Hindu literature Part 4

'Absent, flatterers' tongues are daggers--present, softer than the silk; Shun them! 'tis a jar of poison hidden under harmless milk; Shun them when they promise little! Shun them when they promise much!

For, enkindled, charcoal burneth--cold, it doth defile the touch.'

When the day broke, the Crow (who was still there) saw the master of the field approaching with his club in his hand.

'Now, friend Deer,' said Sharp-sense on perceiving him, 'do thou cause thyself to seem like one dead: puff thy belly up with wind, stiffen thy legs out, and lie very still. I will make a show of pecking thine eyes out with my beak; and whensoever I utter a croak, then spring to thy feet and betake thee to flight.'

The Deer thereon placed himself exactly as the Crow suggested, and was very soon espied by the husbandman, whose eyes opened with joy at the sight.

'Aha!' said he, 'the fellow has died of himself,' and so speaking, he released the Deer from the snare, and proceeded to gather and lay aside his nets. At that instant Sharp-sense uttered a loud croak, and the Deer sprang up and made off. And the club which the husbandman flung after him in a rage struck Small-wit, the Jackal (who was close by), and killed him. Is it not said, indeed?--

'In years, or moons, or half-moons three, Or in three days--suddenly, Knaves are shent--true men go free,'

"Thou seest, then," said Golden-skin, "there can be no friends.h.i.+p between food and feeder."

"I should hardly," replied the Crow, "get a large breakfast out of your wors.h.i.+p; but as to that indeed you have nothing to fear from me. I am not often angry, and if I were, you know--

'Anger comes to n.o.ble natures, but leaves there no strife or storm: Plunge a lighted torch beneath it, and the ocean grows not warm.'

"Then, also, thou art such a gad-about," objected the King.

"Maybe," answered Light o' Leap; "but I am bent on winning thy friends.h.i.+p, and I will die at thy door of fasting if thou grantest it not. Let us be friends! for

'n.o.ble hearts are golden vases--close the bond true metals make; Easily the smith may weld them, harder far it is to break.

Evil hearts are earthen vessels--at a touch they crack a-twain, And what craftsman's ready cunning can unite the shards again?'

And then, too,

'Good men's friends.h.i.+ps may be broken, yet abide they friends at heart; Snap the stem of Luxmee's lotus, and its fibres will not part.'

"Good sir," said the King of the Mice, "your conversation is as pleasing as pearl necklets or oil of sandal-wood in hot weather. Be it as you will"--and thereon King Golden-skin made a treaty with the Crow, and after gratifying him with the best of his store reentered his hole. The Crow returned to his accustomed perch:--and thenceforward the time pa.s.sed in mutual presents of food, in polite inquiries, and the most unrestrained talk. One day Light o' Leap thus accosted Golden-skin:--

"This is a poor place, your Majesty, for a Crow to get a living in. I should like to leave it and go elsewhere."

"Whither wouldst thou go?" replied the King; they say,

'One foot goes, and one foot stands, When the wise man leaves his lands.'

"And they say, too," answered the Crow,

'Over-love of home were weakness; wheresoever the hero come, Stalwart arm and steadfast spirit find or win for him a home.

Little recks the awless lion where his hunting jungles lie-- When he enters it be certain that a royal prey shall die,'

"I know an excellent jungle now."

"Which is that?" asked the Mouse-king.

"In the Nerbudda woods, by Camphor-water," replied the Crow. "There is an old and valued friend of mine lives there--Slow-toes his name is, a very virtuous Tortoise; he will regale me with fish and good things."

"Why should I stay behind," said Golden-skin, "if thou goest? Take me also."

Accordingly, the two set forth together, enjoying charming converse upon the road. Slow-toes perceived Light o' Leap a long way off, and hastened to do him the guest-rites, extending them to the Mouse upon Light o'

Leap's introduction.

"Good Slow-toes," said he, "this is Golden-skin, King of the Mice--pay all honor to him--he is burdened with virtues--a very jewel-mine of kindnesses. I don't know if the Prince of all the Serpents, with his two thousand tongues, could rightly repeat them." So speaking, he told the story of Speckle-neck. Thereupon Slow-toes made a profound obeisance to Golden-skin, and said, "How came your Majesty, may I ask, to retire to an unfrequented forest?"

"I will tell you," said the King. "You must know that in the town of Champaka there is a college for the devotees. Unto this resorted daily a beggar-priest, named Chudakarna, whose custom was to place his begging-dish upon the shelf, with such alms in it as he had not eaten, and go to sleep by it; and I, so soon as he slept, used to jump up, and devour the meal. One day a great friend of his, named Vinakarna, also a mendicant, came to visit him; and observed that while conversing, he kept striking the ground with a split cane, to frighten me. 'Why don't you listen?' said Vinakarna. 'I am listening!' replied the other; 'but this plaguy mouse is always eating the meal out of my begging-dish,'

Vinakarna looked at the shelf and remarked, 'However can a mouse jump as high as this? There must be a reason, though there seems none. I guess the cause--the fellow is well off and fat,' With these words Vinakarna s.n.a.t.c.hed up a shovel, discovered my retreat, and took away all my h.o.a.rd of provisions. After that I lost strength daily, had scarcely energy enough to get my dinner, and, in fact, crept about so wretchedly, that when Chudakarna saw me he fell to quoting--

'Very feeble folk are poor folk; money lost takes wit away:-- All their doings fail like runnels, wasting through the summer day.'

"Yes!" I thought, "he is right, and so are the sayings--

'Wealth is friends, home, father, brother--t.i.tle to respect and fame; Yea, and wealth is held for wisdom--that it should be so is shame,'

'Home is empty to the childless; hearts to them who friends deplore:-- Earth unto the idle-minded; and the three worlds to the poor.'

'I can stay here no longer; and to tell my distress to another is out of the question--altogether out of the question!--

'Say the sages, nine things name not: Age, domestic joys and woes, Counsel, sickness, shame, alms, penance; neither Poverty disclose.

Better for the proud of spirit, death, than life with losses told; Fire consents to be extinguished, but submits not to be cold.'

'Verily he was wise, methought also, who wrote--

'As Age doth banish beauty, As moonlight dies in gloom, As Slavery's menial duty Is Honor's certain tomb; As Hari's name and Hara's Spoken, charm sin away, So Poverty can surely A hundred virtues slay.'

'And as to sustaining myself on another man's bread, that,' I mused, 'would be but a second door of death. Say not the books the same?--

'Half-known knowledge, present pleasure purchased with a future woe, And to taste the salt of service--greater griefs no man can know.'

'And herein, also--

'All existence is not equal, and all living is not life; Sick men live; and he who, banished, pines for children, home, and wife; And the craven-hearted eater of another's leavings lives, And the wretched captive waiting for the word of doom survives; But they bear an anguished body, and they draw a deadly breath, And life cometh to them only on the happy day of death.'

Yet, after all these reflections, I was covetous enough to make one more attempt on Chudakarna's meal, and got a blow from the split cane for my pains. 'Just so,' I said to myself, 'the soul and organs of the discontented want keeping in subjection. I must be done with discontent:--

'Golden gift, serene Contentment! have thou that, and all is had; Thrust thy slipper on, and think thee that the earth is leather-clad.'

'All is known, digested, tested; nothing new is left to learn When the soul, serene, reliant, Hope's delusive dreams can spurn.'

'And the sorry task of seeking favor is numbered in the miseries of life--

'Hast thou never watched, a-waiting till the great man's door unbarred?

Didst thou never linger parting, saying many a last sad word? Spak'st thou never word of folly, one light thing thou wouldst recall? Rare and n.o.ble hath thy life been! fair thy fortune did befall!'

'No!' exclaimed I, 'I will do none of these; but, by retiring into the quiet and untrodden forest, I will show my discernment of real good and ill. The holy Books counsel it--

'True Religion!--'tis not blindly prating what the priest may prate, But to love, as G.o.d hath loved them, all things, be they small or great; And true bliss is when a sane mind doth a healthy body fill; And true knowledge is the knowing what is good and what is ill.'