35. The sweet music of the swan as it sings of its own accord, is inimitable by the crow or crane, although they are taught to learn it for many years in its society.
36. Although the swan and drake are both of the same kind, and of like form and figure, and live upon the same sort of food; yet they differ widely from one another in their respective species and qualities.
37. The swan soaring in the sky, with his snow white wings and feathers; appears as the hoary lotus sitting upon its stalk; and then it gladdens the minds of men, as the full-moon with her icy beams.
38. The elevated stalks of lotuses, rising as the lofty stems of plantain trees, with the lotuses sitting as the goddess Flora upon them, afford delight to swans only, and to no other bird.
39. Lo, how the lake is adorned like a beauteous lady, with the waves resembling her waving bracelets, and the ripples likening her necklaces; while the aquatic plants and flowers, represent wreaths and garlands on her bosom.
40. The strings of fluttering bees, are as streaks of black spots on her person; the swelling of cranes and storks are as the tinklings of her anklets, and the rippling waves are as the glances of her eyes.
41. The lake is graced like a lady, by the young swans crying by her side as her young ones; and looking up to the mountain as her lord, for a fresh supply of fresh water from his profluent cascade.
42. Don’t you, O harmless swan, says one, reside with the malicious water fowls and birds of prey, in one and the same lake; it is better that thou dost remain with thy own kind, that may assist thee in distress.
43. Look to thy end, O silly bee, says one, that art now so giddy with thy drink of the sweet honey of flower, and treadst on the heads of elephants, to sip and suck their exuding ichor, and ramblest at large among the blooming lotuses, that the winter of scarcity is fast approaching to thee, when thou shalt be constrained to live upon the dewdrops drizzling on blades of grass or dripping from stones.
44. O lord! the milk white swan with wide stretched wings entered into the lotus bush, to see after his young ones, they on seeing him, begin to cackle, as a child does on seeing his father before him. The young ones said, O father, it is all delusion, like white pearl in silver and one sees fog over his head at mid-day.