Note.
Oesterley remarks that the Hindi version of this story has been translated into French by Garcin de Tassy in the Journal des Savants, 1836, p. 415, and by Lancereau in the Journal Asiatique, Ser. 4, Tom. 19, pp. 390–395. In the Tútínámah, (Persian, No. 24, in Iken, No. 102; Turkish, Rosen, II, p. 169) the washerman is replaced by an Indian prince, his friend by a priest, and the rest is the same as in our text. That Goethe took that part of his Legende, which is based on this tale, from Iken’s translation, has been shewn by Benfey in Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 719. (Oesterley’s Baitál Pachísí, pp. 195, 196.)
[1] The wife of Śiva, called also Párvatí and Durgá.
[2] The word śukláyám̱, which is found in the Sanskrit College MS., is omitted by Professor Brockhaus.
[3] So in the Hero and Leander of Musæus the two lovers meet in the temple of Venus at Sestos, and in the Æthiopica of Heliodorus Theagenes meets Chariclea at a festival at Delphi. Petrarch met Laura for the first time in the chapel of St. Clara at Avignon, and Boccacio fell in love with Maria, the daughter of Robert of Naples, in the Church of the bare-footed friars in Naples. (Dunlop’s History of Fiction, translated by Liebrecht, p. 9.) Rohde remarks that in Greek romances the hero and heroine usually meet in this way. Indeed it was scarcely possible for two young people belonging to the upper classes of Greek society to meet in any other way, (Der Griechische Roman, p. 146 and note). See also pp. 385 and 486.
[4] For tayá in śl. 10. b, the Sanskrit College MS. reads tathá.
[5] Praśnayaḥ in Professor Brockhaus’s text should be praśvayaḥ.
[6] An allusion to the Ardhanáríśa, (i. e. half male half female,) representation of Śiva.
[7] Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, seems to refer to a similar story. He says, “The fastening of heads, that have been chopped off, to their trunks in Waltharius 1157 seems to imply a belief in their reanimation;” see also Schmidt’s Griechische Märchen, p. 111. So St. Beino fastened on the head of Winifred after it had been cut off by Caradoc; (Wirt Sikes, British Goblins, p. 348). A head is cut off and fastened on again in the Glücksvogel, Waldau’s Böhmische Märchen, p. 108. In Coelho’s Portuguese Stories, No. XXVI, O Colhereiro, the 3rd daughter fastens on, in the Bluebeard chamber, with blood, found in a vase marked with their names, the heads of her decapitated sisters.
[8] Cp. Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, pp. 98, 99; Do Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 303 and 304.