Kalílah said, ‘They have related that a Merchant of small means was going on a journey; with prudent forethought he placed a hundred mans of iron in deposit in the house of a friend, in order that if an emergency should arise he might make that his capital, and thus support the thread of his existence. When the Merchant had brought his journey to an end, and had again reached his destination, he found himself in want of the iron, but the friend who had taken it in trust had sold the iron and expended what he got for it. One day the Merchant went to him to demand the iron. The trustee brought him into the house, and said, ‘O sir! I had laid by that iron in deposit in a corner, and felt quite secure, not having observed a mouse’s hole there, and, before I found it out, the mouse had taken advantage of the opportunity and had eaten up the whole of the iron.’ The Merchant replied, ‘Thou speakest the truth, for mice have a great fondness for iron, and their teeth have great power over such a juicy and tender morsel.

The trustworthy and veracious man was delighted at hearing these words, and said to himself, ‘This silly Merchant has been deceived by my speech, and has given up all thoughts of the iron. I can do nothing better than give him an entertainment, and in his reception observe all the ceremonious requirements that are usual, so as to settle the affair.’ He then invited the Merchant to a feast, and said,

The Merchant replied, ‘To-day a matter of importance has occurred, but I promise that I will return early nextmorning. He then left the [fraudulent trustee’s] house and carried away a son of his, and having concealed him in his own dwelling, presented himself in the morning at his entertainer’s door. The host, in great distress, loosed the tongue of apology, saying, ‘O worthy guest! hold me excused, for ever since yesterday a son of mine has been lost, and I have two or three times had him cried in the city and environs, and have gained no tidings of the missing one.

The Merchant answered, ‘Yesterday when I came forth from thy house I saw a lad of the description you give carried off by a hawk, which, flying, bore him though the air.’ The trustee screamed out, ‘O devoid of under­standing! why dost thou utter that which is impossible? and why expose thyself to the charge of lying so enormously? A hawk, whose whole body does not weigh half a man,* how could it lift and bear through the air a lad weighing ten mans?’ The Merchant laughed and said, ‘Be not surprised at this!—in the city where a mouse can devour a hundred mans of iron, a mousing hawk too can fly off in the air with a lad of ten mans’ weight. The fiduciary perceived how matters stood and said, ‘Be not troubled, for the mouse has not eaten the iron.’ ‘Be not distressed,’ rejoined the other, ‘for the hawk has not carried away thy son. Return the iron and take back thy son.’

And I have adduced this story that thou mayest know that among a set, where treason to one’s benefactor is admissible, it is clear enough what they would think permissible towards others; and since thou hast allowed thyself to act thus towards the king, others can have no hope left of finding thee faithful, nor any expectation of thy fulfilling thy duties. And I see clearly that it is necessary to keep aloof from the darkness of thy evil deeds, and that it is incumbent on me to avoid the blackness of thy deceit and treachery.

When the conversation of Kalílah and Damnah had reached this point, the Lion had finished the business of the Ox, and had laid him prostrate in dirt and gore. As soon, however, as the Lion had made an end of Shanzabah with the claws of chastisement and had delivered the expanse of the forest from his presence, and when the violence of his rage had diminished and the fury of his wrath was allayed, he fell a-thinking and said to himself, ‘Alas! for Shanzabah, with all his goodness, and understanding, and judgment, and talents. I know not whether I have acted in this matter rightly or made a false step, nor whether in what they have reported to me of him they have discharged their duty faithfully or trodden the path of treachery. I at least by allowing myself to be urged on to this, have involved myself in a mis­fortune, and with my own hand have made my faithful friend drink of the potion of death.

The Lion hung down his head remorsefully, and loosing the tongue of reproach, inveighed against his own folly and rash haste; and the spectre of Shanzabah seemed, by his piteous plight, as with words,* to convey to the ears of the Lion the purport of this quatrain.

The perpetual smile of the Lion was changed from grief at this event into weeping, and his constitutional heat was doubled by the violent burning of this occurrence.

Damnah, who beheld from a distance the traces of regret manifest on the countenance of the Lion, and marked the tokens of repentance upon his front, broke off his dialogue wlth Kalílah, and going before the Lion, said,

What is the cause of thy pensiveness and what the reason of thy meditation? Where is a time happier and a day more auspicious than this when the king moves proudly to the post of triumph and victory, and the enemy is groveling in the dust of disgrace and the gore of defeat?’

The Lion said, ‘As oft as I recal the respectful service, the various con­verse, the proofs of wisdom, and* the many abilities of Shanzabah, I am over­come with pity and grief, and distress overwhelms me: and, in truth, he was the prop and support of the army, and my retainers, by his aid, rapidly increased in prowess.’

Damnah replied, ‘There is no ground for the king to pity that ungrateful traitor, but rather to offer the thanksgivings due to God for this triumph which has been attained, and to unclose the gates of gladness and rejoicing in the court of the heart for this victory which has presented itself.

We must regard this auspicious blazonry of conquest with which the register of successful fortune is adorned, and this august heralding of victory, with which the chronicle of happiness is ornamented, as a high preface and sublime opening to the pages of time.

O monarch! asylum of the world! to pardon one from whom our life is insecure is a fault, and it is the act of wise men to confine a state-enemy in the prison of the grave. The finger which is the ornament of the hand and the instru­ment of grasping and retaining, should a serpent inflict a wound upon it, is cut off; and men regard the pain of this operation as the very spring of comfort.

The Lion was somewhat soothed by these words, but time exacted just retribution for the Ox, and in the end the career of Damnah closed igno­miniously and with disgrace, and the plant of his evil deeds and the seed of his false words coming up, he was slain in vengeance for the Ox, and the results of perfidy and deceit have ever been uncommendable, and the conse­quences of fraud and malevolence to be deprecated and inauspicious.