A gulp of vanity has set thee raving, stark.
How is it thou’rt so tipsy early in the day,
To come and prate of things so far out of the way?”
The hoopoe then replied: “Great King, against poor me,
For love of God, believe not all my foes’ false plea.345
If untruth I have spoken,—cannot prove my tale,—
I cast myself before thee; kill me without fail.
The crow denies the rule of Providence on earth;
With all his cunning, he’s a miscreant from birth.”
Of miscreants’ defects, if any one in us