A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.s3.3.3

c18.s3.3.3

The male bade the hen lay her eggs at the ocean's edge, but she derided the project, defending her thesis by two tales (10 and 11) emboxed in Tale 9. The first explains how the foolish tortoise lost his life by not heeding the advice of the geese, who were carrying him on a stick held in their claws, not to open his mouth while in the air; the second explains how the fish Forethought and Ready-wit escaped the fishers but Come-what-will was caught. The husband, however, insists on her acting as he bids; the sea takes away the eggs, but the bird successfully invokes, through Garuḍa, Viṣṇu's aid, and the ocean on pain of an assault by fire gives back the eggs. The tale (12) of the bird which would not take a telling, but insisted on explaining to a foolish monkey that he could not warm himself by the light of a glowworm and so irritated the monkey that he killed him, proves the truth that some people will not learn. Tale 13 tells how Honest-wit and Evil-wit disputed over a sum of money which they had together buried but which the latter had secretly dug up. In court he declares that the tree will prove as witness of the scene that his adversary was a thief, and, when it is arranged to go to the tree, he tells his father to go into its hollow and pretend to be the tree spirit. The father remonstrates, telling Tale 14, how the foolish heron induced a mungoose to eat a snake which devoured her young only to find that mungooses are connoisseurs in young birds.