Hindu Literature | Page 8

ready cunning can unite the shards again?'
And then, too,
'Good men's friendships 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 re??ntered his hole. The Crow returned to his accustomed perch:--and thenceforward the time passed 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 snatched up a shovel, discovered my retreat, and took away all my hoard 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--title 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