Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/140

 116 I swear by the living God, that, if thou dost not do me justice against thy son, I will drink it and die: and thou wilt have to answer for my self-destruction, while thy philosophers—those who have given thee bad counsels—will avail thee nought. It will, moreover, occur to thee as it did to a sow, who was in the habit of going to a certain fig-tree, in order to eat of the fruit which used to drop off. Now one day she came to the tree, according as she w^as wont, and found that an ape had ascended the tree and was eating of the figs, and as it beheld the sow beneath, it threw her a fig, and the sow ate it, and enjoyed it much more than those which used to drop upon the ground. The sow, moreover, was gazing up at the ape that he should go on throwing, and so long did she hang her head back in front of the ape, that the vein of her neck withered and she perished."

Now when the king heard from the woman these words, he was afraid lest she might drink of the poison and die; so he ordered his son to be put to death.

. XII.—As the fifth wise man heard that the king had ordered his son to be put to death, he entered and bowed in the presence of the king and exclaimed: "Long live my sovereign lord! It is a confirmed truth as far as thou art concerned, that thou art a wise and intelligent person. Now, wherefore, dost thou act rashly before arriving at the truth? But, listen, my lord and master! There was once a man in the service of the king who possessed a dog which he had reared from a little puppy, and whatever he used to tell him he obeyed, just like a human being. Now he was exceedingly fond of that dog. It happened one day that the man's wife left home to go to her parents, and left her son in charge of his father, saying to him: 'Look after your son till I return.' While the man was sitting (by the child), the king's messenger arrived and knocked at the door, and the man went out to see who it was. The messenger announced that the