Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/131

Rh and Hebrew recensions of the tale is to be drawn from the order in which in it the parables or apologues follow one another. The Georgian order, which coincides with the order of these two recensions, is as follows: 1. Parable of the Good King, divided into the two stories of the Death Trumpet and of the Four Caskets; 2. Parable of the Sower; 3. Parable of the Man pursued by the Elephant; 4. Parable of the Three Friends; 5. Parable of the Foreign King who came from another Country; 6. Parable of the Heathen King and of his Faithful Counsellor; 7. Parable of the Rich Man, and of the Poor Man's Daughter:; [sic] 8. Parable of the Man and the Nightingale; 9. Parable of the Roe Deer; 10. Parable of the Young Man who had a Passionate Wife; 11. Parable of the Love of Women.

It is to be noticed that in the Greek version, as also in the Armenian, these parables follow in quite a different order, viz., in the following: 2, 1, 8, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9. The tenth and eleventh parables found in the Georgian are entirely absent not only from the Greek text but from the Arabic and Hebrew recensions. From the two latter the parable of the Roe Deer is also absent, although it is found in the Greek and Armenian forms of the tale. The chronology of the lives of the two saints as given in the Georgian is the same as that of the non-Christian Arabic, and differs from that of the Greek form.

Professor Marr further makes these remarks about the Georgian text. In The Wisdom of Balavari the importance and the position of the parables is determined by the hermit's motive, which is simply to edify. Thus Balavari, at the first meeting with Iodasaph, tells him that before he shows him the marvellous pearl, that is, the word of truth, he must test him. And then he begins to test him by reciting parables. At first he is content to give a very simple interpretation of these; but, having prepared his hearer by a series of them, he resolves to acquaint him with the rudiments of the true faith. But