Note 16 — Chapter XII
C. H. (Charles Henry) Tawney translation
Compare the 5th story in the first book of the Panchatantra, in Benfey’s translation.
Benfey shows that this story found its way into Mahometan collections, such as the Thousand and one Nights, and the Thousand and one Days, as also into the Decamerone of Boccaccio, and other European story-books, Vol. I, p. 159, and ff.
The story, as given in the Panchatantra, reminds us of the Squire’s Tale in Chaucer, but Josephus in Ant. Jud. XVIII, 3, tells it of a Roman knight named Mundus, who fell in love with Paulina the wife of Saturninus, and by corrupting the priestess of Isis was enabled to pass himself off as Anubis. On the matter coming to the ears of Tiberius, he had the temple of Isis destroyed, and the priests crucified. (Dunlop’s History of Fiction, Vol. II, p. 27. Liebrecht’s German translation, p. 232). A similar story is told by the Pseudo-Callisthenes of Nectanebos and Olympias. Cp. Coelho’s Contos Populares Portuguezes, No. LXXI, p. 155.