King rendered impatient by thirst, dashed the Hawk on the ground and killed it.
Shortly after a stirrup-holder of the King came up and saw the Hawk dead, and
the Monarch athirst. He then undid a water-vessel from his saddle-cord and
washed the cup clean, and was about to give the King a drink. The latter bade
him ascend the mountain, as he had an inclination for the pure water which
trickled from the rock; and could not wait to collect it in the cup, drop by drop.
The stirrup-holder ascended the mountain and beheld a spring giving out a drop
at a time with a hundred stintings; and a huge serpent lay dead on the margin of
the fountain; and as the heat of the sun had taken effect upon it, the poisonous
saliva mixed with the water of that mountain, and it trickled drop by drop down
the rock.
The stirrup-holder was overcome with horror, and came down from the
mountain bewildered, and represented the state of the case, and gave the King a
cup of cold water from his ewer. The latter raised the cup to his lips, and his eyes
overflowed with tears. The attendant asked the reason of his weeping. The King
drew a sigh from his anguished heart and relating in full the story of the Hawk
and the spilling of the water in the cup, said: "I grieve for the death of the Hawk,
and bemoan my own deed in that without inquiry I have deprived a creature, so
dear to me, of life." The attendant replied: "This Hawk protected thee from a
great peril, and has established a claim to the gratitude of all the people of this
country. It would have been better if the King had not been precipitate in slaying
it, and had quenched the fire of wrath with the water of mildness."
The King replied; "I repent of this unseemly action; but my repentance is now
unavailing, and the wound of this sorrow cannot be healed by any salve"; and
this story is related in order that it may be known that many such incidents have
occurred where, through the disastrous results of precipitation, men have fallen
into the whirlpool of repentance.
The Mouse and the Frog
It is related that a Mouse had taken up its abode on the brink of a fountain and
had fixed its residence at the foot of a tree.
A Frog, too, passed his time in the water there, and sometimes came to the
margin of the pool to take the air. One day, coming to the edge of the water, he