[720] Readers of Dante are acquainted with the trumpet of the devil Malacoda, which is used in the same way as the fool uses his in the Mongol story.
[721] In Menander, quoted by Aulus Gellius, a husband complains of the injuries done him by his wife, using the proverb, "The ass amongst the monkeys." Monkeys are well known for their impudent lasciviousness; the ass, who represents the phallos, among this lascivious fraternity finds himself often in the condition of an impotent and weak husband.
Lampsacus huic soli solita est mactare Priapo.
Apta asini flammis indicis exta damus.
Quem tu diva memor de pane monilibus ornas;
Cessat opus; vacuæ conticuere molæ.
—Ovidius, Fasti, vi.
[723] From the myth of the ass, as a musician and judge of music, is derived the Tuscan game of the ass, which is thus described by Signor Fanfani in his Vocabolario dell' Uso Tuscano, Firenze, 1863:—"Each member of the party chooses an animal whose voice or song he must imitate. The head player represents the ass, and is the king of the other animals. When the head player, sitting in the middle, calls one of the animals who encircle him, the dog, for instance, this animal must bark; when he calls the cock, it must cry chicchiricù; when he calls the ox, he who represents it must bellow, and so on. When the ass brays, then all the animals emit their respective cries. Whoever laughs, or omits to give forth the voice or song of the animal which he represents, pays a forfeit."
[724] Ovidius, Metam. xi. 180.
[725] According to the Annals of Padova, cited by Berrardino Scardeone, in Aldrovandi. De Quadrupedibus, i.
[726] The German proverb, "Wald hat Ohren, Feld hat Gesicht," is well known. Cfr. the varieties of this proverb upon the ears of the forest, in the third vol. pp. 120 and 173, of Uhland's Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage, Stüttgart, 1866.
[727] The reader is acquainted with the myth of the nymph Syrinx, beloved of Pan, who was changed into a cane or reed, from which Pan made a flute. We find the leaf of the cane in connection with the ass in Hungarian tradition. A singular indentation can be observed upon the leaves of the cane, which has a great resemblance to the mark of three teeth. To explain this strange mark the Hungarian people narrate, that the ass of the Redeemer once bit the leaf of a cane, but as Christ was in a hurry, the ass was unable to eat the leaf, and so it happened that its three teeth only left the mark of the bite upon the cane. From that time forward every leaf of a cane bears record to this. The two lines which stretch down the two flanks of the ass are said in Hungary to be caused by the blood of our Redeemer. The popular belief in Ireland is that these lines remain as a memorial of Christ having once struck the ass.—Cfr. the chapter on the Peacock and that on the Eel, where we shall find the hero and the heroine again transformed into canes.
[728] The loss of heart or courage is expressed in Italian by the low term "Quí mi casca l'asino" (here my ass falls). This expression, however, may perhaps be of Hellenic origin; the equivoque between the two equisonant expressions, "ap' onou" and "apo nou" is well-known; whence to fall off the ass and to fall from one's mind became synonymous.