_Source._--_Pantschatantra_, V. ix., tr. Benfey, ii. 345-6.
_Parallels._--Benfey, in § 209 of his _Einleitung_, gives
bibliographical references to most of those which are given at length
in Prof. M. Müller's brilliant essay on "The Migration of Fables"
(_Selected Essays_, i. 500-76), which is entirely devoted to the
travels of the fable from India to La Fontaine. See also Mr.
Clouston, _Pop. Tales_, ii. 432 _seq._ I have translated the Hebrew
version in my essay, "Jewish Influence on the Diffusion of
Folk-Tales," pp. 6-7. Our proverb, "Do not count your chickens before
they are hatched," is ultimately to be derived from India.
_Remarks._--The stories of Alnaschar, the Barber's fifth brother in
the _Arabian Nights_, and of La Perette, who counted her chickens
before they were hatched, in La Fontaine, are demonstrably derived
from the same Indian original from which our story was obtained. The
travels of the "Fables of Bidpai" from India to Europe are well known
and distinctly traceable. I have given a rough summary of the chief
critical results in the introduction to my edition of the earliest
English version of the _Fables of Bidpai_, by Sir Thomas North, of
Plutarch fame (London, D. Nutt, "Bibliothèque de Carabas," 1888),
where I have given an elaborate genealogical table of the
multitudinous versions. La Fontaine's version, which has rendered the
fable so familiar to us all, comes from Bonaventure des Periers,
_Contes et Nouvelles_, who got it from the _Dialogus Creaturarum_ of
Nicholaus Pergamenus, who derived it from the _Sermones_ of Jacques de
Vitry (see Prof. Crane's edition, No. li.), who probably derived it
from the _Directorium Humanæ Vitæ_ of John of Capua, a converted Jew,
who translated it from the Hebrew version of the Arabic _Kalilah wa
Dimnah_, which was itself derived from the old Syriac version of a
Pehlevi translation of the original Indian work, probably called after
Karataka and Damanaka, the names of two jackals who figure in the
earlier stories of the book. Prof. Rhys-Davids informs me that these
names are more akin to Pali than to Sanskrit, which makes it still
more probable that the whole literature is ultimately to be derived
from a Buddhist source.
The theme of La Perette is of interest as showing the _literary_
transmission of tales from Orient to Occident. It also shows the
possibility of an influence of literary on oral tradition, as is shown
by our proverb, and by the fact, which Benfey mentions, that La
Fontaine's story has had influence on two of Grimm's tales, Nos. 164,
168.