I like not, goose, the words you use:
I once believed the food we choose
To nourish us, ought to agree
With what our outward form might be.

But now I doubt it, for I eat
Rice, salt, and oil, and fruit, and meat:
As heroes feast returned from fight,
So I too in good cheer delight.
But though I live on dainty fare,
My looks with yours may not compare.

[523] Then the ruddy goose told the reason why the crow failed to attain to personal beauty, while he himself attained to it, and spoke the remaining stanzas:

Not satisfied with fruit, or garbage found
Within the precincts of the charnel ground,
The greedy crow pursues in wanton flight
The casual prey that tempts his appetite.

But all that thus shall work their wicked will,
And for their pleasure harmless creatures kill,
Upbraided by their conscience pine away,
And see their strength and comeliness decay.

So happy beings that no creatures harm
In form gain vigour and in looks a charm,
For beauty surely be it understood
Depends not wholly on the kind of food.

[524] Thus did the ruddy goose in many ways reproach the crow. And the crow having brought this reproach upon himself said, "I want not your beauty." And with a cry of "Caw, Caw," he flew away.

The Master, his lesson ended, revealed the Truths and identified the Birth:--At the conclusion of the Truths the greedy Brother attained to fruition of the Second Path:--"In those days the crow was the greedy Brother, the she-goose was the mother of Rahula, the he-goose myself."

Footnotes

^309:1 See R. Morris, Folk-Lore Journal, iii. 69.

^310:1 The ruddy goose, in the poetry of the Hindus, is their turtle-dove. See Wilson's Meghaduta, p. 77.

^310:2 By the word "sea" the Ganges is here intended.