“‘The most bitter of thine enemies is the nearest whom thou trustest in: beware then of men, and associate with them wilily.
Thy favourable opinion of fortune is a weakness: think evil of it, therefore, and regard it with apprehension!’”
“Verily,” rejoined the fox, “an evil opinion is not commendable in every case; but a fair opinion is among the characteristics of excellence, and its result is escape from terrors. It is befitting, O wolf, that thou employ some stratagem for thine escape from the present predicament; and it will be better for us both to escape than to die. Relinquish, therefore, thine evil opinion and thy malevolence; for if thou think favourably of me, I shall not fail to do one of two things; either I shall bring thee something of which to lay hold, and thou wilt escape from thy present situation, or I shall act perfidiously towards thee, and save myself and leave thee; but this is a thing that cannot be, for I am not secured from meeting with some such affliction as that which thou hast met with, and that would be the punishment of perfidy. It hath been said in a proverb, ‘Fidelity is good, and perfidy is base.’ It is fit, then, that thou trust in me, for I have not been ignorant of misfortunes. Delay not, therefore, to contrive our escape, for the affair is too strait for thee to prolong thy discourse upon it.”
The wolf then said, “Verily, notwithstanding my little confidence in thy fidelity, I knew what was in thy heart, that thou desiredst my deliverance when thou wast convinced of my repentance; and I said within myself, ‘If he be veracious in that which he asserteth, he hath made amends for his wickedness; and if he be false, he will be recompensed by his Lord.’ So now I accept thy proposal to me, and if thou act perfidiously towards me, thy perfidy will be the means of thy destruction.” Then the wolf raised himself upright in the pit, and took the fox upon his shoulders, so that his head reached the surface of the ground. The fox thereupon sprang from the wolf’s shoulders, and found himself upon the face of the earth, when he fell down senseless. The wolf now said to him, “O my friend! forget not my case, nor delay my deliverance.”
The fox, however, uttered a loud laugh, and replied, “O thou deceived! it was nothing but my jesting with thee and deriding thee that entrapped me into thy power; for when I heard thy profession of repentance, joy excited me, and I was moved with delight, and danced, and my tail hung down into the pit; so thou didst pull me, and I fell by thee. Then God (whose name be exalted!) delivered me from thy hand. Wherefore, then, should I not aid in thy destruction when thou art of the associates of the devil? Know that I dreamt yesterday that I was dancing at thy wedding, and I related the dream to an interpreter, who said to me, ‘Thou wilt fall into a frightful danger, and escape from it.’ So I knew that my falling into thy power and my escape was the interpretation of my dream. Thou, too, knowest, O deceived idiot! that I am thine enemy. How, then, dost thou hope, with thy little sense and thine ignorance, that I will deliver thee, when thou hast heard what rude language I used? And how shall I endeavour to deliver thee, when the learned have said that by the death of the sinner are produced ease to mankind and purgation of the earth? Did I not fear that I should suffer, by fidelity to thee, such affliction as would be greater than that which may result from perfidy, I would consider upon means for thy deliverance.” So when the wolf heard the words of the fox, he bit his paw in repentance. He then spoke softly to him, but obtained nothing thereby. With a low voice he said to him, “Verily, you tribe of foxes are the sweetest of people in tongue, and the most pleasant in jesting, and this is jesting in thee; but every time is not convenient for sport and joking.” “O idiot!” replied the fox, “jesting hath a limit which its employer transgresseth not. Think not that God will give thee possession of me after He hath delivered me from thy power.” The wolf then said to him, “Thou art one in whom it is proper to desire my liberation, on account of the former brotherhood and friendship that subsisted between us; and if thou deliver me, I will certainly recompense thee well.” But the fox replied, “The sages have said, ‘Take not as thy brother the ignorant and wicked, for he will disgrace thee, and not honour thee; and take not as thy brother the liar, for if good proceed from thee he will hide it, and if evil proceed from thee he will publish it!’ And the sages have said, ‘For everything there is a stratagem, excepting death; and everything may be rectified excepting the corruption of the very essence; and everything may be repelled excepting destiny.’ And as to the recompense which thou assertest that I deserve of thee, I compare thee, in thy recompensing, to the serpent fleeing from the Háwee, when a man saw her in a state of terror, and said to her, ‘What is the matter with thee, O serpent?’ She answered, ‘I have fled from the Háwee, for he seeketh me; and if thou deliver me from him, and conceal me with thee, I will recompense thee well, and do thee every kindness.’ So the man took her, to obtain the reward, and eager for the recompense, and put her into his pocket; and when the Háwee had passed and gone his way, and what she feared had quitted her, the man said to her, ‘Where is the recompense, for I have saved thee from that which thou fearedst and didst dread?’ The serpent answered him, ‘Tell me in what member I shall bite thee; for thou knowest that we exceed not this recompense.’ She then inflicted upon him a bite, from which he died. And thee, O idiot!” continued the fox, “I compare to that serpent with that man. Hast thou not heard the saying of the poet?—
“‘Trust not a person in whose heart thou hast made anger to dwell, nor think his anger hath ceased.
Verily, the vipers, though smooth to the touch, show graceful motions, and hide mortal poison.’”
“O eloquent and comely-faced animal!” rejoined the wolf, “be not ignorant of my condition, and of the fear with which mankind regard me. Thou knowest that I assault the strong places, and strip the vines. Do, therefore, what I have commanded thee, and attend to me as the slave attendeth to his master.” “O ignorant idiot! who seekest what is vain,” exclaimed the fox, “verily I wonder at thy stupidity, and at the roughness of thy manner, in thine ordering me to serve thee and to stand before thee as though I were a slave. But thou shalt soon see what will befall thee, by the splitting of thy head with stones, and the breaking of thy treacherous dog-teeth.”
The fox then stationed himself upon a mound overlooking the vineyard, and cried out incessantly to the people of the vineyard until they perceived him and came quickly to him. He remained steady before them until they drew near unto him, and unto the pit in which was the wolf, and then he fled. So the owners of the vineyard looked into the pit, and when they beheld the wolf in it, they instantly pelted him with heavy stones, and continued throwing stones and pieces of wood upon him, and piercing him with the points of spears, until they killed him, when they departed. Then the fox returned to the pit, and standing over the place of the wolf’s slaughter, saw him dead; whereupon he shook his head in the excess of his joy, and recited these verses—
“Fate removed the wolf’s soul, and it was snatched away.
Far distant from happiness be his soul that hath perished.
How long hast thou striven, Abos Tirhán, to destroy me!
But now have burning calamities befallen thee.
Thou hast fallen into a pit into which none shall descend without finding in it the blasts of death.”
After this the fox remained in the vineyard alone, and in security, fearing no mischief.