhat disjointed style of the Old Swedish and constant use of short sentences being preserved.

 

The Bank Thief

Once there was a student. He went to a town to learn building.

When they had built the bank, he said to his master:

“Now we will go and steal in the bank to-night.”

“How is that to be done? It is strongly built, and then there are guards,” said the master.

“I have made a secret door, and we can go through that,”

said the other. They went, and the two following nights the student entered, but on the third night he let the master go in. He went. But now the king had found out about the theft. So he put in a machine, that cut off the thief’s head. But the student knew what to do, and took the head away. As the king could not recognise [the thief by] the body alone, he put it on a cart and drove it up and down the streets, thinking that somebody, his wife at least, would recognise the body, and, on seeing it, cry out loudly. When the student heard about this, he went up to the window and stood there looking out. Just when they were passing by with the headless body, he cut his chin a little. When the wife saw the body, she cried out.

The king asked what all the noise was about. The student answered:

“The mistress became so frightened when I cut my chin a little while shaving.”

As the king could not find out who was the thief in this way, he caused a watch-house to be built outside the town, and placed the body inside. Six men were put to guard it outside and six inside. The king thought that somebody would try to take the body away, and that this would be the one to whom it belonged. When the student heard about this, he ordered twelve clerical gowns to be made, and when he had got them, he went from one toll-gate to the other and bought a large amount of liquor.

Then he went to the watch-house, asking if he might stay there for one night. But the guards were strictly forbidden to let anybody stay there, and dared not keep him over the night.

He said:

“Why can’t you let me stay for one night? I will help you to guard, if you let me stay.”

Thus, he was allowed to stay. He then gave them some of the liquor. At first they would not touch it, but when he said that he would keep watch if they chanced to go to sleep, they took some of it. Before long they were all asleep. Then he dressed them all in the clerical gowns and took the corpse away.

When the first guard awoke and saw what had happened, he called the others, saying to each of them:

“Good morning, your Reverence! That traveller has gone away with the corpse and now the devil will take us! I suggest that we all go to the king and ask him for a paṛṣ each.”

So they did. The king thought:

“Where the devil have all these priests come from?”

However, he gave them a paṛṣ each.

When the king could not find out the thief in this way, he arranged for a large party, to which he invited all his subjects. The student was there too.

The king threw some money on the floor, saying to himself:

“He who stole in the bank will not leave this alone either.”

When the student saw what had been done, he fixed something under his boots which caught up the money. Thus, when he saw a coin, he at once stepped on it, and going outside took it off.

When the king was unable to find the thief in this way, he said:

“Everybody that has been to this party must stay here to-night,”

thinking that he who was such a rascal could not leave the princess alone, but would go and sleep with her. He gave her a bottle [of colour or dye] so that she could mark the one who went to her. All happened [as had been expected] and the student slept with the princess. She marked him, but while she was asleep he took the bottle and marked her and all the others too.

When the king woke up and saw this, he said to himself:

“They have all been sleeping with the princess, so now I cannot find the thief. He must be a very clever man.”

Then he said to them:

“He who has stolen in the bank and taken the head away from the body and the body away from the twelve guards and made them priests, and who dared to take the money from my floor, he shall be my son-in-law.”

Then the student went up to the king, bowed and said he had done it.

“Oh, is it you, you rascal?”

said the king, and gave him his daughter and also the country.

In the above version, the most noticeable divergence from other variants is the incident about the cutting off of the head, in that it is done by a machine put in the bank by the king and not by the son or accomplice.

The main incidents from Herodotus still appear. A new addition is the amusing incident of the “priests” obtaining a paṛṣ each, although in the Old Dutch poem, “De Deif van Brugghe” (see the reprint by G. W. Dasent, Zeit. f. d. Alterth., vol. v, 1845, p. 399), the guards are dressed in monks’ clothing. The scattering of the money is found in several versions, modern Greek, Aramaic, South Siberian, Kabaïl and Georgian. The marking of the thief by the princess has already (p. 275) been referred to when dealing with the version of Ser Giovanni.

Inquiries made at the University of Upsala convince me that the Finns and Swedes got the story from Russia, possibly in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but certainly prior to the Russo-Swedish War of 1571-1577.

 

---------------------------------

In conclusion I would return to the East and mention the Tibetan version, which is of considerable interest, because we know it was directly derived from Sanskrit and was incorporated in the sacred Tibetan Canon—the Ka-gyur (or Kañjur).

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries many Indian Buddhist refugees settled in Tibet, and, with the active assistance of the most learned of the Lāmas, proceeded to translate the Sanskrit texts of Indian Buddhism into Tibetan. The huge work involved can be appreciated when we remember that the Ka-gyur runs to 100 volumes (or in some editions to 108, the sacred number).

Details of these sacred texts will be found in the excellent Introduction by W. R. S. Ralston to Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales, London, 1882.

The Tibetan version occurs in the Ka-gyur, iv, 132-135, and appears on pp. 37-43 of the above work. It is also given nearly in full by Clouston, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 145-148, so that there is no need to repeat it again here. I would, however, give a brief résumé of the tale owing to its relationship with that of Somadeva.

A certain widow entrusts her son to a weaver, his uncle. In time the son learns that his uncle is a thief by night, and is anxious to join him in his adventures. The son soon proves his capabilities for such work. They start house-breaking and make a hole [ cf. Somadeva’s tale where they break through a wall into a house]. The nephew reproves his uncle for putting his head in the hole first instead of his feet. Hardly is the change effected when the cry of “Thieves!” is raised. The son cuts off the head. The body is exposed and guarded. The son pretends he is mad and goes about embracing everybody and everything—including, of course, the body of his uncle. He then drives up disguised as a carter with a load of wood, to which he sets fire and so burns the body. Next he assumes the garb of a Brāhman and makes an oblation of cakes on the spot where the body was burned. He now appears as a Kāpālika [see Ocean, Vol. II, p. 90 n 3] and so manages to fling the bones into the Ganges. By a further trick he enjoys the king’s daughter and a son is born. Later the boy chooses his father out of the assembled populace and gives him a wreath of flowers. He is thus discovered, but the king considers he is far too clever to be killed, and the wedding takes place.

In this version we see at once the close relationship with our story of Ghaṭa and Karpara. Both versions have given prominence to the necessity for the proper Hindu burial rites to be performed, and it is only after their due completion that the thief can find contentment of mind.

The Tibetan version, however, has the incident of the child and wreath of flowers. This occurs, with variations, in Dolopathos (French version), in a West Highland and in a Mingrelian (Caucasian) version. The Tibetan tale is unusual in that the thief is caught by this ruse, most variants following Dolopathos, and allowing him to escape once again.

To summarise briefly, I would regard the “Story of Ghaṭa and Karpara” on pp. 142-146 of this volume as one of the numerous variants of the “Tale of Rhampsinitus” as told by Herodotus (Book II, p. 121).

Exactly how and when it got to India are questions I do not even hope to answer. My own opinion is that it found its way across the Indian Ocean in Ptolemaic times, very possibly during the reign of Philadelphia (284-246 B.C.), when the trade and diplomatic relations between Egypt and India were in progress. The natural appeal of the tale soon caused it to be gathered into (Guṇāḍhya’s net, and so it appears in Somadeva.

As to the “Tale of Rhampsinitus” itself, until fresh evi dence to the contrary is produced, I would look upon it as of real Egyptian origin. All the main incidents are Egyptian, though minor alterations and fresh incidents might have been added by Karian dragomans as the centuries rolled by. It seems quite possible that the tale may date back to an early dynasty and in some way be connected with the myths of Isis and Osiris.

It found its way to Greece somewhere about 150 B.C., when it became incorporated with ancient Greek myths of pre-Homeric date. It received fresh impetus by its inclusion in the Seven Sages, and kindred mediæval collections. The numerous languages into which these collections were translated spread the tale of the Two Thieves all over Kurope. This dissemination may have been considerably helped by the gypsies, who picked up the tale in the Balkans and included it in their general stock-in-trade of stories.

The “Tale of Rhampsinitus” therefore, affords one of the most interesting and perfect examples of the longevity and migration of a really good tale, the history of which can be traced for over two thousand, three hundred years.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

I choose the version from the Baehr text by Henry Cary, in Bohn’s Classical Library, 1877, pp. 141-144. Apart from Rawlinson’s translation (to be mentioned later), I would draw special attention to that by A. D. Godley, issued in 1920, in the Loeb Classical Library. Like all the volumes in this excellent “Library,” the translations and the text are printed on opposite pages. The text followed is that of Stein.

[2]:

See also J. P. Lewis, Orientalist, vol. iii, 1888, pp. 148, 149.

[3]:

For the latest general article on Trophonius see W. H. Roscher’s Aurführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, vol. v, cols. 1265-1278, Leipzig, 1916-1924.

[4]:

Readers will no doubt notice some resemblance between this tale and the story of Aśoka and his son Kuṇāla to which I have already referred in my first note on the “women whose love is scorned” motif (Vol. II, p. 120). Benfey was, I believe, the first scholar who drew attention to this (see his Orient und Occident, vol. iii, p. 177 et seq.).

[5]:

See Killis Campbell, The Seven Sages of Rome, p. xv. Huston, 1907.

[6]:

Iohannis de Alta Silva Dolopathos, sive de Rege et Septem Sapientibus. Strassburg, 1873.

[7]:

Historia Septem Sapientum, ii. Heidelberg, 191 S.

[8]:

The stories in the Western group are now always known by their Latin names: canis, gaza, series, creditor, etc. They were first applied by Goedeke, Orient und Occident, 1886, vol. iii, p. 423.

[9]:

Hilka reads partitis, which is obviously correct.

[10]:

These two versions of Dolopathos have not been sufficiently distinguished by Campbell and other authors on the subject.

[11]:

Si.

[12]:

Qu’il reféist.

[13]:

K. Campbell, Study of the Romance of the Seven Sages with Special Reference to the Middle English Versions, 1898.

[14]:

At once.

[15]:

Wicked.

[16]:

Shall.

[17]:

Certainly.

[18]:

Sooner.

[19]:

Disgraced.

[20]:

Of greater and lesser importance.

[21]:

Blessing.

[22]:

Secret.

[23]:

Worse.

[24]:

Averse.

[25]:

Privy.

[26]:

Quickly.

[27]:

Immediately.

[28]:

Means of identifying.

[29]:

Caused.

[30]:

Quickly.

[31]:

That.

[32]:

Every.

[33]:

Dwelt.

[34]:

Together.

[35]:

These have been fully dealt with by G. Paris in his Deux Rédactions, where he classifies under eight different headings. See also Campbell, op. cit., pp. xxii, xxiii.

[36]:

History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, edited by G. L. Gomme. Villon Society, London, 1885.

[37]:

The seuin Seages: Translatit (?) oui(?) of prois in Scottis meter be Iohne Rolland in Dalkeith. 1578 [1560]. Reprinted by D. Laing for the Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1837.

[38]:

La Version Arménienne de L’Histoire des Sept Sages de Rome. Mise en Français par F. Macler. Intro, by Chauvin. Paris, 1919.

[39]:

I.e. “Good Fortune.”

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