Читать книгу The Bakhtyār Nāma. A Persian Romance онлайн

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Dunlop, in his History of Fiction, remarks that “the leading incident of a disappointed woman accusing the object of her passion is as old as the story of Joseph, and may thence be traced through the fables of mythology to the Italian novelists.” But surely there was nothing so very peculiar in the conduct of Zulaykha (as Muslims name the wife of Potiphar)—nothing very different from human (or woman) nature in general, that should lead us to conclude, with Dunlop, that all the numerous stories based upon a similar incident had their common origin in the celebrated tale of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. We have no reason to suppose a Hebrew origin for the well-known classical legend of Phædra, who was enamoured of Hippolytus, and, unable to suppress her passion, made overtures to him, which were disdainfully rejected; upon which Phædra accused Hippolytus to her husband Theseus of attempting to dishonour her. And although the work ascribed to the Indian sage Sindibād now appears to be lost, yet this “leading incident” of works of the Sindibād-cycle forms the subject of several Indian romances, one of which is a story in verse of a Prince named Sárangdhara, whose step-mother Chitrángí falls in love with him. He rejects her advances, on which she accuses him to the King of attempting to violate her, and the King orders him to have his feet cut off and to be exposed to wild beasts in the forest. The innocence of the Prince is afterwards proved, and the wicked Queen is put to death.