CHAPTER III.

THE ASS.

SUMMARY.

Glory has been pernicious to the ass.--The purely stupid ass not an ancient belief in India.--Eastern and Western asses; the ass of an inferior quality pays the penalty of the reputation acquired in the East by his superior congener.--Christianity, instead of improving the condition of the ass, has aggravated it.--The mediæval hymn in honour of the ass is a satire.--The ass in the sacred ceremonies of the Church.--Physical and moral decadence of the ass.--Indian names of the ass; equivoques in language form myths.--Gardabhas and gandharbas.--Identification of the mythical ass with the gandharvas; both are in connection with salutary waters, with perfumes or unguents, and with women.--The ass which carries mysteries.--The flight into Egypt; the ass laden; the old man, the boy, and the ass.--Peau d'âne.--The onokentauros.--Urvaçî and Purûravas in connection with the gandharvas; Cupid and Psyche in connection with the ass.--The mythical ass and the kentauros correspond, as well as the ass and the gandharvas.--The Hindoo onocentaur and satyr; monkey and gandharvas as warriors.--Kentauros, gandharvas, and ass in the capacity of musicians and dancers.--Kriçâçvas dancing-master.--Kriçânus and Kereçâni.--Hybrid nature of the mythical ass and of the gandharvas.--The Açvinâu ride asses, and give youth to Cyavanas; the youthfulness of the ass.--The Vedic ass as a warrior.--The Vedic ass flies.--The decadence of the ass dates as far back as the Vedâs; its explanation.--The phallic ass and the punishment of the ass for adulterers.--The braying of the ass in heaven; Indras kills the ass.--The funereal and demoniacal ass of the Hindoos; the ass piçâcas; the faces of parrots; equivoque originated by the words _haris_ and _harit_.--The golden ass.--The ass in love.--The ass in the tiger's skin.--The ass who betrays himself by singing.--The Zend lame ass who brays in the water.--Rustem, devourer of asses.--The ass's kick.--The fool and the ass, the trumpet and the drum, the trumpet of Malacoda.--The king Midas in the Mongol story; the hero forced to speak, in order not to burst.--The ass among the monkeys.--Midas, king of Phrygia, in connection with the ass, with Silenos, Dionysos, the roses, gold, blades of corn, and waters.--The centaurs among the flowers.--The ass awakens Vesta whilst she is being seduced.--Priapos and the ass of Silenos.--The ass as a musical umpire between the cuckoo and the nightingale.--Midas judges between Pan and Apollo.--The ears of King Midas; his secret revealed by the young man who combs his hair.--The Phrygian ass held up to derision by the Greeks.--The Greek spirit of nationality still more pernicious to the ass.--The ass of Vicenza impaled.--Pan and the ass.--Gandharvâs and satyrs.--Pan and the nymphs.--Syrinx and the reed or cane; the leaf of the cane, and the ass.--Pan chases away fear; the ass's skin gives courage.--The ass in hell; golden excrements.--The heroic ass and Pan.--Perseus who eats asses.--The ass and the water of the Styx; the horned ass.--The cornucopia.--Ass and goat.--The asses save the hero out of the water.--The asses in heaven.--The ass carries the water of youth.--Ass's milk has a cosmetic virtue.--Youth and beauty of the ass.--The deaths of the ass.--The ass carries wine and drinks water.--The ass wet by the rain, the ass's ears predict rainy weather.--The shadow of the ass; the ass's wool; lana caprina; to shear the ass; the gold on the ass's head.--Asini prospectus.--The ass and the gardener.--The ass chases the winds away.--The third braying or flatus of the ass kills the fool.--The prophetic ass; the kick of the ass kills the lion; the ass a good listener, who hears everything; the hero Oidin Oidon; the ears of Lucifer.

The ass, in Europe at least, has had the misfortune to have been born under an evil star, a circumstance which must be reckoned to the account of the Greeks and Romans, whose humour it was to treat it as a sort of Don Quixote of animals. Its liability to be flogged has always increased with its celebrity, which, no one can deny, is great and indefeasible. The poor ass has paid very dear, and continues to pay still dearer, upon earth for the flight which the fantasy of primeval men made it take in the mythical heavens. May this chapter--if it produce no other effect--have at least that of sparing the poor calumniated animal some few of the many blows which, given in fun, it is accustomed to receive, as if to afford a vent for the satirical humour of our race, and _ad exhilarandam caveam_.

The germ of the reputation the ass has of being both a stupid and a petulant animal, acquired in Greece and in Italy, spreading thence into all the other parts of Europe, may already be found in the ancient myths of the Hindoos. Professor Weber,[686] however, has proved, in answer to Herr Wagener, that the idea of a stupid and presumptuous ass, such as we always find it represented in the fables of the _Pancatantram_, was diffused in India by the Greeks, and is not indigenous to Hindoo faith and literature.

In India, the ass was not a particular object of ridicule; and this was perhaps for the simple reason that the Eastern varieties of the asinine family are far handsomer and nobler than the Western ones. The ass in the East is generally ardent, lively, and swift-footed, as in the West it is generally slow and lazy, having no real energy except of a sensual nature. For if even the West (and especially the south of Europe) possesses a distinct species of ass, which reminds us of the _multinummus_ ass of Varro (in the same way as the East also, though exceptionally, has inferior varieties), the asinine multitude in Europe is composed of animals of a low type and a down-trodden appearance, and it is against them that our jests and our floggings are especially directed. This is the proverbial ass's kick against the fallen; the poor outcast of the West dearly pays the penalty of the honours conceded to his illustrious mythical ancestors of the East. We think that the ass of which we hear heroic achievements related is the same as that which now humbly carries the pack; and since we no longer regard him as capable of a magnanimous action, we suppose that he (unfortunate animal!) appropriates to himself all these ancient glories out of vain presumption, for which reason there is no affront which we do not feel entitled to offer to him. Nor did Christianity succeed in delivering him from persecution,--Christianity, which, as it represents the Sun of nations, the Redeemer of the world, as born between the two musical animals, the ox and the ass (who were to prevent His cries from being heard), and introduces the ass as the saviour of the Divine Child persecuted during the night, and as the animal ridden by Christ, in his last entry into Jerusalem, invested him with more than one sacred title which ought from its devotees to have procured for him a little more regard. Unfortunately, the same famous mediæval ecclesiastical hymn which was sung in France on the 14th of January in honour of the ass, richly caparisoned near the altar, to celebrate the flight into Egypt, was turned into a satire. It must have been not without some gay levity that priest and people exclaimed "Hinham!" three times after the conclusion of the mass, on the day of the festival of the ass.[687] Nor did the inhabitants of Empoli show him more reverence, when, on the eighth day after the festival of the _Corpus Domini_--that is, near the summer solstice--they made him fly in the air, amid the jeers of the crowd; nor the Germans, who, in Westphalia, made the ass a symbol of the dull St Thomas, who was the last of the apostles to believe in the resurrection. The Westphalians were accustomed to call by the name of "the ass Thomas" (as in Holland he is called "luilak") the boy who on St Thomas's Day was the last to enter school.[688] On Christmas Day, in the Carnival, on Palm-Sunday, and in the processions which follow the festival of _Corpus Domini_,[689] the Church often introduced the ass into her ceremonies, but more in order to exhilarate the minds of her devotees than to edify them by any suggestion of the virtues it represents in the Gospels; so that, notwithstanding the great services rendered by the ass to the Founder of the new religion, he not only received no benefit in return from Christianity, but became instead the unfortunate object of new attentions, which rather depressed than heightened his already sufficiently degraded social condition.

And so the Greeks and Romans first, and the Catholic priests afterwards, combined, by their treatment of him, to make the ass more indifferent than he would otherwise have been to the passion and spirited struggle for life shown in all the other animals. He was perhaps intended for a higher fate, if man had not come upon earth, and interfered too persistently to thwart his vocation. And probably his race gradually deteriorated, just because, having become ridiculous, few cared to preserve or increase his nobleness. As the proverb said that it was useless to wash the ass's head, so it seemed useless for man to endeavour to ameliorate or civilise his form: the physical decadence of the ass was contemporary and parallel with his decline morally.

But although it was in Greece and Rome that the poor ass was thrown completely down from his rank in the animal kingdom, the first decree of his fall was pronounced in his ancient Asiatic abode. Let us prove this.

In the _Rigvedas_, the ass already appears under two different aspects--one divine and the other demoniacal--to which may perhaps be added a third intermediate or gandharvic aspect.

In the _Rigvedas_, the ass has the names of _gardabhas_ and _râsabhas_; in Sanskrit, also those of _kharas, cakrîvant, ciramehin_, and _bâleyas_.

It is important to notice how each of these designations tends to lapse into ambiguity; and ambiguity in words plays a considerable part in the formation of myths and popular beliefs.

Let us begin with the most modern designations.

_Bâleyas_ may mean the childish one (from _bâlas_ = child, and stupid[690]), as well as the demoniacal (from _balis_; and indeed, besides being a name given to the ass, _bâleyas_ is also a name for a demon).

_Ciramehin_ is the ass as _longe mingens_ (a quality which can apply to the ass, but still more so to the rainy cloud).

_Cakrîvant_ means he who is furnished with wheels, with round objects or testicles (an epithet equally applicable to the ass and his phallos).

_Kharas_ signifies he who cries out, as well as the ardent one (and _kharus_, which ought to have the same meaning, signifies, according to the Petropolitan Dictionary, foolish, and horse; perhaps ass too).

_Râsabhas_ is derived from the double root _ras_, whence _rasa_ = humour, juice, water, savour, sperm, and _râsa_ = din, tumultuous noise.

_Gardabhas_ comes from the root _gard_,[691] to resound, to bellow; but I think I can recognise in the word _gardabhas_ the same meaning as _gandharbas_ or _gandharvas_, and _vice versa_. The _gardabhas_ explains to me how the _gandharvas_ was conceived to be a musician; and the _gandharvas_ (a word which, I repeat, seems to me composed of _gandha_ + _arvas_, developed out of a hypothetic _rivas_,[692] that is, he who walks in the unguent, or he who goes in the perfume) helps me to understand the proverb, "Asinus in unguento," and the corresponding legends. The equivocal word _râsabhas_, in its two meanings, seems to unite together the sonorous _gardabhas_ with the _gandharbas_ who likes perfumes, or the _gandharvo apsu_ (_gandharvas_ in the waters) of the _Rigvedas_,[693] the guardian of the ambrosial plant.[694] The mythical ass and the Vedic _gandharvas_ have the same qualities and the same instincts. The gandharvâs, for instance, are represented in the _Âitareya Br._ as lovers of women,[695] so much so that for a woman's sake they allow themselves to be deprived of the ambrosia (or somas); and it is also known from the story of Urvaçî how jealous they are of their nymphs, the _apsarâs_, or them who flow by on the waters (the clouds), and from the story of Hanumant, in the _Râmâyanam_, how greedy they are of their salutary herbs and waters.[696] The mythical and legendary ass also has a foible for beautiful maidens; it is unnecessary to give the reason of this belief.[697] When Circe wishes to give, by means of an unguent, an ass's head to Odysseus, we find an allusion to the loves of the ass and the beautiful woman. When the Lucius of Apuleius, while endeavouring to change himself into a bird (another of the names by which the phallos is indicated), becomes instead, by means of the woman's unguent, an ass, the ass is another name for the phallical bird. And as the Vedic ass delights in the _rasas_, or humour, water or sperm (the two words _râsas_ and _rasas_, derived from a common root, being easily interchangeable); as the mythical ass, when it finds the ambrosia of the roseate morning aurora, once more becomes the splendid young sun; so the ass of Apuleius, too, becomes Lucius again, or the luminous and handsome youth that he was before, as soon as he has an opportunity of feeding upon roses: he becomes an ass for love of a woman, and regains his splendour in the rosy aurora. During the night, being subject to the enchantment of a beautiful fairy, the hero remains an ass; and in the form of an ass, and under an ass's skin, he carries the priapoean mysteries, whence the expression of Aristophanes in the _Frogs_, "The ass which carries mysteries" (onos agôn müstêria), the same mysteries as the Phallagia or Perifallia of Rome. In the Christian myth, this mystery is the flight of the new-born Divine Child into Egypt;[698] in the story of Perrault, it is the beautiful maiden, the evening aurora, the girl persecuted by her father and would-be seducer, who disguises herself during the night with an ass's skin;[699] the beautiful girl evidently transfers her erotic sympathies to the ass that loves her. Of loves such as these,--of an ass with a maiden, or of the young hero and an ass,--are born the monstrous onokentaurs and Empusa, now a beautiful maiden, and now the terrifier of children, who is represented with ass's feet, because her mother was an ass, and her father, Aristoxenes, enamoured of an ass. It is now the evening aurora, now the dying sun, and now both, who, under the cloud of night, or in winter, are represented as covered with an ass's skin. Professor Kuhn has already proved the close affinity, amounting to identity, between the gandharvâs and the Hellenic kentauroi, both of which come before us in connection with the inebriating drink; but the kentauros is essentially a hippokentauros, or, still better, an onokentauros,[700] or centaur ass. The fable of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius, in its relation with the story of the ass, perfectly agrees with the analogous Hindoo fable of the loves of Purûravas and Urvaçî, united with the story of the Gandharvâs. Peau d'âne, Psyche, and Urvaçî are therefore mythical sisters.

Professor Kuhn's proof of the identity of the gandharvas and the kentauros being admitted, the identity of the gardabhas with the gandharbas, and of the ass with the gandharvas, seems to follow as a natural consequence. The myth of the kentauros, either hippokentauros or onokentauros, no less than the myth of the gandharvas, corresponds entirely with that of the ass. The kentauros loves wine and women; he plays the lyre upon the car of Dionysos in conjunction with satyrs, nymphs, and bacchantes; he teaches on Mount Pelion music,[701] the science of health, and the prophetic art to the Dioscuri, which are all subjects that occur again with slight modifications in the Hindoo legends concerning the gandharvâs, and in the fable of the ass, as we shall prove hereafter.--But to return to the Hindoo myth; in the same way as the gandharvâs has a hybrid nature, and shows himself at one time in the aspect of a demi-god, at another in that of a semi-demon, so the mythical ass of India has now a divine nature, and now a human. The gandharvas is the guardian of riches and waters: inasmuch as he defends them from the demoniacal robbers, preserves them from mortals, and distributes them among the pious, he appears under a beneficent and divine aspect; inasmuch, on the other hand, as he carries them off and keeps them shut up like a miser, he resembles the monster that is fabled to guard fountains and treasures, the demon who keeps the waters shut up, the thieves who gather treasures together, and the devil, the master of all riches. For the same reason we already find in Hindoo tradition the beneficent ass and his evil-doing congener. The sun (sometimes the moon also) in the cloud and the darkness of night is the same as the treasure in the cavern, the treasure in hell, and the hero or heroine in the gloomy forest; and this cavern and hell sometimes assume the form of an ass's skin, or of an ass simply. That which comes out of the cloud, and of the gloom, also comes out of the ass; the soul of the ass is the sun, or the hero or heroine, or the riches which he conceals. The Açvinâu are often found in connection with the worthless horse, which afterwards becomes handsome by means of the ambrosia itself that the horse produces; the gandharvâs, a more nocturnal and cloudy form, if I may use the expression, of the solar or lunar hero, are in near relation with the ass, their _alter ego_, who enjoys the blessing of eternal youth. The Açvinâu themselves, the two horsemen who have given youth to the old Cyavanas, rode upon asses before they rode upon horses. The myth of the gandharvâs and that of the Açvinâu, the myth of the horse and that of the ass, are intimately connected: from the gandharvâs the açvin comes forth; from the mythical ass the horse comes out. This is unnatural in zoology, but it is very natural in mythology: the sun comes, now out of the grey shades of night, and now out of the grey cloud.

The Vedic hymns already present us with several interesting myths concerning the ass.

The ass of the Açvinâu is swift; the devotees ask the Açvinâu when they are to yoke it, that they may be carried by it to the sacrifice.[702] In another hymn, as the Açvinâu are two, so are their asses two (râsabhâv açvinoh). Finally, the second strophe of the 116th hymn offers us a twofold significant particularity, viz., the ass, that vanquishes a thousand in the rich battlefield of Yamas (or in the nocturnal battle, in the struggle in hell, in which the ass appears as a real warrior, joined with riches, and fighting for riches), and is helped by strong and rapid wings (in which it shows us the ass that flies).[703]

The _Rigvedas_ also represents the ass of Indras as swift-footed.[704] But in the same hymn we already see the reverse of the medal, that is to say, the swift ones who deride him who is not swift, the horses that are urged before the ass.[705] The solar hero, towards morning, substitutes the horse for the ass, or appears with horses, leaving the ass or asses behind. We have learned in the preceding chapter how, in the heavenly race of the Vedic gods, the asses gained the palm of victory; but it was an effort superior to their powers. The _Âitareya Br._ informs us that by this effort they lost their swiftness and became draught animals, deprived of honey, but yet preserving great vigour in their sperm, so that the male ass can generate offspring in two ways, that is, mules by union with a mare, and asses by union with an ass.[706] Here, therefore, the ass is already considered an animal of an essentially phallical nature, which notion is confirmed by the precept of Kâtyâyanas, recorded by Professor Weber,[707] which enjoins the sacrificing of an ass to expiate violated chastity. To chastise the ass, to sacrifice the ass, must mean the same as to chastise and to mortify the body,[708] and especially the phallos; and the Eastern and Western punishment of leading adulterers about upon an ass has the same meaning; the real martyr, however, in this punishment being the ass, who is exposed to every kind of derision and ill-treatment. In the same way, the henpecked husband who allowed himself to be beaten by his wife, used, in several villages of Piedmont, only a few years ago, to be led about ignominiously upon an ass: a husband who lets his wife impose upon him, and cannot subdue her, deserves to be chastised by means of an ass; he is not a man, and his ass, the emblem of his manly strength, must on this account suffer the punishment, because he has not shown himself able to assert his marital rights. The adulterer upon the ass, and the silly husband upon the ass, are punishments for phallic offences in, and in connection with, the person of that which represents the phallos: one is chastised for having wished, in this regard, to do too much, and the other for not having been able to do enough. On this account the condemned person was forced, in similar cases, to ride upon an ass with his face turned towards the animal's tail, another image which is yet more manifestly phallical; whence the very name of the punishment, "asini caudam in manu tenere."[709] As to the other proverb which says, "He to whom the ass belongs, holds him by the tail," it is explained by the narrative of a peasant who drew his ass out of a swamp, taking it by the tail; but this story too seems to have a phallic signification.

The ass, therefore, is already deposed from his noble place as a swift-footed courser in the _Rigvedas_ itself. And in the _Rigvedas_, too, where we have observed the ass described as a warrior who fights for the gods, we find him in the demoniacal form of a disagreeable singer who terrifies the worshippers of the god Indras; the latter is therefore requested by the poet to kill the ass who sings with a horrible voice.[710] Here the ass already appears as a real monster, worthy even of the steel of the prince of the celestial heroes himself, who prepares to combat him. The ass, therefore, is already sacred to the monsters in the white Yagurvedas.[711]

In the _Râmâyanam_,[712] the slowness of the ass has already become proverbial. The modest Bharatas excuses himself from not being able to equal his brother Râmas in the science of government, just as the ass, he says, cannot run like the horse, or other birds cannot fly like the vulture. The mythical ass, moreover, appears in this epic poem[713] in a demoniacal and infernal aspect: Bharatas, in fact, dreams of seeing his dead father Daçarathas, in blood-coloured clothes, borne to the southern funereal region on a car drawn by asses; and we are told that when a man is seen upon a car drawn by asses, it is a sign of his departure for the abode of Yamas. Kharas, a word which, as we already know, means ass, is also the name of a younger brother of the great monster Râvanas. Râvanas himself is drawn by asses upon a chariot adorned with gold and gems. These asses have the faces of the monster Piçâcâs,[714] that is, faces of parrots, as Hanumant afterwards informs us when he speaks of the monsters which he has seen in Lañkâ, which he also says are as swift as thought.[715] We know that the coursers of Râvanas were asses, and therefore the asses with the faces of the Piçâcâs, and the horses of the monsters with the faces of parrots, are the same. The monster Piçâcâs, therefore, has the face of a parrot. How is it that the parrot is reared in India as a sacred bird? It appears to me that equivocation in language had something to do with the formation of this singular mythological image. The word _piçâcas_ is derived, like _piçañgas_, which means golden and red, from the root _piç_, to adorn; whence also the Vedic feminine _piç_, ornament, and the Vedic neuter, _peças_, coloured tissue. The ass piçâcas, who draw the chariot full of gold, are therefore themselves, at least in their face, in their foremost part, golden asses, or red like the colour of gold, red like the colour of the sun; in fact, we find kharas (the ardent) as the proper name of an attendant on the sun, and kharânçus or khararaçmih, he of the burning ray, as Sanskrit names of the sun. Kharaketus, he who has a burning ray, is also the name of one of the monsters in the _Râmâyanam_.[716] We therefore already see here the golden ass and the infernal monster identified with the sun; and hence we are very near the monster with the parrot's face. In the preceding chapter we observed how the solar horse appears in the morning luminous at first in its foremost parts,--now in its legs, now in its face, now in its mane, which is called golden; it is only the head of the horse which is found in the butter; of Dadhyanc we perceive only his head in connection with the ambrosia. Thus of the nocturnal ass, of the demoniacal ass, of the demon himself, the piçâcas (the piçâcâs are called carnivorous[717]), only the face is seen, in the same way as of the piçâcâs, and of the horses belonging to the monsters, only the head is that of a parrot. But what connection can there be between the gold colour of the ass piçâcas and the green colour of the parrot? The equivoque lies probably in the words _hari_ and _harit_, both of which, in the Hindoo tongue mean yellow, as well as green. Haris and hari signify the sun, and the moon, as being yellow; harayas and haritas are the horses of the sun; harî are the two horses of Indras and of the Açvinâu, of whom we also know that they more usually rode upon asses. We thus arrive at the light-coloured asses, at the asses that are golden, at least in their foremost parts, that is, in the morning twilight, when after his nocturnal course, the solar horseman is on the point of arriving at his golden eastern destination, whence the head of the ass which carries the divine horseman is illumined by him. But _haris_, besides signifying the solar hero as being yellow, also signifies the parrot as green; on this account the ass or demon with a golden head was exchanged with the ass or monster with the green head, or with the parrot's head. We shall see in the chapters concerning birds how the bird was often substituted for the horse in the office of carrying the deity or the hero.

To conclude the subject of the Hindoo mythical ass, it is certain that it existed in the heavens; it is certain that it flies in the sky, that it fights in the sky like a valiant warrior, that it terrifies its enemies in the sky with its terrible voice; that, in a word, it was a real and legitimate heroic animal. It is certain, moreover, that, considered under another aspect, it not only throws down the heroes, but carries them to hell, serves the infernal monsters, and is found in connection with the treasures of hell. Moreover, admitting, as I hope the reader will, my identification of the mythical ass with the gandharvas, we have the ass as dancer, the ass as musician, the ass who loves women, and the ass in the odorous ointment and in the inebriating drink, the somas which occupies the place of the wine of the Dionysian mysteries, in which the Hellenic ass took a solemn part.

In the fables of the _Pancatantram_, the ass is partly modelled on the Hellenic type and partly preserves its primitive character. The fourth book shows us the ass twice attracted towards the lion by the jackal, who induces him to believe that a beautiful female ass is awaiting him. The ass is distrustful and shows his fear, but the argument of the female ass, upon which the artful jackal insists, overcomes his timidity. He is, however, cunning enough to send the jackal before him; and at the sight of the lion he perceives the jackal's treachery and turns, fleeing away with such rapidity that the lion cannot overtake him. The jackal returns to the assault, and convinces the ass that he did wrong to abandon the beautiful female ass when he was on the point of receiving her favours; and thus touching the tender chord of his heart, he goes on to assure him that the female ass will throw herself into the fire or the water if she does not see him return. "Omnia vincit amor;" the ass returns, and this time the lion surprises and tears him to pieces; upon which the lion, before partaking of his meal, goes to perform his ablutions and devotions. Meanwhile the jackal eats the ass's heart and ears, and makes the lion, on his return, believe that the stupid animal had neither the one nor the other, because if he had had them, he would not have returned to the dangerous spot after having once escaped. The lion declares himself to be perfectly satisfied with this explanation. Here we have a mixture in the ass of swift-footedness, lust, and stupidity, his stupidity being caused by his lustfulness. Now, it is possible that his acquaintance with the Hellenic ass may have induced the author of the _Pancatantram_ to embody in the ass a quality which is generally attributed in fables of Hindoo origin to the monkey; but this is not absolutely necessary in order to explain the narrative of which we have now given the epitome.

On the other hand, in the fourth book of the _Pancatantram_, the fable of the ass in the tiger's skin--an insignificant variety of the ass in the lion's skin--was, as Professor Weber has already proved, taken from the Æsopian fable. Another fable, in the fifth book, which tells us of the ass who, being passionately fond of music,[718] insisted upon singing, and was thus discovered and made a slave of, also seems to be of Hellenic origin. But, although the editing of these two Hindoo fables in a literary form had its origin in the knowledge of Hellenic literature, the original myth of the ass-lion (haris, which is the horse of Indras, also means the lion), and that of the ass-musician (as gandharvas and gardabhas), can be traced as far back as the Vedic scriptures.

In the Zendic _Yaçna_,[719] I find a new proof, which appears to me a very satisfactory one, of the identification which I have proposed of the ass with the gandharvas. I have already mentioned the gandharvas who guards over the somas in the midst of the waters, and I observed how the gandharvas kriçânus of the Vedâs, and the Zend kereçâni who guards over the _hom_ in the _Vôuru-Kasha_, have been identified. But the same office is fulfilled in the _Yaçna_ by a three-legged ass, that is, a lame ass (or the solar horse who has become lame during the night, in the same way as the solar hero becomes lame, or a lame devil), who, by braying, terrifies the monsters and prevents them from contaminating the water.

In the first of the seven adventures of Rustem, in the _Shah-Name_ of Firdusi, the starving Rustem goes with his brave heroic horse to chase wild asses. The asses flee, but the hero's horse is swifter than they, and overtakes them; Rustem takes one by means of a lasso, and has it cooked, throwing away the bones. He then goes to sleep (_then_ sometimes expresses in the myths the interval of a whole day or of a whole year.--The hero does almost the same in his second adventure and in the book of _Sohrab_). While Rustem sleeps, a monstrous lion makes its appearance to surprise the hero; Rustem's heroic horse throws the lion down and tears it to pieces with its hoofs and teeth. This battle between the horse of the sleeping hero and the monster lion is an epic form of the fable which represents the animals as being terrified in the forest by the braying of the ass, and of that of the lion itself killed by the ass's kick. Probably the bones of the dead ass, when preserved, gave heroic strength to Rustem's horse.

In the Mongol stories, of which we have on a previous occasion indicated the Hindoo origin, we find two other legends relating to the ass. In the eighteenth Mongol story, a foolish man goes with his ass to hang up some rice; he hides his ass in a cave; some merchants pass by with their goods, and the fool sends forth, by means of a trumpet, such a sonorous shout, that the merchants, thinking brigands are hidden in the cavern, escape, leaving their goods in the ass's possession. Here the fool and the ass are already identified. The trumpet and the blowing made by the fool correspond to the braying of the ass, of whom we shall soon see other miracles related. The sense of the myth is this: the solar hero in the night or in the cloud grows stupid; he becomes an ass during the night or in the cloud; the cloud thunders, and the thunder of the cloud gives rise to the idea now of the braying and now of the flatus of the ass (or the fool), now of a trumpet,[720] and now of a drum. We must not forget that the word _dundubhis_ which properly means kettledrum or drum, is also the name of a monster, and that Dundubhî is the proper name of the wife of a gandharvas, or of a gandharvî. The skin of the drum being made of an ass's hide is one more reason why the thundering cloud, being very naturally likened to a drum, the thunder should be also considered now as a _flatus oris_, now as a _flatus ventris_ of the celestial ass, or of the foolish hero who accompanies him.

In the twenty-second Mongol story we have a variety, though partly a less complete and partly a richer one, of the fable of the Phrygian king Midas. A king who has golden ass ears, has his head combed every night with golden combs by young men, who are immediately after put to death (to comb the ass's head is about the same as to wash it; but however much it is combed, the ears can never be abolished). One day a young man predestined to the highest honours, before going to comb the king's head, receives from his mother a cake made of her own milk and flour. The young man offers the cake to the king, who likes it, and spares the youth's life on condition that he tells no one, not even his mother, the great secret, _viz._, that the king has golden ears. The youth promises to preserve silence, and makes a very great effort indeed to keep his promise, but this effort makes him seriously ill, so much so that he feels he will burst if he does not tell the secret. His mother then advises him to go and relieve his mind by whispering it into a fissure of the earth or of a tree. The young man does so; he goes into the open country, finds a squirrel's hole, and breathes gently down it, "Our king has ass's ears;" but animals have understanding and can speak, and there are men who understand their language. The secret is conveyed from one to another, till the king hears that the young man has divulged it. He threatens to take his life; but relents when he hears from him how it happened, and not only pardons him, but makes him his prime minister. The fortunate youth's first act is to invent a cap of the shape of the ears of an ass, in order that the king may be able to conceal the deformity; and when the people see the king with a cap of this shape, it pleases them so much that they all adopt it; and so the king, by means of his young minister, is no longer obliged to live secluded, and in the constant tormenting dread of discovery, but lives at his ease and happily ever afterwards.

Having thus examined under its principal aspects the most popular Asiatic tradition relative to the ass, let us now go on to epitomise the European tradition, and, if possible, more briefly; all the more that the reader, having, as I hope, now the key of the myth, will be of himself able to refer to it many analogous particulars of Græco-Latin tradition. I say Græco-Latin alone, because the myth of the ass among Slavonic and Germanic nations, where the ass is little, if at all, known, had no especial and independent development. In Slavonic countries, the part of the ass is generally sustained by Ivan the fool or Emilius the lazy one, as also by the bear or wolf, as in India it is often sustained by the monkey;[721] ass, bear, wolf, and monkey, as mythical animals, represent almost identical phenomena.

Let us take the story of Midas again at its commencement.

Midas appears in _Herodotus_, not only as a king of Phrygia, but as a progenitor of the Phrygians. In the Tusculans of Cicero, the drunken satyr Silenos (originally another form of the same Midas, the satyrs having ass's ears), the master of Dionysos, loses himself in the rose-garden belonging to Midas, before whom he is conducted, and by whom he is benevolently received and entertained, and then sent back with honour to the god, who, in gratitude, concedes to Midas the gift of turning to gold everything that he touches, to such an extent as to affect the food that he wishes to eat and the water in which he bathes. This myth is probably of a complex nature. Midas ought, like the ass, to turn to gold what he has eaten, that is, to turn his food and drink into excrements of gold, to fructify the golden ears of corn, _i.e._, in heaven, the solar rays. Cicero himself leads us to suppose that the myth of Midas is in relation with the ears of corn, when, in his first book _De Divinatione_, he says that the ants carried grains of wheat into the mouth of Midas when a child; these being symbols of abundance and of fecundity which are quite applicable to the mythical ass. For although the common ass is not a privileged foecundator, the mythical ass, in its capacity of a rain-giving cloud or ciramehin, is the best fertiliser of the fields. The sun, or gold, or treasure, comes out of the ass-darkness or ass-cloud. The ass Lucius, after having eaten the roses of morning or the east, again becomes Lucius the luminous one (the sun). On this account the ass Midas, too, who also delights in roses, turns to gold whatever he eats, as well as the dew or ambrosial fountain in which he bathes; the rosy becomes the golden; the sun comes out of the contact of the ass of night with the aurora.

Servius, in his commentary on the sixth book of the _Æneid_, also tells us the centauri "in floribus stabulant," as the Hindoo gandharvas in the perfumes. These perfumes are rain and dew. The ass crowned with loaves of bread[722] and flowers, in the Latin worship of Vesta, who remembered the service rendered to her one day by the braying of the ass, which aroused her from her sleep when some one was attempting to violate her, is another variety of the myth of the aurora who awakes out of the night, golden, that is, rich in golden oats and in golden wheat. The ass itself is sacrificed, because, perhaps, it was the ass itself that had made an attempt to deprive Vesta of her chastity; but having betrayed itself, as it often happens in fables, by its braying, it arouses Vesta, who punishes it by offering it in sacrifice. In a variation of the same story in the first book of Ovid's _Fasti_, where instead of Vesta we have the nymph Lothis asleep, the red Priapos, who wishes to violate her, also loses his opportunity, because the ass of Silenos--

"Intempestivos edidit ore sonos,"

on which account it is killed by Priapos:

"Morte dedit poenas auctor clamoris, et hæc est Hellespontiaco victima sacra Deo."

The apologue is well known of the long-eared ass, who, when called upon to judge between the nightingale and the cuckoo as to who has the sweetest voice, decides in favour of the cuckoo. The nightingale then appeals to man with the sweet song that we are all acquainted with.[723] In the myth of Midas, the Phrygian hero is given ass's ears as a chastisement by Apollo, because, having been called upon to judge between the cithern or lyre of Apollo (whence the proverb "Asinus ad lyram") and the pastoral pipe (calamus agrestis) of Pan (who is represented as a horned and bearded satyr, with a tail and long ears), he pronounced that the pan-pipes were the most harmonious instrument. Midas hides his ears in a red cap, but his comber lets out the secret, as in the Mongol story, and in a manner almost identical--

"Ille quidem celat, turpique onerata pudore Tempora purpureis tentat velare tiaris: Sed, solitus longos ferro resecare capillos, Viderat hoc famulus: qui, cum nec prodere visum Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras, Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit; humumque Effodit, et domini quales aspexerit aures, Voce refert parva: terræque immurmurat haustæ. Indiciumque suæ vocis tellure regesta Obruit, et scrobibus tacitus discedit opertis. Creber arundinibus tremulis ibi surgere lucus Coepit; et, ut primum pleno maturuit anno, Prodidit agricolam: leni jam motus ab Austro Obruta verba refert; dominique coarguit aures."[724]

The same Greeks who held the ass up to derision, made the Phrygian king Midas, of the ass's ears, the object of their satire. This is a particular form of the mythico-heroic struggle between Greeks and Phrygians or Trojans. Apollo is the enemy of the Trojans, as he is the enemy of the Phrygian king Midas. The Trojans and Troy are represented by the ass, and the Greeks, who vanquish and take by assault the Trojan fortress, by the horse; the sun disperses the night; the hero kills the centaur; the horse defeats the ass, the Greek the Trojan; and every one can see how the fact that the Greeks personified in the ass their enemies in Asia Minor, must have damaged the reputation of the poor long-eared animal. The most bitter and cutting satire is always that which is directed towards one's own enemies; and the ass, unfortunately, had at one time the honour of representing the Phrygian, the traditional enemy of the Greek. The ass bore the load of this heroic war, in the same way as in the Middle Ages he was publicly impaled by the Paduans for having had the misfortune of being the sacred animal on the arms of the city of Vicenza, with which the Paduans lived in rivalry.[725]

In the same eleventh book of Ovid where the transformation of the human ears of Midas into ass's ears is described, it is very remarkable that the new ears are called whitish, as in the Mongol story they are said to be golden. This confirms still more the interpretation of the myth, to the effect that the ass is the solar steed during the night. The head and the tail of the night, conceived as an animal, are now the two whitish or grey twilights, and now the two golden auroras of morning and evening.

"Nec Delius aures Humanam stolidas patitur retinere figuram, Sed trahit in spatium villisque albentibus implet Instabilesque illas facit et dat posse moveri."

The changeableness of the twilights must have served very well to express the mobility of the ears of an ass.

In the story of the ass, Midas, the musical critic, the predestined ass, pronounces in favour of Pan; and he does so not only on account of the consanguinity between himself and the god, but also from a patriotic feeling. Pan was born in a forest of Arcadia, of Zeus and the nymph Kallisto; and it is well known that antiquity celebrated the asses of Arcadia above those of every other country. The ass as a musician, the ass as a musical critic, Pan the musician, and Pan preferred by the ass, are the same person. Arcadia, the country of pastoral music, of whistling shepherds, which made the Italy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bleat out so many useless verses, the country of Pan the satyr, _par excellence_, is the country of the ass. Arcadia is the most mountainous and wooded part of Greece,[726] and therefore, when the Olympians came down from heaven, celestial nymphs and satyrs came to people the forests and fountains of Arcadia. The divine guardian of the ambrosia in the heavenly cloud takes, in the Arcadian forest, the form of Pan, god of shepherds, who keeps guard over the honey. The gandharvâs, who danced and sung in the Hindoo Olympus with the apsarasas, has descended into Arcadia in the shape of Pan, to dance and sing with the nymphs.[727] Pan who goes alone into the gloomy forest, Pan who chases fear away, connected as he is with the story of the ass, reminds us on the one hand of the superstition recorded by Pliny, to the effect that an ass's skin put upon children chases fear from them[728] (in the same way as in the province of Girgenti, in Sicily, it is believed that shoes made of a wolf's skin, put on children's feet, make them daring and lucky in battle), and, on the other hand, of the unpublished Piedmontese story of the fearless Giovannino, who, in reward for his courage in going alone to hell, brings away with him an ass which throws gold from its tail.[729] In Tzetzas[730] I find again the curious notion that Midas sold his own _stercus_ out of avarice, that is, that he changed it into gold, as Vespasian used to do by selling the excrement of his horse.

The Æsopian ass, when he goes to battle, terrifies by his braying all the animals of the forest; so Pan defeats his enemies by means of his terrible voice; and according to Herodotus,[731] in the heroic battle of Marathon, the Athenians were helped by the powerful voice of the god Pan. Finally, as we have seen Apollo to be the rival of Pan and the enemy of the Phrygian Midas, the predestined ass, as well as of the Trojans, so, in the eleventh of the Pythic odes of Pindar, we find the hero Perseus, among the Hyperboreans,[732] eating asses.[733] The morning sun devours the ass of night, as we have seen the solar hero Rustem do in the _Shah-Name_, where he eats the wild asses.

But we must look for more mythical personages in connection with the ass Midas in Arcadia, as the region of Pan and of asses. The ass Midas is considered as a rich progenitor of races, and is supposed to have been the first Phrygian. Windischmann has already observed (with the examples of Yamas, Yima, Manus, Minos, and Radamanthüs) the connection between the rich progenitor of races and the rich king or judge of hell. To Midas the progenitor and to Midas the judge, corresponds the ass whose excrements are of gold, the ass judge and prophet, the Arcadian and prophetic Pan. The Arcadians considered themselves not only autocthonoi, but proselênoi, or anterior to the moon. But they are also considered in the light of inhabitants of an infernal region. In Arcadia was situated the lake Stümphalos, the demoniacal birds of which were slain by Hêraklês in Arcadia; in a chasm formed of wild rocks was the source of the Styx, the principal infernal river, that by which the Hellenic infernal beings were accustomed to swear. Greek and Latin writers used to narrate of the ass (and the mule) that it had an especial aversion to the water of the Styx, as being poisonous. This superstition, when referred to the myth, appears to mean that, when the solar hero drinks this water--the water of the dark or cloudy ocean--he becomes a dark ass. (We find in Russian stories the hero who is transformed into a bull, a horse, or a he-goat, when he drinks water of which a demoniacal bull, horse, or he-goat has previously drunk.) Ælianos, in his tenth book relative to animals, speaking of the horned asses of Scythia, writes that they held in their horns the water of the Styx. A similar narrative is given by Philostratos in the third book of his romantic Life of Apollonios, concerning the fabulous horned ass of India. "It is said," he writes, "that in the marshy ground near the Indian river Hyphasis many wild asses are to be found; and that these wild beasts have on their heads a horn with which they fight bravely like bulls" (this seems to be a reminiscence of the Indian rhinoceros); "and that the Indians form out of these horns drinking-cups, affirming that those who drink out of these cups are delivered from every illness for all that day; when wounded they feel no pain, they pass safely through flames, nor, when they have drunk out of it, can they be hurt by any poison. They say that these cups belong to kings alone, nor is it permitted to any other than a king to hunt the animal. It is narrated that Apollonios (the hero of the romance) had seen this animal and observed its nature with wonder. Moreover, to Damis, who asked him whether he had faith in what was commonly said concerning the virtue of this cup, he answered 'I will believe it when I shall have learned that in this country the king is immortal.'" And no doubt Apollonios would have believed had it been impossible for him to divine that the king who makes use of this marvellous cup is the immortal sun, to whom alone it is reserved to kill the ass of the nocturnal forest, the ass whose hairy ears are like horns,[734] whose ears are of gold.

The horn of the Scythian ass full of Stygian water, the horn of the ass which, when used as a cup, gives health and happiness to him who drinks out of it, remind us (not to speak of Samson's jaw-bone of an ass, which makes water flow) especially of the myth of the cornucopia and that of the goat, with which the satyrs and fauns, having goat's feet, stand in particular connection. It is also for this reason that the ass is found in relation with Pan; wherefore it is too that Silenos rides upon an ass, and appears, as we have already seen, in the story of Midas, in his garden of roses; indeed the mythical centaurs or onocentaurs, satyr, faun, ass, and goat are equivalent expressions. We have seen, a few pages back, the Zendic three-legged ass; in the following chapter we shall find the lame goat.

As the ass was ridden by Silenos,[735] so was he the animal dedicated to Bacchus and to Priapos, whose mysteries were celebrated in the Dionysian feasts. It is said that when Bacchus had to traverse a marsh, he met with two young asses, and was conveyed by one of them, who was endowed with human speech, to the other side without touching the water. (The 116th hymn of the first book of the _Rigvedas_ merits being especially compared with this. In it, immediately after having represented the Açvinâu as drawn by winged asses, the poet celebrates the Açvinâu as delivering the hero Bhugyus out of the waters upon a vessel that moved of itself in the air.)[736] On this account it is said that Bacchus, in gratitude, placed the two young asses among the stars.[737] This is another confirmation of the fact that the mythical ass really had the virtue of flying; and the proverb "Asinus si volat habet alas"[738] alludes to this myth. The fable of the ass who wishes to fly, and the flight of the ass, are derisive allusions, applied to the earthly ass. The celestial myth lingers in the memory, but is no longer understood.

In the myth of Prometheus, in _Ælianos_ (vi. 5), we have the ass who carries the talisman which makes young again, which Zeus intended for him who should discover the robber of the divine fire (Prometheus). The ass, being thirsty, approaches a fountain, and is about to drink, when a snake who guards the fountain prevents him from doing so. The ass offers the snake the charm which he is carrying, upon which the serpent strips off its old age, and the ass, drinking at the fountain, acquires the power of becoming young again. The ass of night, when he drinks the dew of the dawn, grows young and handsome again every day. It is on this account, I repeat, that youth is celebrated as a peculiar virtue of the ass; it is on this account that the Romans attributed a great cosmetic virtue to ass's milk[739] (the white dawn, or moon).

The mythical ass seems to die every day, whereas, on the contrary it is born anew every day, and becomes young again; whence the Greek proverb does not celebrate the death in the singular, but the deaths of the ass ("Onou thanatous").

The Italian proverb of the ass that carries wine and drinks water, probably alludes to the ass that carries the water of youth, and then, being thirsty, drinks at the fountain in the legend of Prometheus. The wine of the Hellenic and Latin myth corresponds to the inebriating drink or somas in which Indras delights so much in the _Rigvedas_. The ass bears the drunken Silenos on its back.

The sun, who in the cloud is covered with the skin of an ass, carries the rain; whence the Greek proverb the ass is wetted by the rain ("Onos hüetai"), and the popular belief that when the ears of the ass or of a satyr (that is to say, of the ass itself) move, it is an indication of rainy weather (or dew). When the sun comes out of the shadows of night, he drinks the milk or white humour of the early morning sky, the same white foaming humour which caused the birth of Aphroditê, the same humour out of which, by the loves of Dionysos (or of Pan, of a satyr, or of the ass itself) and Aphroditê, the satyr was procreated--Priapos, whose phallic loves are discovered by the ass. The satyr serves as a link between the myth of the ass and that of the goat. On this account (that is, on account of the close relation between the mythical ass and the mythical goat) two ancient Greek and Latin proverbs--_i.e._, to dispute about the shadow of the ass ("Peri onou skias") and to dispute, "De lana caprina"--have the same meaning, a dispute concerning a bagatelle (but which is no trifle in the myth, where the skin of the goat or of the ass is sometimes changed into a golden fleece), which seems so much the more probable, as the Greeks have also handed down to us another proverb in which the man who expects to reap where he has not sown is laughed at as one who looks for the wool of the ass ("Onou pokas zêteis"), or who shears the ass ("Ton onon keireis"). We have seen, in the myth of Midas, the king, whose ears, when combed, betray his asinine nature. The Piedmontese story of the maiden on whose forehead a horn or an ass's tail grows, because she has badly combed the good fairy's head, is connected with this story of the combing of the long-eared Midas. The combed ass and the sheared ass correspond with one another; the combed ass has golden ears, in the same way as gold and gems fall from the head of the good fairy combed by the good girl in the fairy tale. To this mythical belief, I think, may be traced the origin of the mediæval custom in the Roman Church, which lasted till the time of Gregory VII., in which public ovations were offered to the Pope, and an ass bearing money upon its head was brought before him.[740]

The shadow of the ass[741] betrays him, no less than his ears, his nose, and his braying. The shadow of the ass and his nose are found in connection with each other in the legend of the Golden Ass of Apuleius, which, after narrating how the ass, by putting his head out of the window, had betrayed his master the greengrocer or gardener (the friend of perfumes, "Gandharvas, asinus, in unguento, onos en müro"), concludes thus: "The miserable gardener having been found again, and taken before the magistrates to pay the fine, they lead him to a public prison, and with great laughter cease not, says the ass Lucius, to "make merry with my face;" whence also was derived the popular proverb concerning the face and shadow of the ass ('De prospectu et umbra asini')." The ass who betrays his master the greengrocer or gardener by his face is a variety of the ass who, dressed in the forest in the lion's skin[742] (like Hêraklês who goes into hell dressed in a lion's skin), betrays himself by his braying, and of the ass who discovers by his braying Priapos, who delights in gardens (the vulva), Priapos the gardener, like the ogre[743] of the _Pentamerone_, who finds before him in his garden a beautiful maiden.

The ass can restrain neither his voice nor his flatus; we have already seen something similar in the story of Midas, where the comber of the ass feels he will burst if he is not permitted to relieve himself of the secret of the ass. Diogenês of Laertes narrates that the fields of Agrigentum being devastated by malignant winds which destroyed the crops, the philosopher Empedocles instructed them to take asses' skins, and having made sacks of them, carry them to the summits of the hills and mountains, to chase the winds away. Ælianos, confounding one noise with another, suggests, to prevent the ass from braying, the advantage of appending a stone to its tail. This ancient Greek fable is to this day very popular in Italy, and the narrator is accustomed to furbish it up with a character of actuality, as if it had happened yesterday, and among his acquaintances.

In the Italian stories,[744] when the ass brays upon the mountain, a tail grows on the forehead of the step-mother's ugly daughter; the third crowing of the cock is the signal for the monster's death; the third braying or flatus of the ass announces the death of the fool. With the end of the night the ass disappears, and the fool also disappears or dies. The braying of the ass cannot mount up into heaven; after the ass has brayed, after the cloud has thundered, the ass comes down upon the earth, is dissolved into rain, is dispersed and dies; the dark ass cannot remain in the luminous sky, it can only inhabit the cloudy, watery, or gloomy sky of hell. The way in which the fool of the story tries to elude death resembles that which was used, according to Ælianos, to prevent the ass from braying. In a story of Armagnac,[745] Joan lou Péc runs after a man whom he believes to be a sage, and asks him when he will die; the man answers, "Joan lou Péc, mouriras au troisièmo pet de toun ase." The ass does so twice; the fool endeavours to prevent the third: "Cop sec s'en-angonc cerca un pau (a stake) bien pounchut et l'enfouncéc das un martet dens lou cu de l'ase. Mes l'ase s'enflec tant, e hasconc tant gran effort, que lou pau sourtisconc coumo no balo e tuèc lou praube Joan lou Péc."

In _Herodotus_, the Scythians are defeated when the asses bray, and the dogs bark among Darius's tents. The braying of the ass, the thunder of the cloud, is an oracle; the ass that brays is a judge and a prophet. In hell everything is known; the devil knows every art, every species of malice, every secret; the ass in hell participates in this knowledge. The ass Nicon, in _Plutarch_, in the Life of Antony, predicts to Augustus his victory at the battle of Actium; on the contrary, in the Life of Alexander, by the same author, an ass who kills with a kick a great lion belonging to the Macedonian, appears to the great conqueror in the light of an evil omen. The dying sun of evening, the old lion, is killed in the evening by the ass of night; in the morning, on the contrary, the ass of night announces his fortune to the solar hero, who again becomes luminous and wise. The ass can predict all things, because it knows all things; it knows everything, because it hears everything, and it hears everything by means of its exceedingly long ears; the ass of Apuleius says of itself: "Recreabar quod auribus præditus cuncta longule etiam dissita sentiebam." And this ass which listens from a distance reminds us again of the third brother, now a fool, and now only supposed to be a fool; to the Andalusian Oidin-Oidon, hijo del buen oidor (a relation of the already cited Vedic Indras âçrutkarnas), of the second cuento of Caballero,[746] who hears everything that is done in the deepest parts of hell, where Lucifer sits, horned and large-eared. The hero who combats with Lucifer only thinks of cutting off his ear; the ass without ears is no longer an ass; the ears of the mythical ass are its vital and characteristic organs. Instead of ears, give horns to the mythical ass, and we have the mythical goat; take the horns away and we have now the mythical abject sheep, now the hog; this is what we shall see in the two next chapters.

FOOTNOTES:

[686] _Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen_, eine kritische Abhandlung von A. Weber, Berlin, 1855.

[687] Here is the hymn as given by Du Cange in his _Gloss. M. et I. L._:--

"Orentis partibus Adventavit Asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus, Sarcinis aptissimus. Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez, Belle bouche rechignez, Vous aurez du fom assez Et de l'avoine à plantez.

"Lentus erat pedibus Nisi foret baculus Et eum in clunibus Pungeret aculeus. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Hic in collibus Sichem, Jam nutritus sub Ruben, Transiit per Jordanem, Saliit in Bethleem. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Ecce magnis auribus Subjugalis filius Asinus egregius Asinorum dominus. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Saltu vincit hinnulos, Damas et capreolos, Super dromedarios Velox Madianeos. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Auram de Arabia, Thus et myrrhum de Saba Tulit in ecclesia Virtus Asinaria. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Dum trahit vehicula Multa cum sarcinula, Illius mandibula, Dura terit pabula, Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Cum aristis hordeum Comedit et carduum; Triticum a palea Segregat in area. Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

"Amen, dicas, Asine, (_Hic genuflectabatur._) Jam satur de gramine: Amen, amen itera Aspernare vetera. Hez va! hez va! hez va! hez! Bialz! Sire Asne, car allez; Belle bouche car chantez."

[688] Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_.

[689] Sometimes the place of the ass is taken by the mule. At Turin, for instance, it is narrated that the church dedicated to the _Corpus Domini_ was erected several centuries ago on account of the miracle of a mule which carried some sacred goods stolen by an impious thief. Having arrived in the little square where the Church of the _Corpus Domini_ now stands, the mule refused to go any farther; and out of a cup, which was among the sacred objects stolen, a wafer containing the body of our Saviour rose into the air. Nor would it come down again until the bishop came forth, and, holding the cup high in the air, besought the wafer to come back into it; which having been miraculously accomplished, the Church of the _Corpus Domini_ was erected on the spot, from which starts and to which returns the solemn procession which takes place annually at Turin on the festival of _Corpus Domini_, and in which, about twenty years ago, the princes and great dignitaries of the state, with the professors of the university, used to take part in all the pomp of mediæval ceremony and costume.--In Persia the festival of asses is celebrated at the approach of spring; the ass personifying here the end of the winter season.

[690] The same analogy presents itself in the Sanskrit word _arbhakas_, which means little and foolish.

[691] Cfr. the root _gad_, from which we might perhaps deduce an imaginary intermediate form, gadarbhas, besides the known gardabhas and gandharbas or gandharvas.

[692] Cfr. _arvan_ with the roots _arv, arb, arp, riph, riph, riv, rinv_.

[693] x. 10, 5.

[694] Gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati.; _Rigv._ ix. 83, 4.

[695] Strîkâmâh vâi gandharvâh; i. 27.

[696] Professor Kuhn (_Die Herabkunft_, d. f. &c.) has already compared to this the Zend Gandhrawa, who, in the Lake Vôuru-Kasha, keeps guard over the tree _hom_ (the Vedic Somas). Kuhn and Weber, moreover, have identified the Vedic gandharvas, Kriçânus, who wounds the ravisher of the Somas, with the Zend Kereçâni, who endeavours to destroy riches; here the gandharvas would appear to be a monstrous and demoniacal being.

[697] ... ut omittam eos, quos libidinis ac foedæ voluptatis causa, coluisse nomen illud atque imposuisse suis, a scriptoribus notatur, qualis olim Onos ille Commodi; qualis exsecrandus Marci Verotrasinus, qualis et alterius Onobelos, quales, quos matronis in deliciis fuisse scimus. Unde illud atque alium bipedem sibi quærit asellum, ejus nempe membri causa, quod, in asino, clava, a Nicandro dicitur; _Laus Asini_, Lugd. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana, p. 194.

[698] To this flight into Egypt upon the ass can be referred the Piedmontese custom among children in the middle of Lent--that is, near the festival of St Joseph--of attaching to their companions now a saw, now a devil's head, now an ass's head, pronouncing the words, "L'asu cariá che gnün lu sa" (the ass burdened, and no one knows it). Moreover, it seems to me that to the Christian tradition of Joseph, and of the child Jesus carried upon the ass, can be referred the well-known European fable of the old man, the boy, and the ass, of which numerous varieties may be read in the article upon the _asinus vulgi_ in the _Orient und Occident_ of Benfey.

[699] Professor Benfey, in his learned Einleitung to the _Pancatantram_, p. 268, says that the disguise by means of the skin of an ass is found in a Latin poem of the fifteenth century.

[700] "Addo ex Conrado Lycosthene in libro de ostentis et prodigiis hanc iconem quam hippokentauri esse credebam, ipse vero (nescio ex quo) Apothami vocat, Apothami (inquit) in aqua morantes, qui una parte hominem, alia vero caballum sive equum referunt. Sic etiam memoriæ tradiderunt mulieres esse capite plano sine crinibus, promissas autem barbas habentes. Atqui ea descriptio plane ad Onocentauros pertinere videtur, quos Aelianus et Philes sic fere delineant. Quæ vero de Onocentauro fama accepi, hæc sunt: Eum homini ore et promissa barba similem esse, simul et collum et pectus, humanam speciem gerere; mammas distantes tamquam mulieris ex pectore pendere; humeros, brachia, digitos, humanam figuram habere; dorsum, ventrem, latera, posteriores pedes, asino persimiles et quemadmodum asinum sic cinereo colore esse; imum ventrem leviter exalbescere: duplicem usum ei manus præstare; nam celeritate ubi sit opus eæ manus præcurrunt ante posteriores pedes; ex quo fit, ut non cæterorum quadrupedum cursu superetur. Ac ubi rursus habet necesse vel cibum capere vel aliud quidpiam tollere, qui ante pedes erant manus efficiuntur, tumque non graditur, sed in sessione quiescit: Animal est gravi animi acerbitate; nam si capiatur, non ferens servitutem, libertatis desiderio ab omni cibo abhorret, et fame sibi mortem consciscit, licet pullus adhuc fuerit. Hæc de Onocentauro Pythagoram narrare testatur Crates, ex Mysio Pergamo profectus;" Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus_, i.--In the Indian satyrs described by Pliny, in the seventh book of his _Natural History_, we find represented an analogous animal: "Sunt et satyri subsolanis Indorum montibus (Cartadulonum dicitur regio) pernicissimum animal, turn quadrupes, turn recte currens, humana effigie, propter velocitatem nisi senes aut ægri, aut capiuntur." Evidently this refers to some kind of monkey (probably the orang-outang); but as the myth of the monkey does not differ much from that of the ass, as we shall see, even the Hindoo gandharvas is represented as a monkey.--"In _A. V._