Note 34 — INTRODUCTION.

As they deal with the subject of wise judgment, the seventh and eighth stories may be spoken of next. One of them describes the cleverness of a girl, the other that of a lad. Each of them is very popular in the East, and both of them find more or less complete counterparts in the West. There is a well-known group of folk-tales familiar to most European and Asiatic lands, the theme of which is the sharpness of a woman’s wits. Just as there thrive among the common people of all countries many jeers and flouts against women, such as the proverbs “A woman’s hair is long, but her mind is short,” and “A woman is worse than a dog, for it does not bark at its master,” or stories illustrative of a wife’s obstinacy, folly, or perfidy, so there flourish by their side numerous popular arguments in favour of women, generally conveyed in the form of stories. In the Perso-Turkish story-book of “The Forty Viziers,” a tale accusing women frequently alternates with one told in their defence. The framework of the collection is as follows:—A wicked queen calumniates her stepson as Phædra calumniated Hippolytus. His father sentences him to death. But the forty ministers intercede for him, each of them daily telling a tale of which the aim generally is to show how little reliance can be placed on a woman. Each night the queen tells a story which is usually of quite the opposite tendency, pointing out that men are miserable creatures, and that they are morally inferior to women. At the end of the forty days and nights, the prince is allowed to speak in his own defence (having been during that period prohibited by the astrologers from opening his lips), and all goes well. Among encomiums upon women, the story of Viśākhā (forming No. 7 of the present collection and a part of No. 8) is entitled to rank high. Her discretion, intelligence, and thoughtfulness for others, entitle her to an honourable place among the heroines of popular fiction. One of her decisions of a knotty legal point is specially interesting, as it belongs to the cycle of which Solomon’s judgments in the case of the two disputing mothers is the best known example. The actual mother and the adopted mother of a boy dispute as to which is really his mother. The point is legally important, for with the possession of the boy goes that of his deceased father’s homestead. The case is referred to the king, whose ministers investigate it, but in vain. At length Viśākhā is consulted. She replies, “What need is there of investigation? Speak to the two women thus: ‘As we do not know to which of you two the boy belongs, let who is the strongest take the boy.’ When each of them has laid hold of one of the boy’s hands and he begins to cry out on account of the pain, the real mother will let go, being full of compassion for him, and knowing that if her child remains alive she will be able to see it again. But the other, who has no compassion for him, will not let go.”34 Professor Schiefner has called attention in a note to the article in “Ausland” by the late Professor Benfey on the somewhat similar tale of “Die Kluge Dirne,” and to the variant of the Viśākhā story given in Mr. Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism.” There is a well-known folk-tale about a woman’s intelligence, of which the Russian variant may be cited here. It is the 6th of Khudyakoff’s collection of “Great Russian Popular Tales” (Moscow, 1860). A peasant girl was so intelligent that she solved all the problems proposed to her by a certain judge. Charmed by her cleverness, he married her. But he stipulated that if she ever found fault with any of his legal decisions she was to be divorced, and was bound to return at once to her father’s cottage. Only she was to be allowed to take away with her whatever thing she liked best in her husband’s house. All went well for some time with the judge and his clever wife. At length she heard him deliver a preposterous judgment in court, and she could not help protesting against it. Accordingly she was ordered to return to her father’s hut. She obeyed, but she took with her the judge, to whom she had administered so much liquor before leaving, that she was able to drive him in a cart tranquilly sleeping. When he awoke, and found himself in his father-in-law’s cottage, he naturally asked how he got there. “I brought you away with me,” replied the divorced wife. “You know I was entitled to take away whatever I liked best in your house, and I chose you.”35 There is a very interesting story of the same kind in Radloff’s great collection of songs and tales from Central Asia (“Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme Sud-Sibiriens,” vol. iii. pp. 347–354). There was once a choleric khan who understood the language of birds. He ordered his vizier one day to find out what two geese had said to each other as they flew past, threatening to put him to death if he failed to do so. The vizier applied for help to the khan’s wise daughter, who gave him the information he required. He promised not to mention his informant, but he broke his promise. The khan was so angry with his daughter, when he found out that it was she who had told the vizier what the geese had said, that he gave her in marriage to the most miserable specimen of humanity he could find. She proved an excellent wife to her unsightly and poverty-stricken husband, and he and she prospered in consequence.36