Reading section 18

Accordingly they repaired to the Lion.

'Hast brought me food, fellow?' growled the Rajah.

'None, may it please you,' said the Crow.

'Must we starve, then?' asked his Majesty.

'Not unless you reject the food before you, Sire,' rejoined the Crow.

'Before me! how mean you?'

'I mean,' replied the Crow (and he whispered it in the Lion's ear), 'Crop-ear, the Camel!'

'Now!' said the Lion, and he touched the ground, and afterwards both ears, as he spoke, 'I have given him my pledge for his safety, and how should I slay him?'

'Nay, Sire! I said not slay,' replied the Crow; 'it may be that he will offer himself for food. To that your Majesty would not object?'

'I am parlous hungry,' muttered the Lion.

'Then the Crow went to find the Camel, and, bringing all together before the King under some pretence or other, he thus addressed him:--

'Sire! our pains are come to nothing: we can get no food, and we behold our Lord falling away,

'Of the Tree of State the root Kings are--feed what brings the fruit.'

Take me, therefore, your Majesty, and break your fast upon me."

'Good Crow,' said the Lion, 'I had liefer die than do so.'

'Will your Majesty deign to make a repast upon me?' asked the Jackal.

'On no account!' replied the Lion.

'Condescend, my Lord,' said the Tiger, 'to appease your hunger with my poor flesh.'

'Impossible!' responded the Lion.

'Thereupon Crop-ear, not to be behind in what seemed safe, made offer of his own carcase, which was accepted before he had finished; the Tiger instantly tearing his flank open, and all the rest at once devouring him.

'The Brahman,' continued Night-cloud, 'suspected nothing more than did the Camel; and when the third knave had broken his jest upon him for bearing a dog, he threw it down, washed himself clean of the contamination, and went home; while the knaves secured and cooked his goat.'

'But, Night-cloud,' asked the Rajah, 'how couldst thou abide so long among enemies, and conciliate them?'

'It is easy to play the courtier for a purpose,' said Night-cloud--

'Courtesy may cover malice; on their heads the woodmen bring, Meaning all the while to burn them, logs and fagots--oh, my King! And the strong and subtle river, rippling at the cedar's foot, While it seems to lave and kiss it, undermines the hanging root.'

Indeed, it has been said--

'A wise man for an object's sake His foe upon his back will take, As with the Frogs once did the Snake.'

'How was that?' asked the Peacock-King. The Crow related:--

THE STORY OF THE FROGS AND THE OLD SERPENT

"In a deserted garden there once lived a Serpent, 'Slow-coil' by name; who had reached an age when he was no longer able to obtain his own food. Lying listlessly by the edge of a pond, he was descried by a certain Frog, and interrogated--

'Have you given up caring for food, Serpent?'

'Leave me, kindly Sir,' replied the subtle reptile; 'the griefs of a miserable wretch like me cannot interest your lofty mind.'

'Let me at least hear them,' said the Frog, somewhat flattered.

'You must know, then, gracious Sir,' began the Serpent, 'that it is now twenty years since here, in Brahmapoora, I bit the son of Kaundinya, a holy Brahman; of which cruel bite he died. Seeing his boy dead, Kaundinya abandoned himself to despair, and grovelled in his distress upon the ground. Thereat came all his kinsmen, citizens of Brahmapoora, and sat down with him, as the manner is--

'He who shares his brother's portion, be he beggar, be he lord, Comes as truly, comes as duly, to the battle as the board;

Stands before the King to succor, follows to the pile to sigh; He is friend and he is kinsman--less would make the name a lie.'

Then spoke a twice-passed Brahman,[21] Kapila by name, 'O Kaundinya! thou dost forget thyself to lament thus. Hear what is written--

'Weep not! Life the hired nurse is, holding us a little space; Death, the mother who doth take us back into our proper place.'

'Gone, with all their gauds and glories: gone, like peasants, are the Kings, Whereunto the world is witness, whereof all her record rings.'

What, indeed, my friend, is this mortal frame, that we should set store by it?--

'For the body, daily wasting, is not seen to waste away, Until wasted, as in water set a jar of unbaked clay.'

'And day after day man goeth near and nearer to his fate, As step after step the victim thither where its slayers wait.'

Friends and kinsmen--they must all be surrendered! Is it not said--

'Like as a plank of drift-wood Tossed on the watery main, Another plank encountered, Meets--touches--parts again; So tossed, and drifting ever, On life's unresting sea, Men meet, and greet, and sever, Parting eternally.'

Thou knowest these things, let thy wisdom chide thy sorrow, saying--

'Halt, traveller! rest i' the shade: then up and leave it! Stay, Soul! take fill of love; nor losing, grieve it!'

But in sooth a wise man would better avoid love; for--

'Each beloved object born Sets within the heart a thorn, Bleeding, when they be uptorn.'

And it is well asked--

'When thine own house, this rotting frame, doth wither, Thinking another's lasting--goest thou thither?'

What will be, will be; and who knows not--

'Meeting makes a parting sure, Life is nothing but death's door.'

For truly--

'As the downward-running rivers never turn and never stay, So the days and nights stream deathward, bearing human lives away.'

And though it be objected that--

'Bethinking him of darkness grim, and death's unshunned pain, A man strong-souled relaxes hold, like leather soaked in rain.'

Yet is this none the less assured, that--

'From the day, the hour, the minute, Each life quickens in the womb; Thence its march, no falter in it, Goes straight forward to the tomb.'

Form, good friend, a true idea of mundane matters; and bethink thee that regret is after all but an illusion, an ignorance--

'An 'twere not so, would sorrow cease with years? Wisdom sees aright what want of knowledge fears.'

'Kaundinya listened to all this with the air of a dreamer. Then rising up he said, 'Enough! the house is hell to me--I will betake me to the forest.'