200 ^SOP'S FABLES 



" Deprived of both fish and meat, Mistress Jackal, whither 

 away ? " 



The jackal replies : 



" Great as is my wisdom, thine is twice as great. 



" No husband, no lover, no clothes, lady, whither away ? " 



Thus, in the Indian version the loss of the meat is a 

 deliberate plan of the god Indra to read a lesson to the faith- 

 less wife. In all the earlier versions the dog is swimming 

 in the stream. The passage across the bridge we get from 

 Marie de France or her original. 



IV.— LION'S SHARE (Ro. i. 6). 



Phaedrus, i. 5. The companions of the Lion in Phaedrus 

 are a Cow, a Goat, and a Sheep. This seems to point to 

 some mistranslation from an Indian original, though none 

 such has been discovered. The medieval versions of Marie 

 de France and Benedict of Oxford (Hebrew) have another 

 version in which the Lion's partners are carnivorous, as is 

 appropriate. Our expression, " Lion's share," comes from 

 this fable, on which a special monograph has been written 

 by C. Gorski, 1888 (Dissertation). 



V.— THE WOLF AND CRANE (Ro. i. 8). 



Phaedrus, i. 8. Certainly Indian. Occurring as the 

 Javasakuna Jataka, in which Buddha tells the story of a Lion 

 and a Crane to illustrate the ingratitude of the wicked. 

 The Jataka concludes : " The master, having given the 

 lesson, summed up the Jataka thus : At that time the Lion 

 was Devadatta [the Buddhist Judas], and the Crane was I 

 myself." This is a striking example how the Indian doc- 

 trine of the transmigration of souls could be utilised to 



