Page:The Fables of Æsop (Jacobs).djvu/230

200 "Deprived of both fish and meat, Mistress Jackal, whither away?"

The jackal replies:

"Great as is my wisdom, thine is twice as great.

"No husband, no lover, no clothes, lady, whither away?"

Thus, in the Indian version the loss of the meat is a deliberate plan of the god Indra to read a lesson to the faithless wife. In all the earlier versions the dog is swimming in the stream. The passage across the bridge we get from Marie de France or her original.

Phædrus, i. 5. The companions of the Lion in Phædrus are a Cow, a Goat, and a Sheep. This seems to point to some mistranslation from an Indian original, though none such has been discovered. The medieval versions of Marie de France and Benedict of Oxford (Hebrew) have another version in which the Lion's partners are carnivorous, as is appropriate. Our expression, "Lion's share," comes from this fable, on which a special monograph has been written by C. Górski, 1888 (Dissertation).

Phædrus, i. 8. Certainly Indian. Occurring as the Javasakuna Jātaka, in which Buddha tells the story of a Lion and a Crane to illustrate the ingratitude of the wicked. The Jataka concludes: "The master, having given the lesson, summed up the Jātaka thus: At that time the Lion was Devadatta [the Buddhist Judas], and the Crane was I myself." This is a striking example how the Indian doctrine of the transmigration of souls could be utilised to