The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-11 00:00:00

THE MIGRATION OF FABLES.

At the Royal Institution, on Friday evening, Pro-
feisor Max Muller delivered a lecture on the "Migra-
tion of Fables;" tracing the history of some familiar
examples of this class of literature, unti their scurce
was lost in the mist of Indian antiquity.

Ile commenced his discourse with the familiar adage,
'count not your chicken, before they are hatched," and
expressed his belief that most hearers, if asked for its origin,
wonid, without heaitation, refer to Lafontaine, and to his
milkmaid, Perrette. But about the year 550 of the Chris-
tian era, it was told to Khnsru Nuahlrvan, King of Persia,
that there existed in India hooka of great worth and wisdom,
capable of instructing mat kind in matters important to
their welfare. The King d -sired that his own subjects
should share In the benefits to be obtained from these
bodes, and he instructed his Vizier to employ a pro-
per person to obtain and trenslate them. The Royal phy-
sician, Bareftieb, wet selected for the work, and succeeded
In accomplishing it. Barznyeh refused all reward beyond a
dress of honour, but stipulated that a notice of his own life
and opinions, probably written by himself, should be ap-
pended to the work. Of this notice Professor Max Muller
said that it was a Renato Medici of the sixth century, anti
that it exhibited the thoughts of a man who turned away
from formalities in search of truth, and who, like many such
seekers before and since, found his best refuge from the un-
certabdies of life in his endeavours to alleviate the sufferings
of his fehow-men. Among the Indian writings thus translated
was a collection of fables known ox the Panka Twit ra, or
flee hooks; and they were rendered into Pehlevi, the ancient
language of Persia The original version by Bartflyeh, is
I•sst. Mit between the years 754 and 775 it was trans-
lated from Pehlevi into Arabic by Abdallah urn Almo-
knife, who held high °Mee at the Court of Almamnr,
Khalif of Bagdad, the contemporary of Justinian. This
second rendering of the Panka Tanfra has been pre-
served, and an edition of it was published by de Sacy in 1816.
it containe among other fables the story of a Brahmin, who
collected rice by hegging, and put the surplus into a pot,
which he suspended over his couch. It occtured to him that
there might be a famine, in which case he would sell his rice
for a hundred rupees, and would bay two goats. The goats
wsuld multiply and become a herd, and he would sell them
and buy cown. The cows would calve, and increase In value,
and he would then buy buffaloes and cultivate land. With the
produce he would buy mares, anti would sell their foals for
gold, with which he would buy a fine house. Then a
Brahmin would bring hint his daughter in marriage, with a
rich dowry, and they would have a son, who should be called
Soino Sala, and should run to sit upon his father's knee. The
chit should so run when his father was sitting reading, and
would be In danger of being kicked by one of the mares. The
father would call out to his wife, " Take the baby ! Take
I the baby !" but she, intent on household carea, would neglect
the call. Then her enrtged husband would spring up and
give her a violent hick, and the Prahniin kicked out so
vigorously that he kicked his pot and broke it, and the rice
ran out and made him white all over, to that people said of
those who formed foolish plans that they should be made
white, like the father of Somo Sala.
The Professor then began to trace this fable in its course
toviards modern times, anti gave an account of some of the
modifications that it had undergone. In one of theme the
dreamer was a holy man who had collector' butter and honey,
and the immediate cause of the final catastrophe, the break-
age of the Jar, so that the butter and honey ran down up on
his heard, was the flourish given to his stick as an expression
of hi. determination to chastise the son who was to crown
his prosperity, if that son proved a negligent or backward
student, and failed to profit by the masters that would he
obtained for him. The version of Abtallah iba Almokaffa
was itself translated into Greek by Symon Seth, and from his
Greek into Italian anti Latin. It was also translated, directly
or indirectly, into Hebrew, Latin, German, Spanish, French,
and E••glish, but the versions from which Lafontaine appears
to have taken some of his stories c be through two emcee s•
site Persian translations, of which the second, a modernised
one, was long a II aileybory textbook, and which appeared in
French as the fables of the Indian sage Pilpay. Lafontaine
did not obtain Perrette from this scarce, as the original
tante was riot incleded in the collection, and Professor Max
tililier briefly traced the translations of the story of the
Castle Builder, and showed When the milkmaid was intro-
duced as the heroine.
Leaving this part of the subject, and after some remarks
on the vitality and the widely spread inflame° of Eastern
fable, the professor spike of one Sergius, a Christian, whO
held a position of tenet under Almansur, and whose son,
under the name of Johann," Demascenus, became a famous
theologian and controversial writer. Among other works,
he wrote a treatise on Christian morals, in the form of a
I kind of religions novel, the history of Balsam and Jon-
i phat. The latter was a young Prince, of whom it had been
t predicted that he would embrace Christianity, and become a
I devotee. His father endeavoured to seclude him from all
knowledge of human misery or evd and to attach him entirely
; to the pursuit of pleasure. But at lemth the young Pelee,'
• took three drives, and saw old age, sickness, end death. Ile
r became a Issrmit, and harl been accepted ait an actual person
i by both the Eastern and Western Caurches, and was canonized
by both. In the Greek Church the festival of St. Joeaphat Is
r celehrated on the 16th of Angust ;in the Church of Rome

on the 27th of November. But the ProlePeor pointed out
how certainly the son of a great officer at the Court of
Almananr would he acquainted with the Imlian 11;eratnre
that Anil:Bah tha Almokaff had translated from "'chit,'
into Arabic ; and then Cent on to chow that the history of
Josiphai WM simply the history et Buddha, ae given lu the