Who worked for hire and so gained his bread;
He wrought for that horseman and built him his house,
Long he wrought in that house for hire,
But ere he received his due, he fell down and died,
And in that purse was the hire, which the youth carried away.
Again, that blind old man in his young days of sight
Had spilt the blood of his murderer’s father ;
The son by the law of retaliation slays him to-day,
And gives him release from the price of blood in the day of retribution!”
In neither of the foregoing apologues have we been able to trace a Rabbinical origin, though there are grounds for believing that both originally may have come from a Jewish source ; but in the next story, I have lately discovered the original Jewish version, which affords a strong presumption that a more careful search might identify the others too. The subject in itself may seem of small import,—but it is not of small import to trace the progress of ideas among nations; and each of these apologues has a professed philosophical aim. They are not mere fables, WhOSB marvels serve only to excite amusement or wonder,——they are myths, like those in Plato, with an intended meaning, and they passed current from the thinkers of one nation to those of another because they came home to all with a certain reality and power of their own. At the same time, if we could trace a Jewish origin to all the three, it would be a new and interesting proof of the wide influence which the mediaeval Jewish mind exercised upon its contemporaries, in spite of the contempt and persecution which universally strove to keep it down.
This next apologue is one which, I believe, was given by Voltaire, but I have not verified the passage in his works. It has been more than once copied from him, as for instance by Lord Byron in the notes to one of his poems.
The Persian version is found in the first book of the Masnavi of Jalaluddin Rumi, who died A. D. 1272 (A. H. (571.) To understand the story aright, we must remember the oriental notions of Solomon’s power over the elements and the genii.
- One simple of heart came in the morning
- Running into Solomon’s judgment-hall,
