however,” returned the angel, “that they represent the sinners of this world.  The first describes that kind of men who from day to day do add new sins to the old, because they cannot bear the weight of those which they already have.  The second man represents those who do good, but do it sinfully, and therefore it is of no benefit.  And the third person is he who would enter the kingdom of heaven with all his world of vanities, but is cast down into hell.”

* * * * *

And now a few more Indian and other stories of the Gothamite class to conclude the present section.  In Malava there were two Brahman brothers, and the wealth inherited from their father was left jointly between them.  And while they were dividing that wealth they quarrelled about one having too little and one having too much, and they made a teacher learned in the Vedas arbitrator, and he said to them, “You must divide everything your father left into two halves, so that you may not quarrel about the inequality of the division.”  When the two fools heard this, they divided every single thing into two equal parts—­house, beds, in fact, all their property, including their cattle.  Henry Stephens (Henri Estienne), in the Introduction to his Apology for Herodotus,[12] relates some very amusing noodle-stories, such as of him who, burning his shins before the fire, and not having wit enough to go back from it, sent for masons to remove the chimney; of the fool who ate the doctor’s prescription, because he was told to “take it;” of another wittol who, having seen one spit upon iron to try whether it was hot, did likewise with his porridge; and, best of all, he tells of a fellow who was hit on the back with a stone as he rode upon his mule, and cursed the animal for kicking him.  This last exquisite jest has its analogue in that of the Irishman who was riding on an ass one fine day, when the beast, by kicking at the flies that annoyed him, got one of its hind feet entangled in the stirrup, whereupon the rider dismounted, saying, “Faith, if you’re going to get up, it’s time I was getting down.”

The poet Ovid alludes to the story of Ino persuading the women of the country to roast the wheat before it was sown, which may have come to India through the Greeks, since we are told in the Katha Sarit Sagara of a foolish villager who one day roasted some sesame seeds, and finding them nice to eat, he sowed a large quantity of roasted seeds, hoping that similar ones would come up.  The story also occurs in Coelho’s Contes Portuguezes, and is probably of Buddhistic origin.  And an analogous story is told of an Irishman who gave his hens hot water, in order that they should lay boiled eggs!

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] This notion, that schoolmasters “lack wit,” however absurd, seems to have been entertained from ancient times, and to be still prevalent in the East; the so-called jests of Hierokles are all at the expense of pedants; and the Turkish typical noodle is Khoja (i.e., Teacher) Nasru-’d-Din, some of whose “witless devices” shall be cited presently.