Our first example, “Respect Old Age,” is the only one of the three which turns on the “housse partie” idea. This is the form found in the thirteenth-century French fabliau “La Housse Partie;” and a variant of it is given by Ortensio Lando, an Italian novelist of the sixteenth century (Dunlop, 2 : 206). The only Spanish example I know of is found in the fourteenth-century “El Libro de los Enxemplos” (printed in Bibliotéca de Autores Españoles, vol. 51 [Madrid, 1884]), No. CCLXXII. It runs in the original as follows:—
Patri qualis fueris, tibi filius talis erit.
Cual fueres á tu padre que trabajó por tí,
El fijo que engendrares tal será á tí.
Cuentan que un viejo dió á un fijo que lo sirvió mucho bien todos sus bienes; mas despues que gelos hobo dado, echólo de la cámara onde dormia é tomóla para él é para su mujer, é fizo facer á su padre el lecho tras la puerta. É de que vino el invierno el viejo habia frio, ca el fijo le habia tornado la buena ropa con que se cobria, é rogó á un su nieto, fijo de su fijo, que rogase á su padre que le diese alguna ropa para se cobrir; é el mozo apenas pudo alcanzar de su padre dos varas de sayal para su abuelo, é quedábanle al fijo otros dos. É el mozo llorando rogó al padre que le diese las otros dos, é tanto lloró, que gelas hobo de dar, é demandóle que para qué las queria, é respondióle: “Quiérolas guardar fasta que tú seas tal commo es agora tu padre, é estonce non te daré mas, así commo tú non quieres dar á tu padre.”
Finally may be given another Indian story, No. 16 in the “Antarakathāsamgraha” of Rājaśekhara (Bolte-Polívka, 2 : 139), which connects the “divided-blanket” motif with the old “Jātaka.” Rājaśekhara flourished about A.D. 900. This story runs thus:—
In Haripura lived a merchant named Sankha, who had four sons. When he became old, he handed over his business and all his wealth to them. But they would no longer obey him; their wives mistreated him; and the old man crept into a corner of the house, wasted by hunger and oppressed with years. Once in the cold time of the year he asked his oldest son, Kumuda, for a cloth to protect him from the night frost. Kumuda spoke this verse:—
“For an old man whose wife is dead, who is dependent on his sons for money, who is cut by the words of his step-daughters, death is better than life.”
But at the same time he said to his son Kuntala, “Give him that curtain there!” Kuntala, however, gave the old man only half of the small curtain. When the old man showed the piece to Kumuda, Kumuda angrily asked his son why he had not given his grandfather the whole curtain. Respectfully placing his hands together, Kuntala replied, “Father, when old age also overtakes you, there will be ready for you the half-curtain which corresponds to the one here.” Then Kumuda was shamed; and he said, “Son, we have been instructed by you; you have become a support for us whose senses have been stupefied by the delirium of power and wealth.” And from that time on he began to show his father love, and so did the whole family.
In conclusion, and by way of additional illustrative material, I give in full another brief Tagalog moral tale which seems to be distantly related to our stories. It was collected by Felix Guzman, a Tagalog from Gapan, Nueva Ecija, who got it from his uncle. It is entitled “Juan and his Father.”