Page:The Fables of Æsop (Jacobs).djvu/239

Rh

Not from Phædrus, nor in the original Romulus, but inserted by Stainhöwel at the end of his selections from "Romulus" to make up the number twenty of the fourth book. Probably from Avian 16, though it also occurs in the prose Æsop, Ed. Halm, 179 (which is ultimately derived from Babrius 36). It is probably Indian, as in Mahabharata the Sea complains that the Rivers bring down to it oaks, but not reeds. It occurs also in the Talmud, Tanith 20. B. Cf. the line in the dirge in Cymbeline, "To thee the reed is as the oak." Wordsworth's poem: The Oak and the Broom develops the subject at great length.

Probably from Marie de France, 98. There was a Greek proverb on the subject, attributed to Ion (Leutsch, Paraeom. Graeci, i. 147). The tale has got among the Folk, Grimm 75, Halm, ''Griech. Mährch.'' 91.

Practically derived from Matt. vii. 15. Thackeray makes effective use of it in the prologue to The Newcomes. As a matter of fact it does not occur in any of the collections attributed to Æsop. L'Estrange gives it as number 328, from Abstemius, an Italian fabulist, circa 1450.

It is difficult to trace how this fable got so early into the Stainhöwel. It is told very shortly of a Dog and a Horse by Lucian, Adv. in Doct. 30, but is not included in the