Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/19

Rh at Kumē, in South. Italy and Julien has given us a Chinese version in his 'Avadānas.' Erasmus, in his work on proverbs, alludes to the fable; and so also does our own Shakespeare in 'King John.' It is worthy of mention that in one of the later story-books — in a Persian translation, that is, of the Hitopadesa — there is a version of our fable in which, it is the vanity of the ass in trying to sing which leads to bis disguise being discovered, and thus brings him to grief. But Professor Benfey has shown that this version is simply the rolling into one of the present tale and of another, also widely prevalent, where an ass by trying to sing earns for himself, not thanks, but blows I shall hereafter attempt to draw some conclusions from the history of the story. But I would here point out that the fable could scarcely have originated in any country in which lions were not common; and that the Jātaka story gives a reasonable explanation of the ass being dressed in the skin, instead of saying that he dressed himself in it, as is said in our 'Æsop's Fables.'

The reader will notice that the 'moral' of the tale