“What has happened then?”
“The bull has said, ‘Whither has my lion-grass gone? As his mother killed my mother, I will slit up his belly.’ ”
The lion said, “O uncle, our mother, before she died, thus spoke to us twain, ‘As ye two have sucked the same dugs, be brothers. The world is full of evil calumniators. Take heed that ye do not listen to any of them.’ As she has left such a legacy behind, do not speak in such a manner.”
The jackal replied, “O nephew, if you do not now listen to my well-meant words, you will go to perdition.”
The lion said, “O uncle, what will take place?”
The jackal replied, “O nephew, the bull will come forth from the meadow, and will stretch himself, and when he has stretched himself he will bellow, and when he has bellowed he will tear up the ground, and when he has torn up the ground he will come snorting into your presence and will think, ‘This one will kill me;’ know all this.”
Although those two animals were constantly in the habit of acting in this way according to their natures, they had never taken any notice of the fact. So when one day after this the lion, the king of beasts, came forth from his lair, after stretching and yawning and looking around on all four sides, and roaring three times, he appeared in presence of the bull. Likewise the bull had come out from the pen, and had stretched himself, and bellowed, and torn up the ground and snorted, and then it appeared in presence of the lion. Although they had both been [[328]]accustomed to act in this way according to their natures, they had never taken any notice of the fact. But they noticed it now that the seed of discord was sown. The bull thought, “He will kill me,” and the lion thought just the same. The lion seized the bull’s breast with his claws, the bull slit up the lion’s belly with his horns. And so they both perished.
A deity uttered the following verse: “Men who pay regard to what is good, ought not to hold converse with bad men. See how the jackal set at variance the lion and the bull who had been friends.”