CHAPTER X.
Fable of the Two Cats—Preamble to Persian Treaty—Apologues from Sâdee—-Letter from Nizâm-ool-Moolk to Mahomed Shâh—Death of Yezdijird.
The preceding chapter concluded with an episode upon the life and opinions of the favoured physician of Noosheerwân. I must in this return to my subject, the elucidation of the rise and progress of apologues and fables.
It will be admitted by all, that the Persians, in the luxuriance of their imaginations, have embellished wonderfully the less artificial writings of the Hindus. The lowest animal they introduce into a fable speaks a language which would do honour to a king. All nature contributes to adorn the metaphorical sentence; but their perfection in that part of composition called the Ibâret-e-Rengeen, or Florid Style, can only be shown by example, and for that purpose I have made a literal translation of the fable of the "Two Cats;" from which I suspect we have borrowed ours, of the "Town and Country Mouse."
"In former days there was an old woman, who lived in a hut more confined than the minds of the ignorant, and more dark than the tombs of misers. Her companion was a cat, from the mirror of whose imagination the appearance of bread had never been reflected, nor had she from friends or strangers ever heard its name. It was enough that she now and then scented a mouse, or observed the print of its feet on the floor; when, blessed by favouring stars, or benignant fortune, one fell into her claws,
'She became like a beggar who discovers a treasure of gold;
Her cheeks glowed with rapture, and past grief was consumed by present joy.'[34]
This feast would last for a week or more; and while enjoying it she was wont to exclaim—
'Am I, O God! when I contemplate this, in a dream or awake?
Am I to experience such prosperity after such adversity?'
"But as the dwelling of the old woman was in general the mansion of famine to this cat, she was always complaining, and forming extravagant and fanciful schemes. One day, when reduced to extreme weakness, she with much exertion reached the top of the hut; when there, she observed a cat stalking on the wall of a neighbour's house, which, like a fierce tiger, advanced with measured steps, and was so loaded with flesh that she could hardly raise her feet. The old woman's friend was amazed to see one of her own species so fat and sleek, and broke out into the following exclamation: