218 ^SOP'S FABLES 



history of the fable, and I have inserted it mainly for that 

 reason. Mr. G. C. Keibel has studied the genealogy of the 

 various versions in a recent article in Zeits. fur vergleich. 

 Literaturgeschichte^ 1894, p. 264 seq. 



LXXV.— EAGLE AND ARROW. 



iEschylus' Myrmidons as given by the Scholiast on Aristo- 

 phanes' dves, 808. iEschylus quotes it as being a Libyan 

 fable, it is therefore probably Eastern. Byron refers to it in 

 his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers : 



So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, 

 No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 

 View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, 

 And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart. 



He got the idea from Waller, To a lady singing a song of his 

 composing. Cf. La Fontaine, ii. 6. 



LXXVL— THE CAT-MAIDEN. 



From Phaedrus, though not in the ordinary editions ; 

 the whole of the poem, however, can be restored from the 

 prose version in the medieval Esopus ad Rufmi. (See my 

 History^ p. 12.) The fable is told of a weasel by the 

 dramatist Strattis, c. 400 B.C., and by Alexis, 375 B.C. Prob- 

 ablv Indian, as a similar story occurs in the Panchatantra. 

 A Brahmin saves a Mouse and turns it into a Maiden whom 

 he determines to marry to the most powerful being in the 

 world. The Mouse-Maiden objects to the Sun as a hus- 

 band, as being too hot : to the Clouds, which can obscure 

 the Sun, as being too cold : to the Wind, which can drive 

 the Clouds, as too unsteady : to the Mountain, which can 



