Ee-Sze (Meaning): The weak can not live with the strong. The poor can not stay with the rich. Only equals are happy together. [[31]]
THE SNAIL AND THE BEES
THE MOD[1] AND THE FON
蜂蝸之爭
One day the king of the bees with his followers passed by the snail’s door with a great noise. The [[32]]mother snail said, “I have sixteen babies asleep on a leaf, and they must sleep fifteen days before they can walk. You will surely wake them. You are the noisiest creatures that pass my door. How can my children sleep? Yesterday your family and a crowd of your silly followers were here and made a great noise, and now to-day you come again. If I lose one baby because of all this, I will go to your house and destroy it. Then you will have no place to live. Do you know that this tree belongs to me? My master planted it twenty years ago, that I and my children might feed on its fruit. Every year your people come here when my tree has flowers upon it and take the honey away from them; and you not only rob me, but while you are doing it, you make loud and foolish noises. If you do not go away, I will call my master and my people.”
The king bee answered, “You have no master in the world. You came from the dirt. Your ancestors all died in the wilderness and nobody even cared, because you are of no use to the world. Our name is Fon (Bee). People like us and they grow fat from our honey, which is better than medicine. My people [[33]]live in all parts of the world. All mankind likes us and feeds us flowers. Do you think you are better than man?
“One day a bad boy tried to spoil our house, but his mother said, ‘You spoil many things, but you shall not trouble the bees. They work hard every day and make honey for us. If you kill one bee-mother, her children will all leave us and in winter we shall have no honey for our bread.’ And the boy obeyed. He might catch birds and goldfish, destroy flowers, do anything he wished, but he could not trouble us, because we are so useful. But you, slow creeper, are not good for anything.”