80 on.

my living in the house of a very pious man who led a recluse life, with no family or servants about him, and who had every day given to him a basket of provisions. Of this he would eat what he wanted, and hang up the remainder. I used to watch the recluse until he went out, when I would leap up to the basket, and eat away until I had devoured what was in it, except what I threw down to the other mice who had gathered round. Many a time did the hermit do his best to hang the basket out of my reach, but never succeeded, until once upon a time a travelling guest asked lodging for the night, when they two sat down and ate their supper together. After that they began to converse; when the hermit asked his guest from what part of the world he came, and where are you going now, and The man had passed through distant regions, and seen many curious things, and while he was telling them, the hermit suddenly clapped his hands to scare me away from the basket. What is that? said the traveller. Are you making sport of me, after asking me to relate my adventures? The hermit begged his pardon, and said it was that wicked mouse; his audacity is astonishing; I can leave nothing in the house but he eats it all up. Said the traveller, One mouse do all that! There must be a good many of them, I think. True, replied the hermit, my hut is pretty well stocked with them; but there is one in particular who beats me in every effort I make to catch him at his tricks. That puts me in mind, replied the traveller, of what the man said to the woman who sold good sifted sesame for that which was unsifted. And how was that? said the hermit. Once upon a time, said the traveller, I lodged with a man in a certain place, and after we had supped, they spread a bed for me in a room adjoining that in which my host slept with his wife. There being but a thin partition of reeds between us, I heard the man say, just before daylight, that he thought of inviting a few friends to dinner. make ready for them, said he to the

So

woman. What business, replied she, have you to give such an invitation, when there is hardly enough in the house for your own family? You know, too, that you are one who never lays up any thing. Don't trouble yourself about that, says the man; we will just give them what we have. As for this laying up that you talk of, no good comes of it; it is very apt to turn out as it did with the saving wolf. How was that? said the wife. They say, replied the man,* that once upon a time a huntsman went out with his bow and arrows, and had not gone far before he shot a gazelle. He laid it upon his shoulders, and was carrying it home, when lo, a wild boar crossed his way. The huntsman sent an arrow that pierced the boar, but did not prevent his rushing upon him, and striking him with his tusks. The bow flew out of his hands and both fell dead together. As it happened, just at that time there came along a wolf. Aha! says the grim creature, here is a man, and a deer, and a wild hog, all together; I shall have meat enough for a long time. It is best, however, to be saving; so I will begin with this leather bow-string; the gnawing of that will do for one meal. He was very busy with the string, when it suddenly snapped, and the horn of the bow springing back struck him a killing blow upon the throat. So he died, too; and all this came from saving and laying up. I have told you the story that you may know that all such hoard

*These parentheses, or stories within stories, often occur, sometimes involved to the third or fourth power. They belong to the humor of this old composition; but they become, occasionally, so complicated, that the reader is puzzled in determining their application. Sometimes they seem quite mal à propos, unless they may be regarded as designed to show that the wise animals can now and then say things without purpose, or talk nonsense, as well as men. It is not very easy here to see the exact point in the mouse's version of the traveller's story about the sesame, though the meaning of the comical wolf-parenthesis is pretty clear. And so we may say of some parts of mousie's moralizing in what follows. Very good in itself, but seeming to have little to do with the story, unless we may suppose it intended, by Bidpai, as a quiet satire upon commonplace experiences, and prosy moral reflections upon them, belonging, as they do, to the earliest as well as to the latest times.

ing is apt to come to a bad end. Very well, said the wife, that may be all true what you say, and I will do my best; there may be in the house enough rice and sesame to make a dinner for six or seven persons, and in the morning I will get it ready; so invite whom you please. When the morning came, the wife took the sesame, and sifted it, and spread it in the sun to dry, and told the boy to keep off the birds and the dogs. It so happened, however, that, when she was very busy, the boy became careless, and lo, a dog came along and stuck his nose in the meal. This made it profane, and unfit for use. So she took it to the market, and bargained with it for other sesame that had never been sifted, measure for measure. That was the time-for I was standing in the market-when I heard one say: There is some secret about this woman's proceedings, or she never would have sold sifted meal for unsifted. Now this is what I said to you before, resumed the traveller, in his talk with the hermit, and that is what I have to say about this jumping mouse. You may depend upon it, there is some mystery about him, some secret cause that enables him to perform these feats of which you complain. Now, bring me an axe, and I will make a search for his hole, and find out the way he does the thing. So the hermit procured an axe, which the guest took, and began his search. It so happened that at that time, when I heard them say this, I was in my other hole. In the one that I usually occupied there had been lying a purse of a hundred dinars-how they came there I never knew-and so the guest kept on his hunt until he came upon the money. Aha! said he to the hermit, here is the secret of the mouse's performances; this is what gives him power to make such leaps; he never could have done it if it had not been for the dinars; for it is money, you must know, that gives strength, and increase of wisdom, and ability of all sorts. Now you will see, after this, if he shall be able to leap as

us.

he did before. When morning came, all the other mice gathered round me, complaining of hunger, and calling me their only hope; and so I went on, and they with me, to the usual place from which I was wont to leap at the basket; but it was all over with me. I tried my best, once and again, but could never reach it. Thus my loss of power became evident to them, and I heard them saying, Let us abandon him, for we shall never more get our living through his means; he is not the one we took him for; he has become poor, and wants a provider like the rest of So they left me, and joined my enemies, and abused me every way, and told stories about me, and persecuted me, until I said to myself: Such is the way of the world; brothers, helpers, friends, all fail when money fails. Thus I found that one who has no money becomes utterly destitute in all things. He is like the water which the winterrains leave stagnant in the waddies; it runs into no stream, it flows to no place; it only sinks lower and lower, until the dry earth drinks it up. I found, too, that as one who has no friends has no people, and as one who has no child has no memorial, so he who has no money loses all reputation for wisdom; he has no share in this world; he is regarded as having but little to expect from the world to come; for let him become poor, and friends and brothers all cut his acquaintance. Like a tree that grows in the desert, plucked on every side, such is the condition of one who has become destitute, and stands in need of what is abundantly possessed by others. And

*We see from this how old is the inductive philosophy. This traveller was a true Baconian; cum hoc propter hoc, or post-hoc propter hoc, was his motto. The dinars were there all the time of the mouse's jumping; they were an invariable concomitant-a "co-cause," or, at least, an "occasion,"and there must be some connection between them and the constant event with which they coincided. No other causation was visible; these were the "hard facts;" and so the traveller's examination might be called a "crucial experiment;" whilst the fact of the mouse's ceasing to leap verified it beyond doubt.

The Arabic idiom here is precisely the same with our own.

I found that poverty is, in fact, the sum of all wretchedness, the cause to its victim of all hatred, a very pit of slander and ill report. I discovered, too, that when one is poor he becomes an object of suspicion to those who had before confided in him; he is judged hardly by those who once thought well of him. If another commits an offence, he bears the blame. There is no quality praised in the rich that is not condemned in him. His courage is called foolhardiness. Is he generous? he gets the name of a squanderer. Is he humane? he is called weak. Is he grave? they call him stupid. Death itself is better than the want which drives one to beggary-especially to beg of the avaricious and the vile; and for the nobleminded it were easier, and more agreeable, to thrust his hand into the mouth of the viper, and swallow down its deadly venom, than to ask alms of the miserly churl. But to return to my story. I saw the guest take the dinars, and divide them with the hermit, who put his part in a purse, and laid it by his head. As it grew late, therefore, and the shadow of the night came over them, I had a strong desire to get hold of it, and carry it back to my hole; for I thought that this would restore my strength, or, at least, bring back to me my friends. So I crept up to the hermit as he slept, and had got very near his head, when I saw that the guest was wide awake, with a stick in his hand, with which he struck me a cruel blow that quickly sent me back. After the pain had ceased, the strong desire to get the dinars sent me out again, as before; but lo, the guest was still on the watch, and hit me another blow that made the blood come, and knocked me heels over head, until I fell fainting in my hole, with such torturing pain as made the very name of money so odious to me, that I have never since heard an allusion to it without thinking of those dinars-so much of distress and terror they caused me. Then I thought with myself again, and found that the wretchedness which abounds in the world comes mainly from greediVOL. II.-6

ness and inordinate desire, and that those who have it never cease from misery, and weariness, and painful labor; so that they are more easily induced to make the most distant and laborious journeys in search of wealth, than the liberal man is to stretch out his hand for money when it is offered to him. There is nothing like content. This, at last, I came to see; and then I went from the house of the hermit, and dwelt in the open field, where the dove became my friend, and so I was led into this new friendship between me and the raven, who told me of the loving intimacy that existed between him and thee, and invited me to go along with him to your place. This I was very willing to do, and I will be to thee a true brother, and gladly make my residence near to thine own.

The field-mouse ceased speaking, when the tortoise replied with great kindness: I have listened, said she, to your words, and to the very interesting story you have told us. There is only one thing I wish to observe. Begging your pardon for saying it, there seems yet to linger in your mind something of a longing remembrance of the things you have renounced.* Know, then, that excellence of speech becomes perfect in excellence of act; for the sick man who knows the remedy for his disease, receives no benefit from his knowledge unless he takes the medicine. It gives him neither rest nor ease. Now, therefore, put your wisdom and experience in practice, and be no longer sad on account of the scantiness of your means t (that is, think no more about the di nars); for one who has true fortitude, and is held thereby in honorable esteem, even though he have not money, is like a lion who inspires awe even

The Arabic text here is so very defective and confused, that the version of the sentence, as given, is taken from the Greek of Simeon Seth.

† The tortoise seems to intend here a very gentle rebuke to mousie for his long moralizing, intimating that he is like some other good people, who, though really converted, have still a little hankering after a world renounced,-showing this even in their expressed contempt for it, and in their sentimental fondness for talking about its vanities.

when he is lying down; whereas the rich man without manliness, and who is little thought of in the midst of his wealth, is like a cowardly dog which nobody cares for, though he has a rich collar about his neck, and rings upon his feet. And let it not grieve you your being in a foreign land; for the wise man in exile is like the lion, who, let him go where he will, his strength goes with him. So think well of what you have done for yourself; for if you do so, good will seek thee even as water seeks its descent. Success belongs to the diligent and the prudent; but as for the slothful and the shiftless, no good goes with him, any more than with the young woman who marries an old and withered man. For there are five things, it is said, in which stability and truth are not to be expected. They are, the shadow of a summer cloud, the friendship of the wicked, the love of women, the tale of a liar, and wealth rapidly grown. Wherefore the wise man will not be sad on account of the little that he possesses; for his wealth is his understanding, and the treasure of good deeds he has sent on before him* (to the day of judgment): of this, he trusts that he shall never be robbed, whilst he has no fear of being charged with any false account for what he hath not done. He is not the one to be neglectful of his latter end, knowing that death is ever unexpected, and hath no appointed time. You need not my admonition, since you are yourself so knowing; but I thought to do you right, for you are our brother now, and all that we can teach or give is thine.

When the raven had heard what the tortoise said to the mouse, and how kindly and elegantly she had replied to him, he was vastly delighted. You have made me very glad, said he; you have conferred a great favor upon me;

*This "sending on of good deeds" before one is a peculiar Mohammedan and Koranic phrase; and must, therefore, be regarded as an accommodation of something of the same general import in the Indian or Persian. It resembles, however, very much the New Testament idea of "laying up treasure in heaven."

and may you ever have as much joy as you have given. For the good are ever watching over and helping the good. Especially is it the case that, when such a one stumbles, or falls into trouble, it is only one like him that gives him the hand; as when the elephant sinks in the marsh, it is only another elephant that can draw him out.

Now, whilst the raven was in the midst of this speech, there suddenly dashed in among them a gazelle, running very swiftly, and giving them all a terrible fright. Down sunk the tortoise in the water; away scud the mouse to his hole; up flew the raven and lighted on a tree. Then he soared high in the heavens,* that he might see if any one was in pursuit of the gazelle. Nothing, however, could he discover, and so he called to his friends, who thereupon came out again from their retreats. When the tortoise saw the gazelle looking eagerly to the water, Drink, said she, if you are thirsty, and be in no fear, for there is nothing here to cause you dread. Then the gazelle

This kind of language shows great antiquity. It is an Old Testament style of speech. We say, "birds of the air;" the scriptural term is everywhere (in the Hebrew), "birds of the heavens." It came from the idea of birds actually flying up to the heavens, the abode of the celestial powers. Hence afterwards, when superstition obscured the pure old patriarchalism, the wide-spread idea of divination by birds, as having some kind of intercourse with the heavenly beings. Thus, in Greek, there is the same word for bird and omen. We see it, too, in the Latin aus(avis)picium. This higher knowledge of the birds was supposed to be obtained by us in watching the direction of their flights, listening to their notes, or examining their vital parts in sacrifice. The raven, especially, was always regarded as a far-seeing, prophetic bird. This has been supposed by some to have had some connection with Noah's employment of him as a messen. ger from the ark. It was also the bird sent to feed Elijah. We need not attach much importance to this; but, at all events, the keen sight of birds, in their great elevation, is used, in the Bible, to represent surpassing or superhuman knowledge. Compare Job xxviii. 7: "a path which no fowl knoweth," and v. 21: "it is hid from the birds of heaven." The language is employed to denote great inscrutableness; referring to that hidden or higher "wisdom" which this sublime chapter represents man as seeking in vain through all nature. Compare, also, Ecclesiastes x. 20: "For a bird of the air (Heb., bird of the heavens) shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."

drew nigh, and the tortoise saluted him, and wished him health, and said to him, Whence came you to us? I have been, said he, in the wide desert, where the riding huntsmen are ever chasing me from place to place. This day, in particular, I saw an old man coming along, who I was afraid might be one of them, and so I fled as usual. Don't be frightened, said the tortoise; for we never see any huntsmen here; and we will give you our love, and a place to live in; and here is water and pasture in plenty, if you can be content in our society. So the gazelle stayed with them, and there was a shady place where they all used to meet together, and had much good discourse, and told each other instructive stories. So they lived on, until at last, one day, the raven, and the mouse, and the tortoise, were together in the arisha, but the gazelle was missing. So they waited, and waited, hour after hour, but he came not. It was a long time, and they began to be very much afraid lest some harm might have happened to him. At last the mouse and the tortoise said to the raven, Your eyes are sharp; fly up, and see if there is any thing near to us. Then the raven soared very high in the heavens, looking keenly out, and, lo and behold! the gazelle lay afar off entangled in the nets of the huntsman. Down he flew swiftly, and told them what had happened. Then said the tortoise and the raven to the mouse, Here is work for you; we must despair, without your assistance, of giving any help to our brother. Come on, then, and aid him all in your power. The mouse started immediately with all speed, and when he came to the gazelle, Alas! said he, how came you in so sad a case as this? for you are one of the sharp-eyed, and should have looked out. Said the gazelle, What can sharpness do against the Fates? Whilst they were in this talk, the tortoise came crawling up, and the gazelle said, Alas! what possessed you to come? for if the huntsman gets here by the time the mouse has gnawed the nets, we must leave you to the foe; for there

are holes into which the mouse can run; but as for thee, O my slow friend, there is no hurrying thee, nor even moving thee. It is on your account, therefore, that I especially fear the huntsman's coming. Said the tortoise, There is no living away from one's friends; for when friend parts from friend, he is robbed of his heart, he is deprived of his joy, his eye is darkened. The tortoise was proceeding in this strain; but before she had finished her words, the huntsman drew nigh, and this was just at the time when the mouse had finished the cutting of the net. Immediately the gazelle made off with himself, the raven went soaring up in the air, and the mouse took refuge in one of the holes of the desert. Nothing remained but the tortoise. She was creeping off, when the huntsman came up and found his net cut to pieces. Looking round, right and left, he espied her moving slowly along, and immediately seized and bound her. In the meantime the raven, the mouse, and the gazelle, had made no delay in getting together as soon as possible, after they had seen the huntsman bind the tortoise. And their grief was very great, and the mouse began to talk wisely, and said:" We can never know that we have passed through all trouble until we have been in the worst of it; and he was very right, who said that one should never cease his efforts to keep out of difficulty; for when he has once stumbled, he will keep on stumbling, though he were walking on the smooth and level plain. Oh, how I fear for the tortoise, that best of friends, whose friendship, instead of being mercenary, or seeking any reward, is a generous and noble friendship-stronger, indeed, than that of a parent to his child-a friendship that death alone can destroy. Alas, for this body of ours,* so loaded

The mouse's philosophizing here suggests some of the questions of the early Greek schools about the continual flux of matter, and change of bodily forms-" Does any thing stand?" It has, however, still more of a Buddhistic look. Some of the terms used by the Arabian translator show that he did not fully understand it. It is clearer in Simeon Seth.