shoemaker, and workman in an incligo factory, who became 

 a famou?i orientalist. .The translation by WUkins forms a 

 voluxne of Morley's Library, and can be bought for a lalail- 

 hng. 



Verflions. of the Hitopadesa vary as to their number of 

 tales, and have minor variant readings of the same fable. 

 One piquant fable found in many languages, given in 

 Knatchbull's version from the Arabic, in fikeleton reads 

 thus: "A man, fleeing- from a mad elephant fell mto a pit. 

 In falling he grabbed the t^vigs of a tree gi'owing by the 

 pit-side and h» feet rested on something part of the way 

 down. Holding on to the tree, and with a foothold, he 

 thought himself safe, when to his horror he saw two rats, 

 one black, the other white, gnawing the root of the tree he 

 was clinging to. At the pnt bottom he saw a dragon, with 

 open jaws, and that hie feet were resting on the heads of 

 four Bei"pents. But looking up, he saw a hive of bees in 

 the tree above him, from which honey wats slowly drop- 

 ping ; and eager to catch the drops of honey slowly trickling 

 from the tree, on a sudden elephant, ratf?, dragon and ser- 

 pents were all forgotten." The key to this is not hard to 

 find. The fleeing man represents the human race; the 

 elephajit, death; the pit, the world; the black and white 

 rats night and day, gnawing away the ti*ee of life; the ser- 

 pents the four constituent elements of the body ; the 

 dragon the close of earthly life; and the trickling hottiey 

 represents the pleasures of life which make all horrors for- 

 gotten. 



It is a inoot que-stion whether, as to age and influence, 

 Indian or Grecian fable literature -deseiwes precedence. 

 But that is of little import, for both literatures are rich in 

 story-lore that fades away till lost in mists, of the remote 

 past. Apart fi'om the Homeric stories, which their epic 

 form excludes from this list, the best Icnown Grecian fables 

 are those attributed to Esop. Altogether, a list of two 

 hundi'ed and thirty sparkling fables bear his name, thougK 

 the popular English series includes but the one hundred 



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