5. 'Say then, what ails thee, if at least it may be told to me. Likewise tell me what may be done for thee in this case. And if perhaps I possess some power for the benefit of my friends, thou must enjoy the profit I may bring about by it and recover thy health[250].'
The lion spoke: 'Thou, virtuous and best of birds, this illness is not the effect of exhaustion nor is it caused by disease nor occasioned by a hunter's arrow. But it is the fragment of a bone that sticks here in my throat and, like the point of an arrow, causes grievous pain to me. I can neither swallow it down nor throw it up. Therefore, it is now the time of assistance by friends. Now, if you know the way to make me sound, well, do it.' Then the Bodhisattva, owing to the keenness of his intellect, thought out some means of extracting the object which was the cause of his pain. Taking a piece of wood large enough to bar his mouth, he spoke to the lion: 'Open thy mouth as wide as ever thou canst.' After he had done so, the Bodhisattva having placed the log tightly between the two rows of his teeth, entered the bottom of his throat. With the top of his beak he seized that fragment of bone sticking athwart in it by one edge, and having loosened it, took it by another edge, and at last drew it out. And while retiring, he dropped the log which barred the lion's mouth.
6. No wound-healer, however skilled in his art and clever, would have succeeded even with great effort in extracting that extraneous substance, yet he pulled it out, thanks to his keen intellect, though not exercised by professional training[251], but proper to him through hundreds of existences.
7. After taking away together with the bone the pain and anguish caused by it, he felt no less gladness at having relieved his suffering fellow-creature, than the lion at being released from the pain-causing object.
This, indeed, is the essential property of a virtuous person.
8. A virtuous person having effected the happiness of another or stopped his mischief even with difficulty, will enjoy a greater amount of excessive gladness, than he would on account even of prosperity happening to himself and easily obtained.
So the Great Being having relieved his pain, was rejoiced in his heart. He took leave of the lion, and having received his thanks went his way.
Now some time after, it happened that the woodpecker flying about with his outspread wings of exquisite beauty, could nowhere get any suitable food, so that he was caught by hunger which burnt his limbs. Then he saw that same lion feasting on the flesh of a young antelope fresh killed. His mouth and claws and the lower end of his mane being tinged with the blood of that animal, he resembled a fragment of a cloud in autumn, immersed in the glow of twilight.
9. Yet, though he was his benefactor, he did not venture to address him with words of request, disagreeable to the ear; for however skilled in speech, shame imposed upon him a temporary obligation of silence.