"Now sit you still here, darling wife," said Leo, "while I go to the Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make these men and women live as we do."
"And love as we do?" said the Girl.
"I do not think they need to be taught that," said Leo, and he strode away very angry, with his lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till he came to the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, brandishing his tail over his back.
"Why do you trouble the children of men?" said Leo, with his heart between his teeth.
"Are you so sure that I trouble the children of men alone?" said the Scorpion. "Speak to your brother the Bull, and see what he says."
"I come on behalf of the children of men," said Leo. "I have learned to love as they do, and I wish them to live as I—as we—do."
"Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the Bull. He is under my special care," said the Scorpion.
Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the great star Aldebaran, that is set in the forehead of the Bull, blazing very near to the earth. When he came up to it he saw that his brother, the Bull, yoked to a countryman's plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field with his head bent down, and the sweat streaming from his flanks. The countryman was urging him forward with a goad.
"Gore that insolent to death," cried Leo, "and for the sake of our family honour come out of the mire."
"I cannot," said the Bull, "the Scorpion has told me that some day, of which I cannot be sure, he will sting me where my neck is set on my shoulders, and that I shall die bellowing."