Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/371

Rh been watered here just before him; and offended at that, he must have refused to enter the water."

So he asked the horsekeepers whether anything had been watered at the ford just before.

"A certain hack, my Lord!" said they.

Then the Bodisat saw it was his vanity that made him wish not to be bathed there, and that he ought to be taken to some other pond. So he said, "Look you, horsekeeper, even if a man gets the finest milky rice with the most delicious curry to eat, he will tire of it sooner or later. This horse has been bathed often enough at the ford here, take him to some other ford to rub him down and feed him." And so saying, he uttered the verse —

"Feed the horse, then, O charioteer, Now at one ford, now at another. If one but eat it oft enough, The finest rice surfeits a man!"

When they heard what he said, they took the horse to another ford, and there bathed and fed him. And as they were rubbing down the horse after watering him, the Bodisat went back to the king.

The king said, "Well, friend! has the horse had his bath and his drink?"

"It has, my Lord!"

"Why, then, did it refuse at first?"

"Just in this way," said he; and told him all.

The king gave the Bodisat much honour, saying, "He understands the motives even of such an animal as this. How wise he is!" And at the end of this life he passed away according to his deeds. And the Bodisat too passed away according to his deeds.