103
the same way, and, as she was honoured by the citizens as a devoted wife the fame of her virtue reached the ears of the king. And the king had her summoned, with the maimed man on her back, and, when she came near, he recognized her and said; "Are you that devoted wife?" And the wicked woman, not recognizing her husband, when surrounded by the splendour of the kingly office, said, " I am that devoted wife, your Majesty." Then that incarnation of a Bodhisattva laughed, and said; " I too have had practical experience of your wifely devotion. How comes it that, though I your own husband, who possess hands and feet, could not tame you, even by giving you my own flesh and blood, which you kept feeding on like an ogress in human form, this maimed fellow, though defective in his limbs, has been able to tame you and make you his beast of burden? Did you carry on your back your innocent husband, whom you threw into the river? It is owing to that deed that you have to carry and support this maimed man." When her husband in these words revealed her past conduct, she recognized him, and fainting from fear, became like a painted or dead woman. The ministers in their curiosity said, " Tell us, king, what this means." Then the king told them the whole story. And the ministers, when they heard that she had conspired against her husband's life, cut off her nose and ears, and branded her, and banished her from the country with the maimed man. And in this matter Fate shewed a becoming combination, for it united a woman without nose and ears with a man without hands and feet, and a man who was an incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva, with the splendour of royalty.
" Thus the way of woman's heart, which is a thing full of hate, indiscriminating, prone to the base, is difficult to fathom. And thus good fortune comes spontaneous and unexpected, as if pleased with them, to those of noble soul, who do not swerve from virtue and who conquer anger." When the minister Gomukha had told this tale, he proceeded to relate the following story.
Story of the grateful animals and the ungrateful woman.*[1]:—There was a certain man of noble soul, who was an incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva, whose heart was melted by compassion only, who
- ↑ * This story is found, with the substitution of a man for a woman, on p. 128 of Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. II; he tells us that it is also found in the 17th chapter of Silvestre de Sacy's Kalila o Dimna (Wolff's Translation II, 99 j Knatchbull, 346,) in the 11th section of Symeon Seth's Greek version, 14th chapter of John of Capua; German translation Ulm, 1483 Y., 5 ; Anvár-i-Suhaili, p. 596 Cabinet des Fées, XVIII, 189. It is imitated by Baldo, 18th fable, (Poesies Inédites du Moyen Age by Edéléstand du Meril, p. 244.) Benfey pronounces it Buddhistic in origin, though apparently not acquainted with its form in the Kathá Sarit Ságara. Cp. Rasaváhiní, chap. 3. (Spiegel's Anecdota Palica). It is also found in tho Karma Śataka. Cp. also Mutthæus Paris,
