Misadventures in the Land of Fables #42
“The Fables, then, must have grown up through many centuries in the country of their origin before setting out on their travels.”
Continuing with my journey through Cooper’s ‘Argosy of Fables‘, I discover that some of the Persian tales are in fact Indian in origin and that I have encountered them before. I have passed them on the road, heading in the opposite direction. I confess I didn’t recognize them immediately. Just a vague sense of deja lu, an inkling, as if time had folded over and formed a loop.
Cooper’s source was a Persian collection titled ‘Anvar-i Suhaili,’ which became (in English) ‘The Lights of Canopus.’ This collection in turn derived from a book called ‘Kalilah and Dimnah,’ which was the arabic version of the Panchatantra, aka ‘The Fables of Bidpai.’ (You can read about it here.)
THE CAMEL DRIVER AND THE SNAKE
The tale that prompted this bit of research was ‘The Camel Driver and the Snake’.
A camel driver rescues a snake from a bushfire, but the snake shows no gratitude. It declares it will kill both man and mount for several reasons, first, because it is in its nature, and second, because evil is the recompense mankind make for good. It proves the latter point through the testimony of an old buffalo abandoned by its masters and a tree abused by the passers-by it has sheltered. Then a fox approaches and offers its thoughts. It first wants to know how the snake managed to curl up inside the bag used in its rescue. The snake demonstrates and the fox invites the man to do what he should have done in the first place: beat the trapped snake to death.
A brutal, realist morality tale. Immutable nature, and the folly of trusting those who you know to be evil and hoping they might change. But it occurred to me that the claim the snake is evil by nature is a mistake, a mistake both parties have made.
AM I EVIL?
Humankind will rightly be wary of these deadly creatures. Stories of unfortunate deaths will have been passed down since the beginning of language. In our imaginations, snakes have been cast as malign, hostile, a threat. But the fatal attacks are mitigated by self-defence, prompted by their fear of us. We are not their usual prey; there need not be evil intentions.
The snake in the story seems to have adopted the role given it by man. It has coiled its identity around hostility. It sees itself as an incarnation of evil. A killer. What if we were to confront this identification? What if we could dissolve it with calm, insightful kindness? What if that could be the message?
This is what I did. You can read my version here: ‘The Camel Driver and the Snake‘
I put to one side the snake’s argument about man’s ingratitude. The argument is a good one and the story proves as much. Its brutal conclusion represents less a prudent attitude to ‘evil’ than an obliterative reaction to an truthful accusation.