“Come, now, do as you have decided, and return when I ask you.”
“Do you think I am as senseless as you are?” asked the Sparrow, “that I should return at your pleasure? How could you possibly believe me, or imagine that such a little body could lay such a disproportionately large egg? Listen to the advice I give you: Don’t you credit extravagant statements, or go to sleep under a tottering wall.”
The Fox answered: “God will judge you for the trick you have played me.”
“Some falsehoods,” answered the Sparrow, “are praiseworthy; God highly rewards the lie that delivers one from death or danger, and which saves another’s life.”
The Fox then concealed himself near by, and began to plot and peer for the capture of the Sparrow; but the latter dropped dung into his eyes, saying: “O fool, listen to another piece of advice: Do not strive after that which you cannot attain, and in the quarrels of husband and wife, or of brothers, say not a single indiscreet word of which you may afterward repent.”
The Syrian Priest and the Young Man
A Syrian Priest, good and wise, and an Armenian were engaged in a dispute. The Young Man, at last enraged, said to the Priest:
“I will drive this stone down your throat, in order that your thirty-two teeth may choke you.”
The Priest returned hastily to his house, lost in astonishment, and said to his wife:
“In the name of God, wife, light a candle, and count how many teeth I have.”