Volume Ii Part 25 (1/2)
[461] In a Scandinavian and Italian variety of this story, instead of the goose we have the eagle and eaglets; the goose returns, in the first story of the fifth book of the _Pentamerone_, to do the same duty as in the Russian story, but with some more vulgar and less decent incidents.
[462] The image of the legs which, when they move, make flowers grow up, is very ancient; students of Hindoo literature will remember the pushpi?yau carato ?anghe of the _aitareya Br._, in the story of cuna?cepas.
[463] The ninth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_ is an interesting variety of this; the beautiful maiden who feeds the geese is disguised in an old woman's skin; the geese, who see her naked, cry out: ”Coc, la bella padrona ch 'i' ho,” until the prince, by means of a noiseless file, makes the cook enter the room and carry the old woman's skin away while she sleeps, and then weds her.--The following unpublished story, communicated to me by Signor Greco from Cosenza in Calabria, is a variation of that of the _Pentamerone_:--
Seven princes have a very beautiful sister. An emperor decides upon marrying her, but upon the condition that if he does not find her to his taste, he will decapitate her seven brothers. They set out altogether, and the mother-in-law with her daughter follow them. On the way, the sun is hot, and the elder brother cries out, ”Solabella, defend me from the heat, for you must please the king.” The step-mother advises her to take off her necklaces and to put them on her half-sister. The second brother next complains of the heat, and the step-mother advises her to take off her gold apparel and to put it on her half-sister. By such means the step-mother at last succeeds in making her naked; they come to the sea, and the step-mother pushes her in; she is taken by a siren, who holds her by her foot with a golden chain. The princes arrive with the ugly sister; the king weds the ugly wife and cuts off the heads of the seven brothers. When the maiden is wandering about in the sea, she asks the king's ducks for news of her brothers; the ducks answer that they have been executed. She weeps; the tears become pearls and the ducks feed upon them. This marvel comes to the ears of the king, who follows the ducks and asks the girl why she shuns the society of men; to which she answers: ”Alas! how can I, who am fastened by a golden chain?” and then relates everything.
Having recognised his bride, the king gives her this advice: she must ask how, after the siren's death, she would be able to free herself; and then he departs. Next day, Solabella tells the king that the siren will not die, because she lives in a little bird, enclosed in a silver cage which is shut up in a marble case, and seven iron ones, of which she has the keys, and that if the siren died, a horseman, a white horse, and a long sword would be necessary to cut the chain. The king brings her a certain water, which he advises her to give the siren to drink; she will then fall asleep, and the girl will be able to take the keys and kill the little bird. When it is killed, the white horse plunges into the sea, and the sword cuts the chain. Then the king takes his beautiful bride to his palace, and the old step-mother is burned in a s.h.i.+rt of pitch; the seven brothers are rubbed with an ointment which brings them to life again, each exclaiming, ”Oh! what a beautiful dream I have had!”
[464] The old ogress of the ninth story of the fifth book of the _Pentamerone_, who keeps three beautiful maidens shut up in three citron-trees, and who feeds the a.s.ses which kick the swans upon the banks of the river, is a variety of the same myth.
[465] Instead of geese, swans were also solemnly eaten; a popular mediaeval German song in Latin offers the lamentation of the roasted swan; cfr. Uhland's _Schriften_, iii. 71, 158.--In the _Pancatantram_, we have the swan sacrificed by the owl. In order to allure the swan, the funereal owl, who wishes to kill it, invites it into a grove of lotus-flowers, only, however, to decoy it subsequently into a dark cavern, where the swan is killed by some travelling merchants, who believe it to be an owl.
[466] In the _Eddas_, when the hero Sigurd expires, the geese bewail his death.
[467] Cfr. also, with regard to this subject, the twenty-fourth Esthonian story of the princess born in the egg, of whom her brother, born in a more normal manner of the queen, becomes enamoured.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PARROT.
SUMMARY.
Haris and harit; harayas and hari; green and yellow called by a common name.--The moon as a green tree and as a green parrot; the parrot and the tree a.s.similated.--The wise moon and the wise parrot; the phallical moon and the phallical parrot, in numerous love stories.--The G.o.d of love mounted on the parrot--The parrot and the wolf pasture together.
The myth of the parrot originated in the East, and developed itself almost exclusively among the Oriental nations.
I mentioned in the chapter on the a.s.s, that the words _haris_ and _harit_ signify green no less than fair-haired, and hence gave rise to the epic myth of the monsters with parrot's faces, or drawn by parrots.
The solar horses are called harayas; hari are the two horses of Indras; Haris is a name of Indras himself, but especially of the G.o.d Vish?us; but there are more fair-haired figures in the sky then these; the golden thunderbolt which shoots through the cloud, and the golden moon, the traveller of the night, are such. Moreover, because green and yellow are called by this common name, all these fair ones, and the moon in particular, a.s.sumed the form, now of a green tree, now of a green parrot. A very interesting Vedic strophe offers us an evident proof of this. The solar horses (or the sun himself, Haris) say that they have imparted the colour haris to the parrots, to the pheasants (or peac.o.c.ks.[468] Benfey and the Petropolitan Dictionary, however, explain _ropa?aka_ by drossel or thrush), and to the trees, which are therefore called harayas. As the trees are green, so are the parrots generally green (sometimes also yellow and red, whence the appellation haris is always applicable to them).[469] The moon, on account of its colour, is now a tree (a green one), now an apple-tree with golden branches and apples, now a parrot (golden or green, and luminous). The moon in the night is the wise fairy who knows all, and can teach all. In the introduction to the _Mahabharatam_, the name cukas or parrot is given to the son of K?ish?as, _i.e._, of the black one, who reads (as moon) the _Mahabharatam_ to the monsters. In the chapter on the a.s.s, we saw the a.s.s and the monster of the _Ramaya?am_ with parrots' faces. But inasmuch as the a.s.s is a phallical symbol, the parrot is also ridden by the Hindoo G.o.d Kamas, or the G.o.d of love (hence also called cukavahas). The moon (masculine in India) has already been mentioned, in the first chapter of the first book, as a symbol of the phallos; in the same way as the thunderbolt pierces the cloud, the moon pierces the gloom of the night, penetrates and reveals the secrets of the night. Therefore, the parrot being identified with the night in the _cukasaptati_, and in other books of Hindoo stories, we see the parrot often appearing in love-stories, and revealing amorous secrets.
Some of the stories concerning the parrot pa.s.sed into the West; no doubt, by means of literary transmission, that is to say, of the mediaeval Arabic and Latin versions of the Hindoo stories.[470]
Some of the Hindoo beliefs concerning the parrot had already pa.s.sed into ancient Greece, and aelianos shows himself to be very well acquainted with the sacred wors.h.i.+p which the Brahmans of India professed for it.
Oppianos, moreover, tells us of a superst.i.tion which confirms what we have said concerning the essentially lunar character of the mythical parrot; he says that the parrot and the wolf pasture together, because the wolves love this green bird; this is the same as saying that the gloomy night loves the moon. One of the Hindoo epithets applied to the moon, moreover, is ra?anikaras, or he who makes the night.
FOOTNOTES:
[468] The parrot is sung of by Statius in connection with the same birds in the second book of the _Sylvae_--
”Lux volucrum plagae, regnator Eoae Quam non gemmata volucri Junonia cauda Vinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales.”
[469] A pathetic elegy in Sansk?it distiches, of a Buddhist character, of which I do not now remember the source, presents us the cukas, or parrot, who wishes to die when the tree ac.o.kas, which has always been his refuge, is dried up.