Fable CXXIV.
The Lion and the Wolf
While a Lion was breakfasting off a lamb, a little Dog, which was frisking around the regal
table, tore away a small morsel from under the Lion's claws; and the King of Beasts
passed the matter over without taking any offence. (The Dog was still young and foolish.)
A Wolf, who saw this, took it into its head that as the Lion was so patient it could not
possibly be strong. And so it also laid its paw upon the lamb.
But it fared badly with the Wolf. The Wolf itself got served up at the Lion's table.
The Lion tore it asunder, addressing it thus the while:
"You were wrong, my friend, to suppose, from what you saw the dog do, that I should
wink at your doings also. The dog has not yet come to years of discretion, but as for
you — you are no longer a mere cub."
Fable CXXV.
The Rat and the Mouse
Neighbour! have you heard the good news?" cried a Mouse, as it came running in to a
Rat. "Why, they say the cat has fallen into the clutches of the lion! So you see even we
shall have a quiet breathing-time at last."
"Don't go making yourself so happy, my dear!" replied the Rat.
"Indulge in no such futile hopes! If those two really do begin clawing each other, believe
me, it won't be the lion which will be left alive.
Than the cat there is no beast stronger."
Many a time have I seen what you may see for yourselves. When cowards fear any one,
they think every one else sees in him what they do.
Fable CXXVI.
The Bee and the Flies
Two Flies determined to be off to foreign parts, and tried to entice a Bee to go there with
them. They had heard from parrots high praises of distant lands.
Besides, it seemed to them abominable that, on their native soil, they should everywhere
be excluded from hospitality, nay, that it should even have come to this — (how is it
people are not ashamed of such things? and what oddities there are in the world !)—
that glass covers should have been invented to keep flies away, and prevent them from
profiting by the sweets on sumptuous tables.
And as to poor men's houses, why, there they found the spiders a nuisance.
"A pleasant journey to you!" replied the Bee to all this. "For my part, I am comfortable
even in my own land. I have succeeded, by means of my honeycomb, in gaining the
affections of all, from the villager even to the grandee. But as for you, fly whither it
pleases you: you will meet with the same fate everywhere.
As you are of no use, my friends, you will nowhere be either honoured or loved.
There, as well as here, it will only be the spiders who will be glad to see you."
He who toils usefully for his Fatherland will not lightly desert it. But a foreign land is
always pleasant to one who is destitute of useful qualities. There, as he is not a citizen,
he is less despised than at home, and to no one there is his idleness a source of
vexation.
Fable CXXVII.
The Peasant and the Snake 1
A Snake once glided up to a Peasant, and said, "Neighbour, let us take to living on
friendly terms. You need not be on your guard against me any longer. You can see for
yourself that I have changed my skin this spring, and that I have become quite
a different creature from what I was."
But the Snake did not convince the Peasant. The Peasant seized a cudgel, and cried,
"Though you've got a new skin, yet your heart is just the same as of old."
And the neighbour's life was straightway knocked out of her.
Fable CXXVIII.
The Ear of Corn
An Ear of Corn which shook in the wind afield — catching sight of a flower which was
fondled in com fort and luxury behind the glass of a hothouse, while it was itself exposed
to troops of flies, and to heat and cold and storm — in a tone of vexation addressed its
master thus:
"How comes it that you men are always so unjust that there is nothing you refuse to one
who knows how to please your eye or taste, while you are utterly careless about one who
is practically useful to you?
Are not your chief profits derived from the corn-field? And yet, only see in what contempt
it is held! Since the day when you sowed this piece of ground, have you ever sheltered
our blades under glass from bad weather, or given orders that we should be weeded or
warmed, or come to water us in a drought?
"No: our growth is left entirely to chance; whereas your flowers, which can neither fatten
nor enrich you, are not, like us, left out here in the fields unheeded.
They grow up within glass walls, trimly tended in a luxurious retreat.
Why, if you had only taken as much pains about us instead, you would certainly have
gained a hundredfold in the course of a year, and would have sent to town a whole
caravan full of grain! Do think the matter over, and build a good big hothouse to hold us."
"Friend," replied the master, "I see that you have not paid attention to my labours.
Trust me, my chief care has been for you. If you only knew what pains it cost me to clear
away the forest, and to have the ground manured for your benefit!
Why, there was no end to my toil!
But I have neither time nor inclination to talk now, nor would there be any use in my doing so.
As for wind and rain, address your requests to the heavens. But your wise advice to me
would, if I had followed it, have left me with neither corn nor flowers."
Fable CXXIX.
The Boy and the Worm
A Worm begged a Peasant to let it go into his garden and spend the summer there as his
guest. It pro mised to behave honourably, and not to touch the fruit; to eat nothing but
leaves, and those only which had already begun to fade.
The Peasant thought, "How can I deny it a refuge? Shall I feel cramped in my garden
because there is a worm the more in it?
Let it go and live there. Besides, even if it does eat two or three leaves, that won't be
a serious loss."
He consents. The Worm crawls up a tree, finds a refuge from bad weather under a twig,
lives there, if not sumptuously, yet with all its wants supplied, and no one hears a word about it.
Meanwhile the king of light had already gilded the fruits. There, in that garden, where
everything else was fast growing mellow, an apple, transparent, clear as amber, had fully
ripened on a twig in the sun.
Now a Boy had long been enamoured of that apple, which he had picked out of a
thousand others.
But the apple was hard to get at. To climb the apple-tree the boy did not dare, to shake
it he was not strong enough — in a word, he could not tell how to get hold of the apple.
Who helped the Boy to the theft? The Worm.
"Listen!" it says. "I know to a certainty that the master has ordered the apples to be
gathered, so this one won't stop here long for either of us. Still I can undertake to get
it, only you must share it with me.
But ycu may take even ten times more than I do for your share, for a very little portion
of it will take me a whole age to eat."
The Boy consented and the compact was made.
The Worm climbed up the apple-tree, set to work, and gnawed away the apple in a
moment. But what was the recompense it got? No sooner had the apple fallen than the
Boy ate it up, pips and all, and when the Worm had crawled down to get its share,
the Boy crushed it under his heel.
And so there was an end of both the Worm and the apple.
Fable CXXX.
The Funeral
In Egypt, in the olden time, whenever people wanted to bury any one in a very sumptuous
style, it was the custom to have professional female mourners to wail behind the coffin.
Once upon a time, at a grand funeral, a number of these mourners, uttering loud howls,
were escorting home a dead man who had passed from this transitory life to everlasting rest.
Then a stranger, who fancied that in them he saw the whole family of the defunct a prey
to unfeigned woe, said to them:
"Tell me, wouldn't you be pleased if I were to bring him to life for you?
I am a magician, and so I have the power of doing such things. We keep about us such
exorcisms — the corpse will come to life in a moment."
"Father," they all cried out, "pray give us poor creatures that pleasure! There is only one
other favour we would ask — that he may die again at the end of four or five days.
While he was alive here there was no good at all in him, and there scarcely could be any
if he were to live longer.
But if he were to die, why, then, of course, they would have to hire us to howl for him again."
[Krilof need scarcely have gone all the way to Egypt for is "howlers."
Numbers of women earn a comfortable livelihood in Russia as "crieresses,"
being employed not only at funerals, but also at marriages — for the bride is expected
to mourn freely at having to leave her father's home, and pass from the state of
"maiden liberty" to that of married subjection, and the "crieress" is invaluable as
prompting her with the wailings appropriate to the occasion.]
Fable CXXXI.
The Council of the Mice
Once upon a time the Mice took it into their heads to glorify themselves, to spread
abroad the fame of their deeds from the cellar to the attic, and, in spite of cats, male
and female, to drive cooks and housekeepers out of their senses.
And to this end it was resolved to convene a council, in which those only should be
allowed to sit whose tails were as long as the rest of their bodies.
It is acknowledged among mice that the longer a mouse's tail is, the wiser he is sure to
be, and the quicker in every thing. Whether this be true or not we will not inquire at
present. We ourselves, for the matter of that, often judge of a man's wisdom according
to the cut of his dress or his beard.
But you must know that by general consent it was decided that only long-tailed members
should be admitted into the council.
As for those who unfortunately had no tails, although they might have lost them in
battle, yet, inasmuch as such loss is a sign of folly or carelessness, they should not be
admitted into the council, in order that mice should thereby be deterred from losing their
tails through their own fault.
Everything was duly arranged; it was proclaimed that the assembly would be held as
soon as it was night, and finally the sitting was opened in a meal-bin.
But, as soon as the seats had been taken, there sat a rat without a tail!
A young Mouse, who saw that, turned to a grey-haired Mouse, and said,
"What right has that tailless one to sit here with us? What has become of our regulation?
Call out that he may be expelled at once! You know that our people don't like the tailless.
And is it likely that we could find of any use to us one who had not managed to save
even his own tail?
Why, he will be the ruin not only of us, but of the whole under-floor population."
But the old Mouse replied,
"Hush! I know all that; but that rat is my gossip."
[La Fontaine's fable, "Le Conseil tenu par les Rats," was translated by Khvostof, under
the title adopted in the present case by Krilof, Sovyet Muishei; but the two fables have
nothing else in common.
The rat most probably represents some great man who, although disqualified for office,
as sumed it in an assembly of smaller people. But what his name was does not appear.]
Fable CXXXII.
The Lamb
A Lamb, which from sheer folly had donned a wolf's skin, went to the sheep-fold, there to
strut about in it.
The Lamb wanted merely to show itself off a little, but the dogs which saw the foolish
animal thought that a wolf had broken in from the forest.
In they leaped, rushed at it, knocked it off its feet, and tore it almost to pieces before
it could collect its scattered wits.
Luckily the shepherds recognized it and rescued it.
But it is no joke to be even for a time exposed to the teeth of dogs.
After such a fright as this the poor creature could scarcely drag itself to the sheep-fold,
and after it had got there its strength began to desert it, so that before long it became
a perfect wreck, moaning away without cessation for the rest of its life.
But if the Lamb had been wise, it would have been afraid of becoming, even in fancy,
like unto a wolf.
Fable CXXXIII.
The Peasant and the Snake 2
A Peasant and a Snake became bosom friends.
It is well known that snakes are clever, and this one had so crept into the Peasant's good
graces, that he swore by it, and by nothing else.
From that time forward, of all his former friends and relatives, not one would stir a foot
towards him.
"But why," says the Peasant, reproachfully, "why have you all forsaken me? Is it that my
wife hasn't known how to receive you? or have you become tired of what I have to
offer you?"
"No," replied his gossip Matvei. "We'd come and see you with pleasure, neighbour;
and you've never — not a word can be said against that — never once vexed or angered
us in anything.
But just tell me, what pleasure can one find in your house if, while one 's sitting there,
one can think of nothing but looking out that that friend of yours doesn't crawl up and
sting some one?"
Fable CXXXIV.
The Spider and the Bee
A Merchant brought some linen to a fair.
That's a thing everybody wants to buy, so it would have been a sin in the Merchant if he
had complained of his sale. There was no keeping the buyers back: the shop was at
times crammed full.
Seeing how rapidly the goods went off, an envious Spider was tempted by the Merchant's
gains. She took it into her head to weave goods for sale herself, and determined to open
a little shop for them in a window corner, seeking thereby to undermine the Merchant's success.
She commenced her web, span the whole night long, and then set out her wares on
view. From her shop she did not stir, but remained sitting there, puffed up with pride,
and thinking,
"So soon as the day shall dawn will all buyers be enticed to me."
Well, the day did dawn. But what then? There came a broom, and the ingenious creature
and her little shop were swept clean away.
Our Spider went wild with vexation.
"There!" she cried, "what's the good of expecting a just reward? And yet I ask the whole
world — Whose work is the finer, mine or that Merchant's?"
"Yours, to be sure," answered the Bee. "Who would venture to deny the fact? Every one
knew that long ago. But what is the good of it if there's neither warmth nor wear in it?"
Fable CXXXV.
The Feast
Once, during a year of dearth, the Lion prepared a rich feast as a means of general
consolation. Couriers and heralds were sent out to invite the guests — the animals both
small and great.
From all sides they crowd together on the invitation to the Lion's abode. How could such
an invitation possibly be refused? A feast is a good thing even at a time which is not one
of dearth.
Well, there came among others a Marmot, a Fox, and a Mole; only they came an hour
after the proper time, and found that the guests were already at table.
The Fox, unluckily, had had its hands full of business; the Marmot had lost a great deal of
time in getting up and washing itself, and the Mole had lost its way.
However, none of them were inclined to go home empty, so, spying a vacant place near
the Lion, all three tried to make their way to it.
"Hark ye, brothers!" said the Panther to them; "there is plenty of room there, only it isn't
intended for you. The Elephant is coming there, and he will turn you out; or, worse still,
will squeeze you to death.
So if you don't want to go away hungry, you will stop there on the threshold.
You will get your fill, and that's a thing to thank God for! The places in front are not for
the like of you.
They're kept for animals of a large size only; but those of the little ones who don't like to
eat standing, had better keep their seats at home."
[This fable was not printed till 1869, when it appeared for the first time in a collection of
essays, etc., about Krilof, published at St. Petersburg by the Imperial Academy of
Sciences. Appended to the MS. was the following note, by a daughter of Krilof's friend
and patron, Olenine. —"At the time when this fable was written by Krilof, the censors
would not allow it to be printed."]
Fable CXXXVI.
The Peasant and the Dog
A Peasant, who was a great economist, and the possessor of a well-to-do homestead,
hired a Dog to watch his courtyard and bake his bread, and, besides all this, to hoe and
water his young cabbages.
"What stuff is this he's made up?" says the reader. "There's neither rhyme nor reason in
it! Let's suppose the Dog watched the courtyard. Good! But has any one ever seen dogs
baking bread or watering cabbages?"
Reader! I should not have been altogether justified if I had answered in the affirmative.
But the matter in question is not that, but this — that our Barbos undertook to do all
these things, and demanded and got triple pay in consequence.
For Barbos this was capital. What did any one else matter?
Meanwhile the Peasant got ready for the fair, went to it, amused himself there for a time,
and then came home again. At his first glance round — life became a burden to him;
he tore and raged with vexation.
There was no bread in the house, there were no cabbages; and, besides this, a thief had
slipped into the yard and stripped the store-room bare.
On Barbos then burst a storm of abuse; but he had his excuse ready for everything.
It was utterly impossible for him to bake bread on account of having to look after the
cabbages. The cabbage-garden turned out a failure merely because the constant
guarding of the courtyard left him without a foot to stand on.
And he had not observed the thief, simply because he was at that moment preparing to
bake the bread.
Fable CXXXVII.
The Mechanician
A certain smart young fellow bought a big house; an oldish one, it is true, but capitally
constructed. The house had every merit in the way of solidity and com fort, and it would
have been suited to his taste in everything had it not been for this drawback: it was
rather a long way off from any water.
"Well, anyhow," he thought, "I may do what I like with my own. So I will have my house,
just as it stands, moved to the river by machinery" — our friend, as you can see, had a
passion for mechanics —" I shall only have to dig under its foundations, put runners
under its walls, set it upon rollers, and then, by means of a windlass, comfortably handle,
so to speak, the whole building, and set it down just where I like. And what's more —
a thing the world has never yet seen — when my house is being moved, I will go in it to
my new place of residence, riding as if in a carriage, and feasting, with friends around
me, to the sound of music."
Bewitched by this folly, our Mechanician instantly set to work. He hired workmen, he dug
and dug beneath his house.
Neither money nor pains did he spare in the least. But he could not manage to move his
house, and all that he attained to was this — that his house tumbled to pieces.
Fable CXXXVIII.
The Mice
"Oh, sister! have you heard the terrible news?" said one Mouse on board a vessel to
another."The ship must have sprung a leak! Down below there, the water has risen as
high as the very tip of my snout."
(But in reality she had scarcely got her paws wet.) "And no wonder! our captain is either
drunk or suffering from the effects of drunkenness, and the sailors are all each one lazier
than the other.
In fact, there is no kind of order anywhere. I cried out immediately, and let every one
know that our ship was going to the bottom.
What was the use?
No one lent me an ear, just as if I had been spreading false news.
But the fact is plain enough: one has only to look into the hold to see that the ship has
not another hour to live.
Surely, sister, it is not good that we should perish with the rest?
Come, let us fling ourselves at once from the ship! Perchance the land is not far off."
With that our strange friends sprang into the sea, and — were drowned.
But the ship, steered by a skilful hand, reached the harbour safe and sound.
Now will come questions: "But how about the captain, and the sailors, and the leak?"
The leak was a little one, and besides, it was stopped im mediately. But the rest —
was mere calumny.
[It is not clear, to what this fable, which was first printed in 1833, has special reference,
but Trutofsky's illustration of it will serve to give an idea of its general meaning.
Two ladies of the landed proprietor class are talking about the emancipation of the serfs.
One of them has in her hand a copy of the famous decree of February 19, 1861, by which
serfdom was abolished in Russia, and is evidently whispering fearful forebodings into the
ear of the other, who holds up her hands in horror.
From a corner of the room a barefooted peasant girl quietly watches the two terrified
ladies. The slaveholding Mice evidently think that the ship of the State is sinking fast.]
Fable CXXXIX.
The Falcon and the Caterpillar
A Caterpillar was swinging to and fro on a twig to which it had attached itself on the top
of a tree. A Falcon floating in the air above it thus mocked and flouted it from on high:
"What toils, poor thing, must thou not have endured! And what profits it that thou hast
climbed so high?
What freedom hast thou, and what kind of independence? Thou must always bend with
the twig whichever way the wind orders."
"It is easy for thee to scoff," answers the Caterpillar. "Thou flyest high because thou art
stoutly built and strong in the wings.
But it is not such merits as those that Fate has given me. Here on this height I hold my
own simply because I am, fortunately, tenacious."
Fable CXL.
The Snake
A Snake begged Jupiter to bestow upon her the voice of a nightingale.
"As I am," she says, "my life is hateful to me.
Whereever I show myself, all who are weaker than I am are fright ened at the sight of
me. And as to those who are stronger, God grant that I may escape from them alive!
No, such a life as this I can no longer endure.
But if I could sing in the forest like a nightingale, then, exciting admiration, I should
obtain love and, perhaps, respect, and would become the life of festive meetings."
Jupiter granted the Snake's request. Not even a trace of her hideous hissing was retained
by her. The Snake glided up a tree, chose a resting-place upon it, and began to sing
as beautifully as any nightingale.
The birds flocked together from all sides, and would have perched close by her; but as
soon as they caught sight of the songstress, away they all flew from the tree in a body.
Whom could such a reception please?
"Is it possible you can find my voice disagreeable?" asks the Snake with vexation.
"No,"replies a Starling: "it is sonorous, wonderful.
In fact, you sing as well as the nightingale.
But, to tell the truth, our hearts shuddered within us when we saw your sting.
To us it is a terrible thing to be in your company. And so I will say this to you, but not
with any intention of annoying you. We shall be delighted to hear your songs, only sing
them at a little distance from us."
Fable CXLI.
The Hare at the Chase
Having united in full force, the beasts captured a bear.
They strangled it in the open, and then began to settle among themselves what part each
of them should get as his share.
But at this point the Hare, forsooth, clutches the bear's ear.
"Hallo! you squinter there!" they shout at him. "Where on earth have you come from?
No one has seen you during the chase."
"Really now, brothers!" answered the Hare. "And who was it, if you please, who drove
him out of the wood? Didn't I frighten him entirely, and drive him, this dear friend of
ours, right afield to you?"
Such bragging was somewhat too palpable, it is true, but it had such an amusing air
about it, that the Hare was presented with a morsel of the bear's ear.
[It has often been said that Krilof alluded in this fable to the fact of Austria having joined
the Allied Powers after they had overthrown Napoleon, and then demanded her share of the spoil.
But this can scarcely be, as the fable appeared in the summer of 1813, during the heat of
the war for the independence of Germany. It is very probable that subsequently, at the
time of the Congress of Vienna, the fable was quoted in reference to the acquisitive
tendencies displayed by Austria, and this may have given rise to the idea that Krilof had
that Power m view when he wrote it.]
Fable CXLII.
The Peasant and the Fox
Said a Fox to a Peasant, one day:
"Tell me, my dear gossip, what has the horse done to deserve such friendship at your
hands, that, as I see, he is always by your side?
You keep him in plenty and well cared for.
When journeying, you go along with him, and with him you constantly go afield. And yet,
of all animals,che surely is all but the stupidest!"
"Ah, gossip!" replied the Peasant, "this isn't a question of wisdom: all that's mere stuff.
That isn't at all what I go in for.
What I want is that he should carry me and obey the whip."
Fable CXLIII.
The Shepherd
The shepherd Savva had charge of a Seigneur's flocks. Suddenly the sheep began to
disappear.
Our fine fellow is plunged in grief and woe. Everywhere he goes weeping and spreading
abroad the news that a terrible wolf has appeared — that it has taken to dragging the
sheep from the fold and pitilessly tearing them to pieces.
"And there's nothing wonderful in that," say the people.
"What pity have wolves for sheep?"
So they take to watching for the wolf.
But how comes it that our dear Savva's oven can now boast of cabbage soup with
mutton in it, or say a sheep's side and kasha*? (He had been turned out of a scullion's
place, and sent into the fields as a shepherd, by way of punishment for his faults: so he
kept a kitchen more like one of ours than a peasant's.)
A great search is made for the wolf: it is cursed on all sides, and the whole forest is
rummaged for it.
But not a trace of it can be found.
Friends, your trouble is of no use. About the wolf it's all mere talk. The real devourer of
the sheep is — Savva.
*favourite dish made of buckwheat.
Fable CXLIV.
The Carp
A Number of carp dwelt in the clear spring-water of a lake in a Seigneur's garden.
In shoals they used to sport near the banks, and all their days, it seemed, went by like
days of gold.
But suddenly the Seigneur orders a number of pike to be put in the pond with them.
"Excuse me!" says a friend of his, who heard of that, "excuse me, but what can you be
intending to do? What good thing can ever come of a pike? Not a fin will be left of the
carp to a certainty.
Can it be that you don't know how voracious pike are?"
"Don't waste your words," smilingly answers the Seigneur. "I'm well aware of all that.
But I should like to know what makes you think that I am fond of carp?"
Fable CXLV.
The Highwayman and the Waggoner
One day, towards nightfall, a Highwayman was lying in wait for booty in a thickst, at a
little distance from a road.
And as a hungry bear looks out from its den, so did he gaze gloomily into the distance.
Presently he sees a lumbering waggon come rolling on like a wave.
"Ah!" whispers our Highwayman. "Laden, no doubt, with goods for the fair: nothing but
cloth, and damask, and brocade, to a certainty. Don't stand gaping at it: there you'll get
wherewithal to live.
Ah! this day will not be lost for me!"
Meanwhile the waggon arrives. "Stop!" cries the robber, and flings himself upon the
driver, cudgel in hand. But, unluckily for him, it was no mere lubberly lad he had to do
with. The Waggoner was a strapping youth, who confronted the malefactor with a big
stick, and defended his goods like a mountain.
Our hero was obliged to fight hard for his prey. The battle was long and fierce.
The robber lost a dozen teeth, and had an arm smashed and an eye knocked out.
But, in spite of all this, he remained the victor.
The malefactor killed the Waggoner — killed him, and rushed upon the spoil. What did he
get? A whole waggonload of bladders!
Fable CXLVI.
The rich Man and the Poet
A Poet lodged an action against an exceedingly rich man, and entreated Jupiter to take
his side. Both parties were ordered to appear in court. They came: the one lean and
hungry, barely clothed, barely shod; the other all over gold and all puffed up by conceit.
"Take pity on me," cries the Poet, "O Ruler of Olympus! Cloud-compeller, hurler of
thunderbolts! in what have I sinned before thee, that from my youth upwards I have en
dured the cruel persecutions of Fortune?
No spoon is mine to feed from, no corner to lie in, and all my possessions exist in fancy
alone. Meanwhile my rival, who has neither mind nor merit, has been living in palaces
surrounded by a herd of worshippers, just as if he were an idol of thine, and swimming in
the fat of luxurious delicacy!"
"But is it nothing," replied Jupiter, "that the sounds of thy lyre will resound to a distant
age, while he will not be remembered by his grandsons, not to speak of his greatgrandsons?
Didst not thou thyself choose glory as thy share? To him I gave the good things of this
world during his lifetime.
But, believe me, if he had understood things better, and if his mind could possibly have
appreciated his insignificance compared with thee, he would have grumbled at his lot
more than thou art grumbling at thine."
Fable CXLVII.
The Snake and the Lamb
A Snake lay beneath a log, and raged against the whole world.
It had no other feeling in it than that of rage. Of such a kind had Nature created it.
Hard by there bounded and frolicked a Lamb: it never even so much as thought about the Snake.
But see! the Snake comes gliding up and strikes its fangs into the Lamb. The sky grows
dark before the poor thing's eyes, and the poison turns all its blood into fire.
"What harm have I done thee?" it says to the Snake.
"Who knows?" hisses out the Snake.
"It may be that thou hast stolen hither to crush me. It is by way of precaution that
I punish thee."
"Ah, no!" replies the Lamb — and then its life deserts it.
One whose heart is so framed that it knows neither friendship nor love, and nourishes
only hatred towards all men, such a one considers every man his enemy.
Fable CXLVIII.
The Nightingales
A certain birdcatcher one spring had caught a number of Nightingales in the copses.
The songsters were put in cages, and they began to sing, although they would much
rather have been wandering at will through the woods. When one sits in prison, has one
a mind for song?
But there was nothing to be done; so they sang, some from sorrow, and others to pass the time.
One poor wretch among the Nightingales endured more suffering than any of the others.
He had been taken from his mate: to him confinement was most grievous.
Through his tears he looked out afield from his cage; day and night did he sorrow.
At last he thinks "Grief cures no evil. Only fools weep on account of misfortunes; the wise
seek for the means of working out relief from their woes.
I, too, methinks, will be able to fling this weight of calamity off my neck. Surely we
cannot have been caught for eating. Our master, I can see, likes to hear singing.
So if I do him a service by my voice, it may be that it will bring me my reward, and he
will put an end to my captivity."
So thought our minstrel, and began to sing. With song he glorified the evening glow,
and with song he greeted the rising of the sun. But what finally came to pass?
He thereby only aggravated his hard fate. For the birds who sang badly their master has
long ago opened wide both cage and window, letting them all go free.
But as to our poor Nightingale, the more sweetly, the more tenderly it sings, the more
strictly is it looked after.
[Trutofsky's illustration of this fable represents the interior of a Government office.
It is closing-time, and the ordinary clerks are getting ready to leave. The model clerk still
sits at his table with a gloomy expression on his face. His chief is handing him a thick
bundle of documents.
The good singer is being kept in his cage.]