εἰς ἔργον δ’ οὐδὲν γιγνόμενον βλέπετε.
But all turns upon the interpretation of the first line, which Schneidewin renders “Singuli sapitis, cuncti desipitis.”
[10] I have followed the Sanskrit College MS. in reading nirbádhasukham̱.
[11] For parallels to this story compare Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 33, where he treats of the Avadánas, and the Japanese story in the Nachträge. In this a gentleman who had much enjoyed the smell of fried eels, pays for them by exhibiting his money to the owner of the cook-shop. See also p 112 of the same work. M. Lévêque shews that Rabelais’ story of Le Facquin et le Rostisseur exactly resembles this as told in the Avadánas. He thinks that La Fontaine in his fable of L’Huître et les Plaideurs is indebted to the story as told in Rabelais: (Les Mythes et les Légendes de l’Inde, pp. 547, 548.) A similar idea is found in the Hermotimus of Lucian, chapters 80 and 81. A philosopher is indignant with his pupil on account of his fees being eleven days in arrear. The uncle of the young man, who is standing by, being a rude and uncultured person, says to the philosopher—“My good man, pray let us hear no more complaints about the great injustice with which you conceive yourself to have been treated, for all it amounts to is, that we have bought words from you, and have up to the present time paid you in the same coin.” See also Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, p. 370 (note). Gosson in his School of Abuse, Arber’s Reprint, pp. 68–69, tells the story of Dionysius.
[12] There is a certain resemblance between this story and a joke in Philogelos, p. 16. (Ed. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869.) Scholasticus tells his boots not to creak, or he will break their legs.
[13] This corresponds to the 14th story in the 5th book of the Panchatantra, Benfey, Vol. II, p. 360. At any rate the leading idea is the same. See Benfey, Vol. I, p. 537. It has a certain resemblance to the fable of Menenius. There is a snake in Bengal with a knob at the end of his tail. Probably this gave rise to the legend of the double-headed serpent. Sir Thomas Browne devotes to the Amphisbæna Chapter XV of the third book of his Vulgar Errors, and craves leave to “doubt of this double-headed serpent,” until he has “the advantage to behold, or iterated ocular testimony.” See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 120, where he treats of the Avadánas. The story is identical with that in our text. M. Lévêque shews that this story, as found in the Avadánas, forms the basis of one of La Fontaine’s fables, VII, 17. La Fontaine took it from Plutarch’s life of Agis.
[14] This story is No. LIX in Sir G. Cornewall Lewis’s edition of the Fables of Babrius, Part II. The only difference is that the tail, when in difficulties, entreats the head to deliver it.
[15] I read hanum, the conjecture of Dr. Kern.
[16] This story appears to have been known to Lucian. In his Demonax (28) he compares two unskilful disputants to a couple, one of whom is milking a goat, the other holding a sieve. So Aristophanes speaks of ὄνου πόκαι and ὀρνίθων γάλα. It must be admitted that some critics doubt Lucian’s authorship of the Demonax. Professor Aufrecht in his Beiträge zur Kenntniss Indischer Dichter quotes a Strophe of Amarasinha in which the following line occurs,
Dugdhá seyam achetanena jaratí dugdháśayát súkarí. Professor Aufrecht proposes to read gardabhí for súkarí.