THE SINGING ASS: THE FOOLISH THIEVES: THE FAGGOT-MAKER AND THE MAGIC
BOWL.
Some of the Parrot's recitals have other tales sphered within them, so
to say--a plan which must be familiar to all readers of the _Arabian
Nights_. In the following amusing tale, which is perhaps the best of the
whole series (it is the 41st of the India Office MS. No. 2573, and the
31st in Kadiri's version), there are two subordinate stories:
_The Singing Ass._
At a certain period of time, as ancient historians inform us, an ass and
an elk were so fond of each other's company that they were never seen
separate. If the plains were deficient in pasture, they repaired to the
meadows; or, if famine pervaded the valleys, they overleaped the
garden-fence, and, like friends, divided the spoil.
One night, during the season of verdure, about the gay termination of
spring, after they had rioted in the cup of plenty, and lay rolling on a
green carpet of spinach, the cup of the silly ass began to overflow with
the froth of conceit, and he thus expressed his unseasonable intentions:
"O comrade of the branching antlers, what a mirth-inspiring night is
this! How joyous are the heart-attracting moments of spring! Fragrance
distils from every tree; the garden breathes otto of roses, and the
whole atmosphere is pregnant with musk. In the umbrageous gloom of the
waving cypress the turtles are exchanging their vows, and the bird of a
thousand songs [i.e., the nightingale] sips nectar from the lips of the
rose: nothing is wanting to complete the joys of spring but one of my
melodious songs. When the warm blood of youth shall cease to give
animation to these elegant limbs of mine, what relish shall I have for
pleasure? And when the lamp of my life is extinguished, the spring will
return in vain."
_Nakhshabí, music at every season is delightful, and a song sweetly
murmured captivates the senses._
_The musician who charms our ears will most assuredly find the road of
success to our hearts._[51]
[51] The italicised passages which occur in this tale are
verses in the original Persian text.
The elk answered: "Sagacious, long-eared associate, what an unseasonable
proposal is this? Rather let us converse together about pack-saddles and
sacks; tell me a story about straw, beans, or hay-lofts, unmerciful
drivers, and heavy burdens."
_What business has the Ass to meddle with music?_
_What occasion has Long-ears to attempt to sing?_
"You ought also to recollect," continued the elk, "that we are thieves,
and that we came into this garden to plunder. Consider what an enormous
quantity of beets, lettuces, parsley, and radishes we have eaten, and
what a fine bed of spinach we are spoiling! 'Nothing can be more
disgusting than a bird that sings out of season' is a proverb which is
as current among the sons of wisdom as a bill of exchange among
merchants, and as valuable as an unpierced pearl. If you are so
infatuated as to permit the enchanting melody of your voice to draw you
into this inextricable labyrinth, the gardener will instantly awake,
rouse his whole caravan of workmen, hasten to this garden and convert
our music into mourning; so that our history will be like that of the
house-breakers."
The Prince of Folly, expressing a wish to know how that was, received
the following information:
_The Foolish Thieves._
In one of the cities of Hindústán some thieves broke into a house, and
after collecting the most valuable movables sat down in a corner to bind
them up. In this corner was a large two-eared earthen vessel, brimful of
the wine of seduction, which sublime to their mouths they advanced and
long-breathed potations exhausted, crying: "Everything is good in its
turn; the hours of business are past--come on with the gift which
fortune bestows; let us mitigate the toils of the night and smooth the
forehead of care." As they approached the bottom of the flagon, the
vanguard of intoxication began to storm the castle of reason; wild
uproar, tumult, and their auxiliaries commanded by a sirdar of nonsense,
soon after scaled the walls, and the songs of folly vociferously
proclaimed that the sultan of discretion was driven from his post, and
confusion had taken possession of the garrison. The noise awakened the
master of the mansion, who was first overwhelmed with surprise, but soon
recollecting himself, he seized his trusty scimitar, and expeditiously
roused his servants, who forthwith attacked the sons of disorder, and
with very little pains or risk extended them on the pavement of death.
_Nakhshabí, everything is good in its season._
_Let each perform his part in the world, that the world may go round._
_He who drinks at an unseasonable hour ought not to complain of the
vintner._
* * * * *
Here Long-ears superciliously answered: "Pusillanimous companion, I am
the blossom of the city and the luminary of the people; my presence
gives life to the plains, and my harmony cultivates the desert. If, when
in vulgar prose I express the unpremeditated idea, every ear is filled
with delight, and the fleeting soul, through ecstacy, flutters on the
trembling lips--what must be the effect of my songs?"
The elk rejoined: "The ear must be deprived of sensation, the heart void
of blood, and formed of the coarsest clay must be he who can attend your
lays with indifference. But condescend, for once, to listen to advice,
and postpone this music, in which you are so great a proficient, and
suppress not only the song, but the sweet murmuring in your throat,
prelusive to your singing, and shrink not up your graceful nostrils, nor
extent the extremities of your jaws, lest you should have as much reason
to repent of your singing as the faggot-maker had of his dancing." The
ass demanding how that came to pass, the elk made answer as follows:
_The Faggot-maker and the Magic Bowl._
As a faggot-maker was one day at work in a wood, he saw four perís [or
fairies] sitting near him, with a magnificent bowl before them, which
supplied them with all they wanted. If they had occasion for food of the
choicest taste, wines of the most delicious flavour, garments the most
valuable and convenient, or perfumes of the most odoriferous
exhalation--in short, whatever necessity could require, luxury demand,
or avarice wish for--they had nothing more to do but put their hands
into the bowl and pull out whatever they desired. The day following, the
poor faggot-maker being at work in the same place, the perís again
appeared, and invited him to be one of their party. The proposal was
cheerfully accepted, and impressing his wife and children with the seal
of forgetfulness, he remained some days in their company. Recollecting
himself, however, at last, he thus addressed his white-robed
entertainers:
"I am a poor faggot-maker, father of a numerous family; to drive famine
from my cot, I every evening return with my faggots; but my cares for my
wife and fireside have been for some time past obliterated by the cup of
your generosity. If my petition gain admission to the durbar of your
enlightened auditory, I will return to give them the salaam of health,
and inquire into the situation of their affairs."
The perís graciously nodded acquiescence, adding: "The favours you have
received from us are trifling, and we cannot dismiss you empty-handed.
Make choice, therefore, of whatever you please, and the fervour of your
most unbounded desire shall be slaked in the stream of our munificence."
The wood-cutter replied: "I have but one wish to gratify, and that is so
unjust and so unreasonable that I dread the very thought of naming it,
since nothing but the bowl before us will satisfy my ambitious heart."
The perís, bursting into laughter, answered: "We shall suffer not the
least inconvenience by the loss of it, for, by virtue of a talisman
which we possess, we could make a thousand in a twinkling. But, in order
to make it as great a treasure to you as it has been to us, guard it
with the utmost care, for it will break by the most trifling blow, and
be sure never to make use of it but when you really want it."
The faggot-maker, overcome with joy, said: "I will pay the most profound
attention to this inexhaustible treasure; and to preserve it from
breaking I will exert every faculty of my soul." Upon saying this he
received the bowl, with which he returned on the wings of rapture, and
for some days enjoyed his good fortune better than might be expected.
The necessaries and comforts of life were provided for his family, his
creditors were paid, alms distributed to the poor, the brittle bowl of
plenty was guarded with discretion, and everything around him was
arranged for the reception of his friends, who assembled in such crowds
that his cottage overflowed. The faggot-maker, who was one of those
choice elevated spirits whose money never rusts in their possession,
finding his habitation inadequate for the entertainment of his guests,
built another, more spacious and magnificent, to which he invited the
whole city, and placed the magic bowl in the middle of the grand saloon,
and every time he made a dip pulled out whatever was wished for. Though
the views of his visitors were various, contentment was visibly
inscribed on every forehead: the hungry were filled with the bread of
plenty; the aqueducts overflowed with the wine of Shíráz; the effeminate
were satiated with musky odours, and the thirst of avarice was quenched
by the bowl of abundance. The wondering spectators exclaimed: "This is
no bowl, but a boundless ocean of mystery! It is not what it appears to
be, a piece of furniture, but an inexhaustible magazine of treasure!"
After the faggot-maker had thus paraded his good fortune and circulated
the wine-cup with very great rapidity, he stood up and began to dance,
and, to show his dexterity in the art, placed the brittle bowl on his
left shoulder, which every time he turned round he struck with his hand,
crying: "O soul-exhilarating goblet, thou art the origin of my ease and
affluence--the spring of my pomp and equipage--the engineer who has
lifted me from the dust of indigence to the towering battlements of
glory! Thou art the nimble berid [running foot-man] of my winged wishes,
and the regulator of all my actions! To thee am I indebted for all the
splendour that surrounds me! Thou art the source of my currency, and art
the author of our present festival!"
With these and similar foolish tales he entertained his company, as the
genius of nonsense dictated, making the most ridiculous grimaces,
rolling his eyes like a fakír in a fit of devotion, and capering like
one distracted, till the bowl, by a sudden slip of his foot, fell from
his shoulder on the pavement of ruin, and was broken into a hundred
pieces. At the same instant, all that he had in the house, and whatever
he had circulated in the city, suddenly vanished;--the banquet of
exultation was quickly converted into mourning, and he who a little
before danced for joy now beat his breast for sorrow, blamed to no
purpose the rigour of his inauspicious fortune, and execrated the hour
of his birth. Thus a jewel fell into the hands of an unworthy person,
who was unacquainted with its value; and an inestimable gem was
entrusted to an indigent wretch, who, by his ignorance and ostentation,
converted it to his own destruction.
* * * * *
"Melodious bulbul of the long-eared race," continued the elk, "as the
wood-cutter's dancing was an unpardonable folly which met with the
chastisement it deserved, so I fearfully anticipate that your
unseasonable singing will become your exemplary punishment."
His ass-ship listened thus far with reluctance to the admonition of his
friend, without intending to profit by it; but arose from the carpet of
spinach, eyed his companion with a mortifying glance of contempt,
pricked up his long snaky ears, and began to put himself into a musical
posture. The nimble, small-hoofed elk, perceiving this, said to himself:
"Since he has stretched out his neck and prepared his pitch-pipe, he
will not remain long without singing." So he left the vegetable banquet,
leaped over the garden wall, and fled to a place of security. The ass
was no sooner alone than he commenced a most loud and horrible braying,
which instantly awoke the gardeners, who, with the noose of an insidious
halter, to the trunk of a tree fast bound the affrighted musician, where
they belaboured him with their cudgels till they broke every bone in his
body, and converted his skin to a book, in which, in letters of gold, a
múnshí [learned man] of luminous pen, with the choicest flowers of the
garden of rhetoric, and for the benefit of the numerous fraternity of
asses, inscribed this instructive history.
* * * * *
Magical articles such as the wonderful wishing-bowl of our unlucky
friend the Faggot-maker figure very frequently in the folk-tales of
almost every country, assuming many different forms: a table-cloth, a
pair of saddle-bags, a purse, a flask, etc.; but since a comprehensive
account of those highly-gifted objects--alas, that they should no longer
exist!--is furnished in the early chapters of my _Popular Tales and
Fictions_, I presume I need not go over the same wide field again.--In
the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_ (Ocean of the Streams of Story), a very large
collection of tales and apologues, composed, in Sanskrit, by Somadeva,
in the 12th century, after a much older work, the _Vrihat Kathá_ (or
Great Story), the tale of the Faggot-maker occurs as a separate recital.
It is there an inexhaustible pitcher which he receives from four
yakshas--supernatural beings, who correspond to some extent with the
perís of Muslim mythology--and he is duly warned that should it be
broken it departs at once. For a time he concealed the secret from his
relations until one day, when he was intoxicated, they asked him how it
came about that he had given up carrying burdens, and had abundance of
all kinds of dainties, eatable and drinkable. "He was too much puffed up
with pride to tell them plainly, but, taking the wish-granting pitcher
on his shoulder, he began to dance; and, as he was dancing, the
inexhaustible pitcher slipped from his shoulder, as his feet tripped
with over-abundance of intoxication, and, falling on the ground, was
broken in pieces. And immediately it was mended again, and reverted to
its original possessor; but Subadatta was reduced to his former
condition, and filled with despondency." In a note to this story, Mr.
Tawney remarks that in Bartsch's Meklenburg Tales a man possesses
himself of an inexhaustible beer-can, but as soon as he tells how he got
it the beer disappears.--The story of the Foolish Thieves noisily
carousing in the house they had just plundered occurs also in Saádí's
_Gulistán_ and several other Eastern story-books.
In Kádíri's abridgment of the Parrot-Book, the Elk is taken prisoner as
well as his companion the Ass, and the two subordinate stories, of the
Foolish Thieves and of the Faggot-maker, are omitted. They are also
omitted in the version of the Singing Ass found in the _Panchatantra_
(B. v, F. 7), where a jackal, not an elk, is the companion of the ass,
and when he perceives the latter about to "sing" he says: "Let me get to
the door of the garden, where I may see the gardener as he approaches,
and then sing away as long as you please." The gardener beats the ass
till he is weary, and then fastens a clog to the animal's leg and ties
him to a post. After great exertion, the ass contrives to get free from
the post and hobbles away with the clog still on his leg. The jackal
meets his old comrade and exclaims: "Bravo, uncle! You would sing your
song, though I did all I could to dissuade you, and now see what a fine
ornament you have received as recompense for your performance." This
form of the story reappears in the _Tantrákhyána_, a collection of
tales, in Sanskrit, discovered by Prof. Cecil Bendall in 1884, of which
he has given an interesting account in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society_, vol. xx, pp. 465-501, including the original text of a number
of the stories.--In Ralston's _Tibetan Tales_, translated from
Schiefner's German rendering of stories from the _Kah-gyur_ (No. xxxii),
the story is also found, with a bull in place of a jackal. An ass meets
the bull one evening and proposes they should go together and feast
themselves to their hearts' content in the king's bean-field, to which
the bull replies: "O nephew, as you are wont to let your voice resound,
we should run great risk." Said the ass: "O uncle, let us go; I will not
raise my voice." Having entered the bean-field together, the ass uttered
no sound until he had eaten his fill. Then quoth he: "Uncle, shall I not
sing a little?" The bull responded: "Wait an instant until I have gone
away, and then do just as you please." So the bull runs away, and the
ass lifts up his melodious voice, upon which the king's servants came
and seized him, cut off his long ears, fastened a pestle on his neck,
and drove him out of the field.--There can be no question, I think, as
to the superiority, in point of humour, of Nakhshabí's version in _Tútí
Náma_, as given above.