Chapter 32 - The Ass as a singer

[Source: Kah-gyur, iv. f. 293. Cf. Pancatantra, v. 7, and Benfey’s remarks on the passage, i. 494.—S.]

When in long-past times the Bodisat, in consequence of his aggregation of merits remaining incomplete, had been born in a herd of horned cattle as a bull, be used to go out of the city in the evenings to a bean-field belonging to the king, and there take his food. But by day be lived in the city. There an ass joined him. It said one day, “O uncle, your flesḥ and your blood and your bide thrive, and yet I have never seen you change your abode.”

The bull answered, “O nephew, I feed at eventide in the king’s bean-field.”

The ass said, “Uncle, I will go with you too.”

The bull objected, “O nephew, as you are wont to let your voice resound, we might run a risk.”

The ass replied, “O uncle, let us go, I will not raise my voice.”.

After they two had broken through the enclosure of the bean-field and reached the interior, the ass uttered no sound until it had eaten its fill. Then it said, “Uncle, shall not I sing a little?”

The bull replied, “Wait an instant, until I have gone away. Then do just as you please.”

The bull ran off, and the ass lifted up its voice. Ās soon as the king’s people heard that, they seized the ass, and in order to punisḥ it, as in their opinion it had devoured the whole produce of the king’s bean-field, they cut off its ears, fastened a pestle to its neck, and then set it free. As it wandered to and fro, the bull saw it, and pronounced this verse—

“Excellently hast thou sung forsooth, and therefore obtained thy recompense. In consequence of thy song I also well-nigh lost my ears.

“He who knows not how to keep his word, to him may easily happen some such thing as this; to wander to and fro, adorned with a club and destitute of ears.”

The ass also gave utterance to a verse, “Keep silence thou with broken teeth, be silent then, O old bull; for three men are searching for thee with clubs in their hands.”