The feathers in your tail reach about a fathom’s length,
But to such a dancer I can give no daughter, sir, of mine!”
Then the king in the midst of the whole assembly bestowed his daughter on a young goose, his nephew. And the peacock was covered with shame at not getting the fair gosling, and rose straight up from the place and flew away.
But the king of the Golden Geese went back to the place where he dwelt.
When the Teacher had finished this lesson in virtue, in illustration of what he had said (“Not only, O monks, has this brother now lost the jewel of the faith by immodesty, formerly also he lost a jewel of a wife by the same cause”), he made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka, by saying, “The peacock of that time was the luxurious monk, but the King of the Geese was I myself.”
END OF THE STORY ABOUT THE DANCING PEACOCK.[326]
No. 33.
SAMMODAMĀNA JĀTAKA.
The sad Quarrel of the Quails.
“So long as the birds but agree.”—This the Master told while at the Banyan Grove, near Kapilavatthu, concerning a quarrel about a chumbat (a circular roll of cloth placed on the head when carrying a vessel or other weight).