XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION
This well-known story occurs first in the fables of Phædrus, though not in the extant form, only being preserved in the mediæval prose version known as Romulus. It is also referred to in Appian, Aulus Gellius, and Seneca (see the references in my History of Æsop, p. 243, Ro. III., i.). It is told in Caxton's Esope, p. 62, from whom I have borrowed a few touches. He calls his hero Androclus, whereas Painter, in his Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, i., 89-90, calls the slave Androdus. We moderns, including Mr. Bernard Shaw, get our "Androcles" from Day's Sanford and Merton. It also occurs in Gesta Romanorum, 104, edit., Oesterley, who gives a long list of parallels in almost all the countries of Europe.
Benfey, in the introduction to his edition of Pantschatantra, i., 112, contends that the story is of Oriental origin, showing Buddhistic traits in the kindly relations between the slave and the lion; but the parallels he gives are by no means convincing, though the general evidence for Oriental provenance of many of Phædrus' fables gives a certain plausibility to this derivation. From our present standpoint this is of less importance since Androcles, though it has spread through Europe and is current among the folk, is clearly of literary origin and is one of the few examples where we can trace such literary spread.