A prince, who is very ill, sends a parrot of great sagacity to procure him some of the fruit of the Tree of Life. When at length the parrot returns with the life-giving fruit, the prince scruples to eat it, upon which the wise bird relates the legend of Solomon and the Water of Immortality: how that monarch declined to purchase immunity from death on consideration that he should survive all his friends and female favourites. The prince, however, having suspicions regarding the genuineness of the fruit, sends some trusty messengers to “bring the first apple that fell from the Tree of Existence.” But it happened that a black serpent had poisoned it by seizing it in his mouth and then letting it drop again. When the messengers return with the fruit, the prince tries its effect on an old pír (holy man), who at once falls down dead. Upon seeing this the prince doomed the parrot to death, but the sagacious bird suggested 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. He does so, and on returning home gives part of the fruit to an old woman, “who, from age and infirmity had not stirred abroad for many years,” and she had no sooner tasted it than she was changed into a blooming beauty of eighteen!—Happy, happy old woman!
A different version of the legend occurs in a Canarese collection, entitled Kathá Manjarí, which is worthy of reproduction, since it may possibly be an earlier form than that in the Persian Parrot-Book: A certain king had a magpie that flew one day to heaven with another magpie. When it was there it took away some mango-seed, and, having returned, gave it into the hands of the king, saying: “If you cause this to be planted and grow, whoever eats of its fruit old age will forsake him and youth return.” The king was much pleased, and caused it to be sown in his favourite garden, and carefully watched it. After some time, buds having shown themselves in it became flowers, then young fruit, then it was grown; and when it was full of ripe fruit, the king ordered it to be cut and brought, and that he might test it gave it to an old man. But on that fruit there had fallen poison from a serpent, as it was carried through the air by a kite, therefore he immediately withered and died. The king, having seen this, was much afraid, and exclaimed: “Is not this bird attempting to kill me?” Having said this, with anger he seized the magpie, and swung it round and killed it. Afterwards in that village the tree had the name of the Poisonous Mango. While things were thus, a washerman, taking the part of his wife in a quarrel with his aged mother, struck the latter, who was so angry at her son that she resolved to die [in order that the blame of her death should fall on him]; and having gone to the poisonous mango-tree in the garden, she cut off a fruit and ate it; and immediately she was more blooming than a girl of sixteen. This wonder she published everywhere. The king became acquainted with it, and having called her and seen her, caused the fruit to be given to other old people. Having seen what was thus done by the wonderful virtue of the mango, the king exclaimed: “Alas! is the affectionate magpie killed which gave me this divine tree? How guilty am I!” and he pierced himself with his sword and died. Therefore (moralises the story-teller) those who do anything without thought are easily ruined.[52]
The incident of fruit or food being poisoned by a serpent is of frequent occurrence in Eastern stories; thus, in the Book of Sindibád a man sends his slave-girl to fetch milk, with which to feast some guests. As she was returning with it in an open vessel a stork flew over her, carrying a snake in its beak; the snake dropped some of its poison into the milk, and all the guests who partook of it immediately fell down and died.—The Water of Life and the Tree of Life are the subjects of many European as well as Asiatic folk-tales. Muslims have a tradition that Alexander the Great despatched the prophet Al-Khizar (who is often confounded with Moses and Elias in legends) to procure him some of the Water of Life. The prophet, after a long and perilous journey, at length reached this Spring of Everlasting Youth, and, having taken a hearty draught of its waters, the stream suddenly disappeared—and has, we may suppose, never been rediscovered. Al-Khizar, they say, still lives, and occasionally appears to persons whom he desires especially to favour, and always clothed in a green robe, the emblem of perennial youth. In Arabic, Khizar signifies green.
The faithful and sagacious Parrot having entertained the lady during fifty-two successive nights, and thereby prevented her from prosecuting her intended intrigue, on the following day the merchant returned, and, missing the sharak from the cage, inquired its fate of the Parrot, who straight-way acquainted him of all that had taken place in his absence, and, according to Kádiri’s abridged text, he put his wife to death, which was certainly very unjust, since the lady’s offence was only in design, not in fact.[53]
It will be observed that the frame of the Tútí Náma somewhat resembles the story, in the Arabian Nights, of the Merchant, his Wife, and the Parrot, which properly belongs to, and occurs in, all the versions of the Book of Sindibád, and also in the Seven Wise Masters; in the latter a magpie takes the place of the parrot. In my Popular Tales and Fictions I have pointed out the close analogy which the frame of the Parrot-Book bears to a Panjábí legend of the renowned hero Rájá Rasálú. In the Tútí Náma the merchant leaves a parrot and a sharak to watch over his wife’s conduct in his absence, charging her to obtain their consent before she enters upon any undertaking of moment; and on her consulting the sharak as to the propriety of her assignation with the young prince, the bird refuses consent, whereupon the enraged dame kills it on the spot; but the parrot, by pursuing a middle course, saves his life and his master’s honour. In the Panjábí legend Rájá Rasálú, who was very frequently from home on hunting excursions, left behind him a parrot and a maina (hill starling), to act as spies upon his young wife, the Rání Kokla. One day while Rasálú was from home she was visited by the handsome Rájá Hodí, who climbed to her balcony by a rope (this incident is the subject of many paintings in fresco on the panels of palaces and temples in India), when the maina exclaimed, “What wickedness is this?” upon which the rájá went to the cage, took out the maina, and dashed it to the ground, so that it died. But the parrot, taking warning, said, “The steed of Rasálú is swift, what if he should surprise you? Let me out of my cage, and I will fly over the palace, and will inform you the instant he appears in sight”; and so she released the parrot. In the sequel, the parrot betrays the rání, and Rasálú kills Rájá Hodí and causes his heart to be served to the rání for supper.[54]
The parrot is a very favourite character in Indian fictions, a circumstance originating, very possibly, in the Hindú belief in metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls after death into other animal forms, and also from the remarkable facility with which that bird imitates the human voice. In the Kathá Sarit Ságara stories of wise parrots are of frequent occurrence; sometimes they figure as mere birds, but at other times as men who had been re-born in that form. In the third of the Twenty-Five Tales of a Demon (Sanskrit version), a king has a parrot, “possessed of god-like intellect, knowing all the shastras, having been born in that condition owing to a curse”; and his queen has a hen-maina “remarkable for knowledge.” They are placed in the same cage; and “one day the parrot became enamoured of the maina, and said to her: ‘Marry me, fair one, as we sleep, perch, and feed in the same cage.’ But the maina answered him: ‘I do not desire intimate union with a male, for all males are wicked and ungrateful.’ The parrot answered: ‘It is not true that males are wicked, but females are wicked and cruel-hearted.’ And so a dispute arose between them. The two birds then made a bargain that, if the parrot won, he should have the maina for wife, and if the maina won, the parrot should be her slave, and they came before the prince to get a true judgment.” Each relates a story—the one to show that men are all wicked and ungrateful, the other, that women are wicked and cruel-hearted.
It must be confessed that the frame of the Tútí Náma is of a very flimsy description: nothing could be more absurd, surely, than to represent the lady as decorating herself fifty-two nights in succession in order to have an interview with a young prince, and being detained each night by the Parrot’s tales, which, moreover, have none of them the least bearing upon the condition and purpose of the lady; unlike the Telúgú story-book, having a somewhat similar frame (see ante, p. [127], [note 43]), in which the tales related by the bird are about chaste wives. But the frames of all Eastern story-books are more or less slight and of small account. The value of the Tútí Náma consists in the aid which the subordinate tales furnish in tracing the genealogy of popular fictions, and in this respect the importance of the work can hardly be over-rated.