LITMIR.BIZ

      WAR

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      When the next day of instruction was come, the King's sons spake to the Sage, Vishnu-Sarman.

      "Master," said they, "we are Princes, and the sons of Princes, and we earnestly desire to hear thee discourse upon War."

      "I am to speak on what shall please you," replied Vishnu-Sarman. "Hear now, therefore, of 'War,' whose opening is thus:—

      'Between the peoples of Peacock and Swan[16] War raged; and evenly the contest ran, Until the Swans to trust the Crows began.'

      'And how was all that?' asked the sons of the Rajah. Vishnu-Sarman proceeded to relate—

The Battle of the Swans and Peacocks

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      "In the Isle of Camphor there is a lake called 'Lotus-water,' and therein a Swan-Royal, named 'Silver-sides,' had his residence. The birds of the marsh and the mere had elected him King, in full council of all the fowls—for a people with no ruler is like a ship that is without a helmsman. One day King Silver-sides, with his courtiers, was quietly reposing on a couch of well-spread lotus-blossoms, when a Crane, named 'Long-bill,' who had just arrived from foreign parts, entered the presence with an obeisance, and sat down.

      'What news from abroad, Long-bill?' asked his Majesty.

      'Great news, may it please you,' answered the Crane, 'and therefore have I hastened hither. Will your Majesty hear me?'

      'Speak!' said King Silver-sides.

      'You must know, my Liege,' began the Crane, 'that over all the birds of the Vindhya mountains in Jambudwipa a Peacock is King, and his name is 'Jewel-plume,' I was looking for food about a certain burnt jungle there, when some of his retainers discovered me, and asked my name and country. 'I am a vassal of King Silver-sides, Lord of the Island of Camphor,' I replied, 'and I am travelling in foreign lands for my pleasure.' Upon that the birds asked me which country, my own or theirs, and which King, appeared to me superior. 'How can you ask?' I replied; 'the island of Camphor is, as it were, Heaven itself, and its King a heaven-born ruler. To dwellers in a barren land like yours how can I describe them? Come for yourselves, and see the country where I live.' Thereupon, your Majesty, the birds were exceedingly offended, as one might expect—

      'Simple milk, when serpents drink it, straightway into venom turns;

       And a fool who heareth counsel all the wisdom of it spurns.'

      For, indeed, no reflecting person wastes time in admonishing blockheads—

      'The birds that took the apes to teaching,

       Lost eggs and nests in pay for preaching.'

      'How did that befall?' asked the King.

      The Crane related:—

The Story of the Weaver-Birds and the Monkeys

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      "In a nullah that leads down to the Nerbudda river there stood a large silk-cotton tree, where a colony of weaver-birds had built their hanging nests, and lived snugly in them, whatever the weather. It was in the rainy season, when the heavens are overlaid with clouds like indigo-sheets, and a tremendous storm of water was falling. The birds looked out from their nests, and saw some monkeys, shivering and starved with the cold, standing under a tree. 'Twit! twit! you Monkeys,' they began to chirrup. 'Listen to us!—

      'With beaks we built these nests, of fibres scattered;

       You that have hands and feet, build, or be spattered.'

      On hearing that the Monkeys were by no means pleased. 'Ho! ho!' said they, 'the Birds in their snug nests are jeering at us; wait till the rain is over,' Accordingly, so soon as the weather mended, the Monkeys climbed into the tree, and broke all the birds' eggs and demolished every nest. I ought to have known better,' concluded the Crane, 'than to have wasted my suggestions on King Jewel-plume's creatures.'

      'But what did they say?' asked Silver-sides.

      'They said, Rajah,' answered the Crane, 'who made that Swan of thine a King?'

      'And what was your reply?' asked Silver-sides.

      'I demanded,' replied the Crane, 'who made a King of that Peacock of theirs. Thereupon they were ready to kill me for rage; but I displayed my very best valor. Is it not written—

      'A modest manner fits a maid,

       And Patience is a man's adorning;

       But brides may kiss, nor do amiss,

       And men may draw, at scathe and scorning.'

      'Yet a man should measure his own strength first,' said the Rajah, smiling; 'how did you fare against King Jewel-plume's fellows?'

      'Very scurvily,' replied Long-bill. "Thou rascal Crane," they cried, "dost thou feed on his soil, and revile our Sovereign? That is past bearing!" And thereat they all pecked at me. Then they began again: "Thou thick-skulled Crane! that King of thine is a goose—a web-footed lord of littleness—and thou art but a frog in a well to bid us serve him—- him forsooth!—

      'Serving narrow-minded masters dwarfs high natures to their size:—

       Seen before a convex mirror, elephants do show as mice.'

      Bad kings are only strong enough to spoil good vassals—as a fiction once was mightier than a herd of elephants. You know it,

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