Vikram and the Vampire | Page 4

weird and supernatural, the grotesque, and the wild life.
My husband only gives eleven of the best tales, as it was thought the
translation would prove more interesting in its abbreviated form.
ISABEL BURTON.
August 18th, 1893.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST (1870) EDITION.
"THE genius of Eastern nations," says an established and respectable
authority, "was, from the earliest times, much turned towards invention
and the love of fiction. The Indians, the Persians, and the Arabians,
were all famous for their fables. Amongst the ancient Greeks we hear
of the Ionian and Milesian tales, but they have now perished, and, from
every account we hear of them, appear to have been loose and
indelicate." Similarly, the classical dictionaries define "Milesiae
fabulae" to be "licentious themes," "stories of an amatory or mirthful
nature," or "ludicrous and indecent plays." M. Deriege seems indeed to
confound them with the "Moeurs du Temps" illustrated with artistic
gouaches, when he says, "une de ces fables milesiennes, rehaussees de
peintures, que la corruption romaine recherchait alors avec une folle
ardeur."
My friend, Mr. Richard Charnock, F.A.S.L., more correctly defines
Milesian fables to have been originally " certain tales or novels,
composed by Aristides of Miletus "; gay in matter and graceful in
manner. "They were translated into Latin by the historian Sisenna, the
friend of Atticus, and they had a great success at Rome. Plutarch, in his

life of Crassus, tells us that after the defeat of Carhes (Carrhae?) some
Milesiacs were found in the baggage of the Roman prisoners. The
Greek text; and the Latin translation have long been lost. The only
surviving fable is the tale of Cupid and Psyche,[FN#1] which Apuleius
calls 'Milesius sermo,' and it makes us deeply regret the disappearance
of the others." Besides this there are the remains of Apollodorus and
Conon, and a few traces to be found in Pausanias, Athenaeus, and the
scholiasts.
I do not, therefore, agree with Blair, with the dictionaries, or with M.
Deriege. Miletus, the great maritime city of Asiatic Ionia, was of old
the meeting-place of the East and the West. Here the Phoenician trader
from the Baltic would meet the Hindu wandering to Intra, from Extra,
Gangem; and the Hyperborean would step on shore side by side with
the Nubian and the Aethiop. Here was produced and published for the
use of the then civilized world, the genuine Oriental apologue, myth
and tale combined, which, by amusing narrative and romantic
adventure, insinuates a lesson in morals or in humanity, of which we
often in our days must fail to perceive the drift. The book of Apuleius,
before quoted, is subject to as many discoveries of recondite meaning
as is Rabelais. As regards the licentiousness of the Milesian fables, this
sign of semi-civilization is still inherent in most Eastern books of the
description which we call "light literature," and the ancestral tale-teller
never collects a larger purse of coppers than when he relates the worst
of his "aurei." But this looseness, resulting from the separation of the
sexes, is accidental, not necessary. The following collection will show
that it can be dispensed with, and that there is such a thing as
camparative purity in Hindu literature. The author, indeed, almost
always takes the trouble to marry his hero and his heroine, and if he
cannot find a priest, he generally adopts an exceedingly left-hand and
Caledonian but legal rite called "gandharbavivaha.[FN#2]"
The work of Apuleius, as ample internal evidence shows, is borrowed
from the East. The groundwork of the tale is the metamorphosis of
Lucius of Corinth into an ass, and the strange accidents which precede
his recovering the human form.
Another old Hindu story-book relates, in the popular fairy-book style,
the wondrous adventures of the hero and demigod, the great
Gandharba-Sena. That son of Indra, who was also the father of

Vikramajit, the subject of this and another collection, offended the ruler
of the firmament by his fondness for a certain nymph, and was doomed
to wander over earth under the form of a donkey. Through the
interposition of the gods, however, he was permitted to become a man
during the hours of darkness, thus comparing with the English legend -
Amundeville is lord by day, But the monk is lord by night.
Whilst labouring under this curse, Gandharba-Sena persuaded the King
of Dhara to give him a daughter in marriage, but it unfortunately so
happened that at the wedding hour he was unable to show himself in
any but asinine shape. After bathing, however, he proceeded to the
assembly, and, hearing songs and music, he resolved to give them a
specimen of his voice.
The guests were filled with sorrow that so beautiful a virgin should be
married to a donkey. They were afraid to express their feelings to the
king, but they could