indly.

The Pangasinanes may have got this story of "The Golden Rule" through
the Church, from some priest's sermon.

Our first example, "Respect Old Age," is the only one of the three
which turns on the "housse partie" idea. This is the form found
in the thirteenth-century French fabliau "La Housse Partie;" and a
variant of it is given by Ortensio Lando, an Italian novelist of the
sixteenth century (Dunlop, 2 : 206). The only Spanish example I know
of is found in the fourteenth-century "El Libro de los Enxemplos"
(printed in Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. 51 [Madrid, 1884]),
No. CCLXXII. It runs in the original as follows:--

Patri qualis fueris, tibi filius talis erit.
Cual fueres a tu padre que trabajo por ti,
El fijo que engendrares tal sera a ti.

Cuentan que un viejo dio a un fijo que lo sirvio mucho bien todos
sus bienes; mas despues que gelos hobo dado, echolo de la camara onde
dormia e tomola para el e para su mujer, e fizo facer a su padre el
lecho tras la puerta. E de que vino el invierno el viejo habia frio,
ca el fijo le habia tornado la buena ropa con que se cobria, e rogo
a un su nieto, fijo de su fijo, que rogase a su padre que le diese
alguna ropa para se cobrir; e el mozo apenas pudo alcanzar de su padre
dos varas de sayal para su abuelo, e quedabanle al fijo otros dos. E
el mozo llorando rogo al padre que le diese las otros dos, e tanto
lloro, que gelas hobo de dar, e demandole que para que las queria,
e respondiole: "Quierolas guardar fasta que tu seas tal commo es
agora tu padre, e estonce non te dare mas, asi commo tu non quieres
dar a tu padre."

Finally may be given another Indian story, No. 16 in the
"Antarakathasamgraha" of Rajasekhara (Bolte-Polivka, 2 : 139),
which connects the "divided-blanket" motif with the old "Jataka."
Rajasekhara flourished about A.D. 900. This story runs thus:--

In Haripura lived a merchant named Sankha, who had four sons. When
he became old, he handed over his business and all his wealth to
them. But they would no longer obey him; their wives mistreated him;
and the old man crept into a corner of the house, wasted by hunger
and oppressed with years. Once in the cold time of the year he asked
his oldest son, Kumuda, for a cloth to protect him from the night
frost. Kumuda spoke this verse:--

"For an old man whose wife is dead, who is dependent on his sons for
money, who is cut by the words of his step-daughters, death is better
than life."

But