animals without ceasing. If he saw an animal, he could not spare him.
So all the natives of the forest—deer, boars, buffaloes, wild oxen, rabbits, and others—came together, and with woe-begone countenances, bowed heads, and knees clinging to the ground, they undertook to beseech obsequiously the king of beasts: "Have done, O King, with this merciless, meaningless slaughter of all creatures. It is hostile to happiness in the other world. For the Scripture says:
A thousand future lives
Will pass in wretchedness
For sins a fool commits
His present life to bless.
Again:
What wisdom in a deed
That brings dishonor fell,
That causes loss of trust,
That paves the way to hell?
And yet again:
The ungrateful body, frail
And rank with filth within,
Is such that only fools
For its sake sink in sin.
"Consider these facts, and cease, we pray, to slaughter our generations. For if the master will remain at home, we will of our own motion send him each day for his daily food one animal of the forest. In this way neither the royal sustenance nor our
