A travelling tale of a hasty father

The final tale in the Sanskrit Panchatantra [Five Treatises], a collection of educational human and animal stories from the 3^rd century, warns of hasty actions (Olivelle, 2006: 155–159). In the story, the mother of a newborn has to go out and leaves the baby with her husband. He, however, is called away and leaves the baby in the care of his pet mongoose. While he is gone, the pet mongoose rips apart a snake trying to bite the baby. Hearing the man return it runs outside, covered in blood. The hasty father accuses it of having eaten his baby son and kills it. Only afterwards does he realize his mistake, regretting it tearfully.

The same story is found in the medieval Hebrew Mishle Sendebar [Parables of Sendebar], translated between the 12^th and 13^th century. As in the Panchatantra, the mother of a newborn has to go out and leaves the baby with her husband. He, again, is called away but instead of a pet mongoose, he leaves the baby in the care of his faithful dog. The dog then kills the snake to protect the baby but is in return killed by the hasty father who comes to regret his mistake bitterly.

The story is also part of the medieval Byzantine Stephanites kai Ichnelates [Stephanites and Ichnelates], translated in the late 11^th century (Sjöberg, 1962: 84-111). As in the other versions, the mother of a newborn has to go out and leaves the baby with her husband. He, again, is called away. However, he has no animal and leaves the baby alone. When the snake attacks the baby, the mother suddenly manifests and jumps at the snake. Covered in blood, she greets her husband who concludes that she must have eaten the baby. He kills her, only to regret it bitterly.

The question that this creative response asks is how a visualization of these three versions can highlight the transformation of the killed character, and the misogyny in the 11^th-century Greek translation. Not only does she act like an animal, jumping at the snake and covering herself in blood, but she is also put down like one. While this will be explained as a translation mistake below, it nevertheless points out the underlying misogyny that makes the woman’s behavior plausible and accepted in further translations until today.

To confront the change in character in these versions, the following creative response takes a graphic turn. Not intended as an academic, peer-reviewed article, it employs a visualization strategy that turns each narrative into a comic. The comics are each followed by a paragraph reflecting on the impact of changing the killed character. The idea is that a cartoon will be able to reflect the impact by repeating the same brutal scene in three comparable depictions. As visualization, the brutal absurdity of the wife being beaten to death just like an animal can be recognized without the need to imagine the scene from a written text. In this way, a cartoon is a more effective option of addressing the difference in these versions and especially the strange murder of the wife that has, so far, not been questioned by any translation of the Greek text.

To better understand the three versions and their connection, it is helpful to briefly look at their historical background. From India, the narration travelled not only across cultures and languages but also across story traditions. Originally from the Panchatantra, it was supposedly compiled in the 6th century by the Persian Burzoe into a larger collection of such educational tales (Gründler et al., 2020; Schleifer, 1915: 399–419,; Marroum, 2011: 513). In the 8^th century, it was translated into Arabic under the title Kalila wa-Dimnah [Kalila and Dimnah] by Ibn Al-Muqaffa for the Arabic rulers of the former Persian empire (Kuroyanagi, 1969: 4–5; Ibn Al-Muqaffa tr. Fishbein, 2021: xiii–xvi; Abalrasul, 2020: 14; Hassan, 2017: 223; Montada, 2007: 92–94; Shamma, 2009: 72–74; Mazid, 2009; Marroum, 2011: 514–516). Kalila wa-Dimnah then spread into many European languages, amongst them the oldest extant version, the abovementioned 11^th century Greek translation by Symeon Seth, entitled Stephanites kai Ichnelates. Here, the change in the title already hints at the substantial changes in comparison to its lost Arabic source text. The changes can also be felt in the hasty father’s tale, wherein a translation mistake makes him kill his wife instead of a pet.

However, this compilation is not the only place where the tale ends up. It also becomes a part of the Seven Sages tradition, an equally widespread educational tale as Kalila wa-Dimnah. In this tradition, the hasty father’s tale is integrated into the frame narrative, where a young prince is defended by seven sages against the rape accusation of his stepmother, the queen. The tale can be told by either the queen or the sages, but stays stable in its central message that warns against hastiness. It should, however, be noted that the hasty father’s tale is often excessively extended in the Seven Sages. When comparing it to the versions as transmitted in the Panchatantra and Kalila wa-Dimnah tradition, a close relative can be found in the Hebrew Mishle Sendebar. This version narrates the same reduced narrative as the Kalila wa-Dimnah tradition that follows the series of events as found in the Panchatantra, although without references to Brahmin culture.

It might be worthwhile comparing all the extant versions for their multiple differences to see the impact of translating the same story for different cultures. However, the aim here is to explore only one specific difference, namely the changes in the character who is killed by the father. Furthermore, the focus will be on one representative of each story tradition mentioned above, the Panchatantra, Kalila wa-Dimnah, and the Seven Sages. For the latter two, the representatives are chosen based on the greatest similarity in narrative structure while also showing the greatest difference in the character killed by the hasty father. These versions are the Greek Stephanites kai Ichnelates, and the Hebrew Mishle Sendebar.

Visualization strategy

The visualization revolves around two major aspects that seem essential in the tale of the hasty father: the sameness of the version and the changeability of the killed character. While the father and the baby are potentially also exchangeable, they remain exceptionally stable in all the versions. The killed character, however, changes significantly: the Panchatantra has a faithful pet mongoose, the Mishle Sendebar a faithful dog, and Stephanites kai Ichnelates features the mother of the baby returning in time to discover the snake. Furthermore, other versions that are not considered here also have further options, for example, the Arabic Kalila wa-Dimnah has a weasel, while the modern English translation of Stephanites kai Ichnelates has a nymph.

The visualization appears as an eight-panel comic that uses exactly the same pictures where the three versions are similar, in order to express their sameness. Otherwise, the drawings are kept simple, without cultural markers, and in black and white to enhance the comparability of each version. Only small details, if relevant, and the depiction of the killed character changes each time to express the different impact each of them makes. By showing a mongoose, a dog, and a woman in exactly the same narrative framing, the visualization aims to focus the viewers’ attention on the impact of this change.

Sanskrit: Hasty Father and Mongoose

The domestic mongoose is, in its function, comparable to a cat. It is supposed to hunt small vermin like mice, rats, or even snakes when they invade human housing. Accordingly, there is a certain cultural logic for a pet mongoose in the Sanskrit version (Figure 1). In this depiction, the size of the animals is a noticeable trait:the snake is around the same size as the mongoose hinting at the difficult fight between the two animals. However, this also means that the mongoose is small in comparison to the other characters, including the baby. Only the baby’s helplessness, emphasized by being completely wrapped in a blanket, makes it believable that a small mongoose would actually manage to eat the baby, as the father believes. Furthermore, there is a feral aspect to the domesticated animal that can apparently be tasked with taking care of a baby but can nevertheless have extreme bursts of violence. In this respect, the father’s reaction betrays an underlying fear of the mongoose’s repressed feral nature, implying not only his hastiness, but also a hidden distrust.

Figure 1:

Hasty Father and Mongoose in the Panchatantra.

Hebrew: Hasty Father and Dog

In the Hebrew version (Figure 2), the mongoose has been substituted with a dog. Compared to the mongoose, the dog is a larger animal with a different social standing, especially in medieval European cultures. Here, it is common for nobles to keep dogs for hunting and guarding, usually treating them preciously. Accordingly, the depiction of the dog in the comic is inspired by images of domestic dogs found in medieval illuminations and tapestries of domestic dogs (Schnickmann, 2017; Teuscher, 1998). The dog is, therefore, larger than the mongoose and likely has an easier time killing the snake. At the same time, killing the dog is a greater effort for the hasty father, resulting also in a larger corpse in the last panel. Yet, the effect of the story stays roughly the same, as the dog is just another domestic animal that the father assumes to have gone feral.

Figure 2:

Hasty Father and Mongoose in the Mishle Sendebar.

Greek: Hasty Father and Wife

In the Greek version (Figure 3), more changes about the story. First, there is no animal mentioned, so the father simply leaves the baby alone at home. The carelessness of this action is expressed in the third panel in which the father states ‘What could possibly happen’. The monologue is not part of Symeon Seth’s fable, but when compared to the other two versions, this lacuna can be read as carelessness. In this sense, the panel expresses the common reaction of the audience to fill holes in the plot logic by themselves. It would have been possible to come up with a different explanation, but considering the brutality of the father character, it is maybe most convincing to see his irresponsibility in other situations.

Figure 3:

Hasty Father and Mongoose in Stephanites kai Ichnelates.

In the next panel, the mother reappears without an explanation. The reason for this can only be found when looking at the Arabic text and discovering Symeon Seth’s translation mistake. He must have confused the Arabic weasel (عرسة – ʿirsah) with the word for wife/husband (عرس – ʿirs). Since the version he translated apparently lacked the introduction of the weasel as caretaker of the baby, his mistake is understandable.

What is less understandable, however, is the conviction that the mother would kill the snake in the same bloody way as the domestic animals do in other versions. Instead of removing the snake with a stick, she goes feral as well, covering herself in blood. Although not explicitly described, it is obvious that she uses her teeth for the kill, since her bloodied mouth must be what leads to the second absurdity, the father’s assumption that the mother cannibalized the baby. The depiction above leans more into the comical aspect of this translation mistake, trying to emphasize the ridiculousness of the mother going feral like the animals in other versions and then being accused of cannibalizing her own baby. The perspective in the sixth panel also shifts slightly, because, as a grown woman, she is larger than a dog or mongoose and thus also harder to kill from a mechanical point of view. On a further level, the father not only kills another human being, thus committing murder, but also endangers his newborn son by robbing him of his mother.

Yet, none of these aspects have ever been questioned. Neither Symeon Seth, nor any other copyist or translator, including Alison Noble’s modern English translation in 2022 ever wondered about the strange tale. Before Noble, every other translator assumed that the Greek word ‘νύμφη’ (nymph, bride) should be translated ‘bride’ and refers to the returning mother. For example, Kai Brodersen’s 2021 German translation reads:

Es geschah, als beide [Eltern] eine Zeit lang fort waren, dass eine Schlange zu dem Kind kroch; als die Frau eintraf, erschlug sie die Schlange. Als nun der Mann zurückkam und sie von draußen mit dem Blut der Schlange besudelt sah, glaubte er, sie habe das Kind geschlachtet.

It happened as both [parents] were absent for a while that a snake crawled to the child; as the woman returned, she beat the snake to death. Upon the man’s return when he saw her from the outside, covered in the blood of the snake, he believed her to have butchered the child (Brodersen, 2021: 150; my translation).

In Brodersen’s translation, the woman is still assumed to have killed the child. The only difference here is that she has not eaten it yet but only butchered it, which in German implies the intention of eating it.

Alison Nobel, however, translates the Greek word ‘νύμφη’ (nymph, bride) as ‘nymph’:

But then it happened that, while they were both away, a snake crawled onto the baby, and a nymph jumped on it and killed it. When the husband returned and saw the nymph outside all bloody with the blood of the snake, he presumed that she had eaten the baby (Noble, 2022: 294).

This adds another layer of confusion as there is no explanation of why there would suddenly be a nymph. Yet, while the nymph is not the baby’s mother, she is still a woman saving a child and getting killed for it. In that sense, Noble’s translation decision does not change the overall misogynist trajectory of the tale but adds a mysterious fantastic element of the baby being protected by a nymph.

It has been simply accepted that a woman might resort to ripping snake into bloodied bits with her teeth. Likewise, the father’s first assumption of his wife’s cannibalistic habits is never questioned, as if the commonly expected explanation of the blood covering her should not be that she hurt herself. In this sense, it is helpful to visualize the Greek version to make others aware of a translation mistake freely transmitted for nearly 1000 years.

Conclusion

Overall, the visualization strategy has proven to be able in pinpointing the focus on the absurdity of the wife acting like an animal. One could also consider that the Hebrew version presents the most reasonable father character. Leaving a faithful dog to protect your baby is at least more convincing than leaving a mongoose as a guardian or simply leaving the baby unattended as in the Greek. Equally, discovering the dog full of blood makes for the most convincing misconception as dogs are used for hunting and even attacking humans.

Looking at the wife-character, however, the father’s behavior is governed by brutal absurdity. Using the comic as an incentive, the comparison with two modern translations by Brodersen and Noble has shown that the cannibalistic wife or, in Noble’s case, nymph is indeed no reason for them to question Symeon Seth’s translating abilities. In other words, the curious case of the mongoose turning dog turning wife not only points out freely accepted misogyny but also the naïve trust in a translator’s faithful and correct rendition of their source.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.