Classical Parallels to a Sanskrit Proverb. - By ROLAND G. KENT, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. In the story of the Blue Jackal the Hitopadeśa version has the following couplet: yaḥ svabhāvo hi yasya syāt tasyā 'sāu duratikramaḥ śva yadi kriyate bhogi tat kim nā 'śnāty upānaham,1 "Indeed the real nature which may belong to anyone, that is hard to overcome; even if a dog is well fed, doth he not nibble at a shoe?" The corresponding story in the Pañcatantra 2 does not contain this sloka; indeed I have not been able to trace the proverb farther in Indian literature.3 But this fondness of the dog for leather is proverbially referred to in classical writers. We find the proverb xadeπòv xopiw Kúva Yevσaι 5 "Tis dangerous to let a dog taste leather" first in Theocritus (x. 11), where the connection makes it clear that it applies to the acquisition of a bad habit which, once established, cannot be resisted. In a different wording the proverb 1 So in Schlegel and Lassen's edition (p. 92; iii, 58); Petersen's edition (Bombay Sanskrit Series, no. 33) reads (p. 105; iii. 56): śvâ yadi kriyate rājā tat kiṁ nā 'śnāty upānaham. 2 Hertel's edition (Harvard Oriental Series xi), p. 68; i. 11; Bühler's edition (Bombay Sanskrit Series, no. 3), p. 66; i. 10. 3 Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche (second edition), who cites the sloka as no. 5433 (vol. iii, p. 160), refers only to the Kavitāmṛtakupa. The Vṛddhacanakya (Ind. Sprüche 2, no. 2087) mentions "bits of a calf's tail and of an ass' skin" (vatsapucchakkaracarmakhandam) as characteristic of a dog's abode; the Caṇakya reads here asthikhurapuccha saṁcayaḥ. 4 C. S. Köhler, Das Tierleben im Sprichwort der Griechen und Römer, 1881, p. 82 ff., nos. 57–61. 5 In the Greek collections of proverbs χαλεπόν χορίου κύνα γεύειν appears repeatedly; cf. Leutsch, Corpus Paroemiogr. Graec. i. 376 (Gregorius Cyprius); ii. 51 (Diogenianus); ii. 226 (Macarius); ii. 719 (Apostolius); also Suidas ed. Gaisford-Bernhardy, ii, 2, col. 1585 = ed. Bekker, p. 1116. However, they take xoplov in another sense; the interpretation of Apostolius, to which that of the others is very similar, is as follows: el TD ἐπὶ μικρῶν κακῶν χορούντων εἰς μεγάλα. τὸ ἔλυτρον τοῦ ἐμβρίου χόριον καλεῖται· οἱ δὲ κύνες γευσάμενοι τούτου καὶ τοῖς ἐμβρίοις διὰ τὸ λιχνὸν ἐπιβουλεύουσιν. appears in Lucian, advers. indoct. 25, ovde yàp kúшv äña§ пaúσαιτ' ἂν σκυτοτραγεῖν μαθοῦσα 1 (“for a bitch will never stop eating leather, if once she has learned to do so"), and in Alciphron, Epist. paras. 11, 5 (p. 72, 4 ed. Schepers = iii. 47), οὐδὲ γὰρ κύων σκυτοτραγεῖν μαθοῦσα τῆς τέχνης ἐπιλήσεται (“for a bitch that has learned to eat leather will ne'er forget the trick"). In meaning the Greek proverb differs from the Sanskrit. The latter refers to the fact that innate traits cannot be eradicated, the former inculcates the lesson of Principiis obsta (Ovid, Rem. Amor., 92)2. Rather closer in sense to the Sanskrit proverb is the Latin, alluded to by Horace (Serm. ii. 5. 83): Sic tibi Penelope frugist; quae si semel uno | De sene gustarit tecum partita lucellum, | Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto.3 In the form Non leviter corio canis absträhetur ab uncto it occurs in Alanus de Insulis' Doctrinale Minus s. Liber Parabolarum (Migne, Patrol. Lat., vol. 210, col. 581 c). A Bâle manuscript of the fifteenth century has Non canis a corio subito depellitur uncto (J. Werner, Latein. Sprichwörter und Sinnsprüche des Mittelalters, 1912, Sammlung mittellateinischer Texte, herausgegeben von A. Hilka, vol. iii, p. 56, no. 119).5 = 1 Gregorius Cyp. (Leutsch, ii. 126) cites this proverb in the form οὐδὲ κύων παύσαιτ' ἂν ἅπαξ σκυτοτραγεῖν μαθοῦσα; Apostolius (Leutsch, ii. 587) ends with μαθών, and explains the application: ὅτι τὸ ἔθος σχεδὸν ἀμετ τάβλητον. Cf. also Apostolius Leutsch ii. 643) σκύτους ἕνεκα δέρεται κύων, κεῖνος δὲ σκυτοτραγεῖ· ἐπὶ τῶν γευσαμένων κακίας τινὸς καὶ οὕτω μὴ ἀποπαυομένων ἐκείνης. 2 Cf. the fragment ascribed to Antiphanes (Meineke, Com. Graec. Frag., iii. 160 Kock, Com. Attic. Frag., ii. 134, from Maximus, Conf. 41, p. 64) κύων μελετήσας σαρκῶν ἀπογεύεσθαι φυλάττειν οὐκέτι δύναται τὴν ἀγέλην, with which Haupt (Opusc. iii. 380) compares Demosthenes, XXV. 40, τοὺς γενομένους κύνας τῶν προβάτων κατακόπτειν φασὶ δεῖν. 3 Peter of Blois cites this verse, Epist. XV (Migne's Patrol. Lat. vol. 207, col. 55 B; Petri Blesensis Opera omnia, ed. I. A. Giles, i. 57). In spite of the scholiast and modern editors I am inclined to construe uncto not with corio, but with an implied sene. 4 With the var. lect. "extorrebitur uncto". (Both passages are cited by Sutphen, American Journal of Philology, xxii. 22). 5 In general, the fondness of dogs for a hide is referred to in Aesop's fable (218 Halm 134 Schneider) Κύνες λιμώττουσαι (κύνες λιμώττουσαι ὡς ἐθεάσαντο ἔν τινι ποταμῷ βύρσας βρεχομένας etc.), quoted by Plutarch, περὶ κοινῶν ἐννοιῶν § 19, p. 1067 F (οὐδὲν ἀπολείποντας τῶν κυνῶν ἂς φησιν Αἴσωπος depμáтwv Tivŵv éμπλeóvтwv etc.), and translated by Phaedrus 1. 20 (3, corium 216 Roland G. Kent, Classical Parallels to a Sanskrit Proverb. [1913. The German proverb "An Riemen lernt der Hund Leder kauen" (Wander, Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon, 1873, iii, col. 1683, s. v. "Riemen") resembles the Greek proverbs in meaning; its oldest occurrence is in a codex Sangallensis saec. XI: "Fone demo limble so beginnit ter hunt leder ezzen" (Müllenhoff und Scherer, Denkmäler 3, vol. I, no. xxvii, 1; further references in the notes, vol. II, p. 134). What the relation of these proverbs to one another is, if indeed there be any connection, would require a full collection of such material, which might throw an interesting light on the connection of Hindu and European proverbs, and perhaps also on the relation of the fable literature of the Hindus and that of the Occident. depressum in fluvio viderunt canes). Martial (vi. 93. 4) mentions among malodorous objects a hide snatched away from a dog of the Fullers' Quarter, detracta cani transtiberina cutis. |