The Panchatantra (Purnabhadra's Recension of 1199 CE)/Book 1/The Plover Who Fought the Ocean
THE PLOVER WHO FOUGHT THE OCEAN
A plover and his wife once lived by the shore of the sea, the mighty sea that swarms with fish, crocodiles, turtles, sharks, porpoises, pearl oysters, shellfish, and other teeming life. The plover was called Sprawl, and his wife's name was Constance.
In due time she became pregnant and was ready to lay her eggs. So she said to her husband: "Please find a spot where I may lay my eggs." "Why," said he, "this home of ours, inherited from our ancestors, promises progress. Lay your eggs here." "Oh," said she, "don't mention this dreadful place. Here is the ocean near at hand. His tide might some day make a long reach and lick away my babies."
But the plover answered: "Sweetheart, he knows me, he knows Sprawl. Surely the great ocean cannot show such enmity to me. Did you never hear this?
What man is rash enough to take
The gleaming crest-jewel from a snake?
Or stirs the wrath of one so dread
His glance may strike his victim dead?
However summer heat distresses
In wild and treeless wildernesses,
Who, after all, would seek the shade
By some rogue elephant's body made?
And again:
When morning's chilly breezes blow
With whirling particles of snow,
What man with sense of value sure,
Employs for cold the water cure?
To visit Death what man desires,
So wakes the lion's sleeping fires,
Who, tired from slaying elephants,
Lies in a temporary trance?
Who dares to visit and defy
The death-god? Dares the fearless cry—
I challenge you to single strife;
If power be yours, pray take my life?
What son of man, with simple wit,
Defies the fire, and enters it—
The smokeless flame that terrifies,
Whose tongues by hundreds lick the skies?"
But even as he spoke, his wife laughed outright, since she knew the full measure of his capacity, and she said: "Very fine, indeed. There is plenty more where that came from. O king of birds,
Your heavy boastings startle, shock,
And make of you a laughingstock:
One marvels if the rabbit plants
A dung-pile like the elephant's.
How can you fail to appreciate your own strength and weakness? There is a saying:
To know one's self is hard, to know
Wise effort, effort vain;
But accurate self-critics are
Secure in times of strain.
This much of effort brings success;
I have the power; I can:
So think, then act, and reap the fruit
Of your judicious plan.
And there is sound sense in this:
To take advice from kindly friends
Be ever satisfied:
The stupid turtle lost his grip
Upon the stick, and died."
"How was that?" asked Sprawl. And Constance told the story of