[369]. I have followed Mr. Payne’s adaptation of the text as he makes sense, whilst the Arabic does not. I suppose that the holes are disposed crosswise.
[370]. i.e. Thy skill is so great that thou wilt undermine my authority with the king.
[371]. This famous tale is first found in a small collection of Latin fables (Adolphi Fabulæ apud Leyser Hist. Poet. Medii Ævi, p. 200–8), beginning
Cæcus erat quidam, cui pulcra virago, etc.
The date is 1315, and Caxton printed it in English in 1483; hence it was adopted by Boccaccio, Day vii., Novella 9; whence Chaucer’s “Marchaundes Tale”: this, by-the-by, was translated by Pope in his sixteenth or seventeenth year, and christened “January and May.” The same story is inserted in La Fontaine (Contes, lib. ii., No. 8), “La Gageure des trois Commères,” with the normal poirier; and lastly it appears in Wieland’s “Oberon,” canto vi.; where the Fairy King restores the old husband’s sight, and Titania makes the lover on the pear-tree invisible. Mr. Clouston refers me also to the Bahár-i-Dánish, or Prime of Knowledge (Scott’s translation, vol. ii., pp. 64–68); “How the Brahman learned the Tirrea Bede”; to the Turkish “Kirk Wazir” (Forty Wazirs) of Shaykh-Zadeh (xxivth Wazir’s story); to the “Comœdia Lydiæ,” and to Barbazan’s “Fabliaux et Contes” t. iii., p. 451, “La Saineresse,” the cupping-woman.
[372]. In the European versions it is always a pear-tree.
[373]. This supernatural agency, ever at hand and ever credible to Easterns, makes this the most satisfactory version of the world-wide tale.
[374]. i.e. till next harvest time.
[375]. The “’Ashshár,” or Tither, is most unpopular in the Nile-valley as in Wales; and he generally merits his ill-repute. Tales concerning the villainy of these extortioners abound in Egypt and Syria. The first step in improvement will be so to regulate the tithes that the peasants may not be at the mercy of these “publicans and sinners” who, however, can plead that they have paid highly for appointment to office and must recoup themselves.
[376]. Arab. “’Ammir” = cause to flourish.