SUMMARY.
Glory has been pernicious to the ass.—The purely stupid ass not an ancient belief in India.—Eastern and Western asses; the ass of an inferior quality pays the penalty of the reputation acquired in the East by his superior congener.—Christianity, instead of improving the condition of the ass, has aggravated it.—The mediæval hymn in honour of the ass is a satire.—The ass in the sacred ceremonies of the Church.—Physical and moral decadence of the ass.—Indian names of the ass; equivoques in language form myths.—Gardabhas and gandharbas.—Identification of the mythical ass with the gandharvas; both are in connection with salutary waters, with perfumes or unguents, and with women.—The ass which carries mysteries.—The flight into Egypt; the ass laden; the old man, the boy, and the ass.—Peau d'âne.—The onokentauros.—Urvaçî and Purûravas in connection with the gandharvas; Cupid and Psyche in connection with the ass.—The mythical ass and the kentauros correspond, as well as the ass and the gandharvas.—The Hindoo onocentaur and satyr; monkey and gandharvas as warriors.—Kentauros, gandharvas, and ass in the capacity of musicians and dancers.—Kṛiçâçvas dancing-master.—Kṛiçânus and Kereçâni.—Hybrid nature of the mythical ass and of the gandharvas.—The Açvinâu ride asses, and give youth to Ćyavanas; the youthfulness of the ass.—The Vedic ass as a warrior.—The Vedic ass flies.—The decadence of the ass dates as far back as the Vedâs; its explanation.—The phallic ass and the punishment of the ass for adulterers.—The braying of the ass in heaven; Indras kills the ass.—The funereal and demoniacal ass of the Hindoos; the ass piçâćas; the faces of parrots; equivoque originated by the words haris and harit.—The golden ass.—The ass in love.—The ass in the tiger's skin.—The ass who betrays himself by singing.—The Zend lame ass who brays in the water.—Rustem, devourer of asses.—The ass's kick.—The fool and the ass, the trumpet and the drum, the trumpet of Malacoda.—The king Midas in the Mongol story; the hero forced to speak, in order not to burst.—The ass among the monkeys.—Midas, king of Phrygia, in connection with the ass, with Silenos, Dionysos, the roses, gold, blades of corn, and waters.—The centaurs among the flowers.—The ass awakens Vesta whilst she is being seduced.—Priapos and the ass of Silenos.—The ass as a musical umpire between the cuckoo and the nightingale.—Midas judges between Pan and Apollo.—The ears of King Midas; his secret revealed by the young man who combs his hair.—The Phrygian ass held up to derision by the Greeks.—The Greek spirit of nationality still more pernicious to the ass.—The ass of Vicenza impaled.—Pan and the ass.—Gandharvâs and satyrs.—Pan and the nymphs.—Syrinx and the reed or cane; the leaf of the cane, and the ass.—Pan chases away fear; the ass's skin gives courage.—The ass in hell; golden excrements.—The heroic ass and Pan.—Perseus who eats asses.—The ass and the water of the Styx; the horned ass.—The cornucopia.—Ass and goat.—The asses save the hero out of the water.—The asses in heaven.—The ass carries the water of youth.—Ass's milk has a cosmetic virtue.—Youth and beauty of the ass.—The deaths of the ass.—The ass carries wine and drinks water.—The ass wet by the rain, the ass's ears predict rainy weather.—The shadow of the ass; the ass's wool; lana caprina; to shear the ass; the gold on the ass's head.—Asini prospectus.—The ass and the gardener.—The ass chases the winds away.—The third braying or flatus of the ass kills the fool.—The prophetic ass; the kick of the ass kills the lion; the ass a good listener, who hears everything; the hero Oidin Oidon; the ears of Lucifer.
The ass, in Europe at least, has had the misfortune to have been born under an evil star, a circumstance which must be reckoned to the account of the Greeks and Romans, whose humour it was to treat it as a sort of Don Quixote of animals. Its liability to be flogged has always increased with its celebrity, which, no one can deny, is great and indefeasible. The poor ass has paid very dear, and continues to pay still dearer, upon earth for the flight which the fantasy of primeval men made it take in the mythical heavens. May this chapter—if it produce no other effect—have at least that of sparing the poor calumniated animal some few of the many blows which, given in fun, it is accustomed to receive, as if to afford a vent for the satirical humour of our race, and ad exhilarandam caveam.
The germ of the reputation the ass has of being both a stupid and a petulant animal, acquired in Greece and in Italy, spreading thence into all the other parts of Europe, may already be found in the ancient myths of the Hindoos. Professor Weber,[686] however, has proved, in answer to Herr Wagener, that the idea of a stupid and presumptuous ass, such as we always find it represented in the fables of the Pańćatantram, was diffused in India by the Greeks, and is not indigenous to Hindoo faith and literature.
In India, the ass was not a particular object of ridicule; and this was perhaps for the simple reason that the Eastern varieties of the asinine family are far handsomer and nobler than the Western ones. The ass in the East is generally ardent, lively, and swift-footed, as in the West it is generally slow and lazy, having no real energy except of a sensual nature. For if even the West (and especially the south of Europe) possesses a distinct species of ass, which reminds us of the multinummus ass of Varro (in the same way as the East also, though exceptionally, has inferior varieties), the asinine multitude in Europe is composed of animals of a low type and a down-trodden appearance, and it is against them that our jests and our floggings are especially directed. This is the proverbial ass's kick against the fallen; the poor outcast of the West dearly pays the penalty of the honours conceded to his illustrious mythical ancestors of the East. We think that the ass of which we hear heroic achievements related is the same as that which now humbly carries the pack; and since we no longer regard him as capable of a magnanimous action, we suppose that he (unfortunate animal!) appropriates to himself all these ancient glories out of vain presumption, for which reason there is no affront which we do not feel entitled to offer to him. Nor did Christianity succeed in delivering him from persecution,—Christianity, which, as it represents the Sun of nations, the Redeemer of the world, as born between the two musical animals, the ox and the ass (who were to prevent His cries from being heard), and introduces the ass as the saviour of the Divine Child persecuted during the night, and as the animal ridden by Christ, in his last entry into Jerusalem, invested him with more than one sacred title which ought from its devotees to have procured for him a little more regard. Unfortunately, the same famous mediæval ecclesiastical hymn which was sung in France on the 14th of January in honour of the ass, richly caparisoned near the altar, to celebrate the flight into Egypt, was turned into a satire. It must have been not without some gay levity that priest and people exclaimed "Hinham!" three times after the conclusion of the mass, on the day of the festival of the ass.[687] Nor did the inhabitants of Empoli show him more reverence, when, on the eighth day after the festival of the Corpus Domini—that is, near the summer solstice—they made him fly in the air, amid the jeers of the crowd; nor the Germans, who, in Westphalia, made the ass a symbol of the dull St Thomas, who was the last of the apostles to believe in the resurrection. The Westphalians were accustomed to call by the name of "the ass Thomas" (as in Holland he is called "luilak") the boy who on St Thomas's Day was the last to enter school.[688] On Christmas Day, in the Carnival, on Palm-Sunday, and in the processions which follow the festival of Corpus Domini,[689] the Church often introduced the ass into her ceremonies, but more in order to exhilarate the minds of her devotees than to edify them by any suggestion of the virtues it represents in the Gospels; so that, notwithstanding the great services rendered by the ass to the Founder of the new religion, he not only received no benefit in return from Christianity, but became instead the unfortunate object of new attentions, which rather depressed than heightened his already sufficiently degraded social condition.
And so the Greeks and Romans first, and the Catholic priests afterwards, combined, by their treatment of him, to make the ass more indifferent than he would otherwise have been to the passion and spirited struggle for life shown in all the other animals. He was perhaps intended for a higher fate, if man had not come upon earth, and interfered too persistently to thwart his vocation. And probably his race gradually deteriorated, just because, having become ridiculous, few cared to preserve or increase his nobleness. As the proverb said that it was useless to wash the ass's head, so it seemed useless for man to endeavour to ameliorate or civilise his form: the physical decadence of the ass was contemporary and parallel with his decline morally.
But although it was in Greece and Rome that the poor ass was thrown completely down from his rank in the animal kingdom, the first decree of his fall was pronounced in his ancient Asiatic abode. Let us prove this.
In the Ṛigvedas, the ass already appears under two different aspects—one divine and the other demoniacal—to which may perhaps be added a third intermediate or gandharvic aspect.
In the Ṛigvedas, the ass has the names of gardabhas and râsabhas; in Sanskṛit, also those of kharas, ćakrîvant, ćiramehin, and bâleyas.
It is important to notice how each of these designations tends to lapse into ambiguity; and ambiguity in words plays a considerable part in the formation of myths and popular beliefs.