The fellow stooped to pick up a stone to cast at the dog,
and finding them all fast rammed or paved in the ground, quoth he, "What
a strange country am I in, where the people tie up the stones and let
the dogs loose!"
Three centuries and a half before the Water Poet heard this exquisitely
humorous story, the great Persian poet Sa'di related it in his
_Gulistan_ (or Rose-garden), which was written A.D. 1278:
A poor poet presented himself before the chief of a gang of robbers, and
recited some verses in his praise. The robber-chief, however, instead of
rewarding him, as he fondly expected, ordered him to be stripped of his
clothes and expelled from the village. The dogs attacking him in the
rear, the unlucky bard stooped to pick up a stone to throw at them, and
finding the stones frozen in the ground, he exclaimed, "What a vile set
of men are these, who set loose the dogs and fasten the stones!"
Now here we have a very curious instance of the migration of a popular
tale from Persia--perchance it first set out on its travels from India
--in the thirteenth century, when grave and reverend seigniors wagged
their beards and shook their portly sides at its recital, to London in
the days of the Scottish Solomon (more properly dubbed "the wisest fool
in Christendom"!), when Taylor, the Water Poet, probably heard it told,
in some river-side tavern, amidst the clinking of beer-cans and the
fragrant clouds blown from pipes of Trinidado, and "put it in his book!"
How it came into England it would be interesting to ascertain.
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