“Frowningly he shut it again, saying, ‘There’s nothing here for you.’ Then she bounced at the gate again, and asked the Porter if such a Knight lived there, meaning her Father, and he said ‘Yes.’ ‘Then,’ said she, ‘Pray, deliver this piece of ring unto him.’ Now this ring was it she brake betwixt her Father and she at her departure out of the land. Then the Porter delivered the Ring to his Master, saying: ‘The Beggar woman at the gate willed me to deliver the piece of ring unto you.’
“When the Knight saw the ring he fell down in a swound but when he was revived he said, ‘Call her in, for she is my only Daughter, whom I thought was dead.’ ‘Then,’ said the Porter, ‘I dare not call her in, for there is a mighty Lion with her.’ ‘Though it be,’ said the Knight, ‘call her in.’ Then said the Porter [to the Lady], ‘You are to come in, but leave your Lion outside.’ ‘No,’ said the Lady, ‘my Lion goes whereever I go, and where he is not, there will I not be.’
“And when she came to her Father she fell down on her knees and wept. Her Father took her up in his arms and kissed her, weeping as fast, and after he clothed her in purple, and placed her by him in a chair, and demanded an account of her travels, and she told him all that had happened, and how the Lion had saved her life, and was the greatest comfort she had in the Wilderness. It chanced afterwards that as the Knight was going into his Wood to look after his young Horses, he met with a wild Boar, with whom he fell in combat. The Lion loved the Old Knight, and by accident walking along he scented the Boar, and as the Lion ran toward the place where the Boar was, the Steward espied him, and he ran into the Palace, and cryed out, ‘the Lion is running after my Master to destroy him.’
“Then the Lady sent after him ten of her servants, who met the Lion, his mouth all bloody, and they ran back and told the Lady the Lion had destroyed her aged Father. Then said the Lady, ‘O woe is me that ever I was born, that have brought a Lion from far to destroy my own Father.’ Therefore she commanded her servants to slay the Lion, which no sooner was done but her Father came in, and said; ‘O, I have met with a wild Boar, with whom I fought, and there came the Lion to my aid, and slew the Boar, and so saved my life, else I had died by the Boar.’
“When the Lady heard this, O how she wept and wrung her hands, saying, ‘For the words of a wicked Steward, I have slain my good Lion, who hath saved my life and my Father’s. Cursed be the time I was advised by him.’”
The Faithless Wife and the Ungrateful Blind Man.—I do not remember having met with this story in any other collection, although there are there many tales in Asiatic story-books of women abandoning their blind or infirm husbands, and going off with strange men. A very considerable proportion, in fact of Eastern stories turn upon the alleged wickedness and profligacy and intrigues of women. This most unjust estimate of “the sex” seems to have been universal in Asiatic countries from every remote times and probably was introduced into Europe through the Crusades. Not a few of the mediæval Monkish tales represent women in a very unfavourable light, and this is also the case in our early English jest-books, which were compiled soon after the invention of printing. In the oldest Indian literature, however, especially the two grand epics “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,” occur several notable tales of noble women, such as “Dushyanta and Sakuntala,” and the charming romance of “Nala and Damayanti;” and in another work, the “Adventures of the Ten princes,” (“Dasa Kumara Charita,”) the fine story of Gomiui, who is held up as a pattern to her sex.
Notes to XIII.—The Fourth Part.
The Wonderful Mango-fruit.—A variety of this story occurs in the Persian “Tuti Nama” of Nakhshabi:—A Prince, who is very ill, sends a parrot of great sagacity to procure him some fruit of the Tree of Life. When at length the bird returns with the life-giving fruit, the Prince scruples to eat of it, upon which the parrot relates the legend of “Solomon and the Water of Immortality;” how that wise monarch declined to procure immunity from death, on consideration that he should thus survive all his friends and female favourites. The Prince, however, being suspicious regarding the fruit, sent some trusty messengers to “bring the first apple that fell from the Tree of Existence.” But it happened that a black snake had poisoned it by seizing it in its mouth and then letting it drop again. When the messengers returned with the fruit, the Prince tried the effect on a holy man, who instantly falls down dead. Upon seeing this, the Prince dooms the parrot to death; but the sagacious bird suggests that, before the Prince should execute him for treason, he should himself go to the Tree of Life and make another experiment with its fruit. The Prince does so, and, returning home, gives part of the fruit to an old woman, “who, from age and infirmity, had not stirred abroad for many years;” and, no sooner had she tasted it, than she was changed into a charming girl of eighteen. But more closely resembling our story is a version in a Canarese collection, entitled “Katha Manjari”:—A certain king had a magpie that flew one day to heaven with another magpie. From thence it took away some mango seed, and, having returned, gave it to the king, saying:—