The first verse in No. 2 is spoken by the crow when the pigeon leaves him in the morning:—
"All right am I now, my sickness is gone,
The pigeon's off too, no hindrance I fear.
My wish I'll here have, no longer I'll wait,
The smell of this fish compels me to eat."
When the pigeon returns he utters the first verse of No. 1:—
"O tell me, I pray, what crested crane's this," &c.
Then the crow replies:—
"No more of your fun, you see my sad plight,
I'm stript of my plumes and smothered with filth."
The pigeon continues to chaff the crow:—
"Anointed and bathed, you seem quite refreshed,
Good food you've enjoyed, no lack have you had.
Your neck with a jewel is handsomely dight,[1]
Perhaps to Benares a visit you've paid?"
The crow replies:—
"Thy friend or thy foe (which ever I be),
Did not to Kajangala's city go off,
But here have they plucked his feathers all bare,
And tied to his neck the potsherd you see."
The pigeon finishes up with the verse already mentioned:—
"Again, my friend, to bitter grief you've come," &c.
The Babbu Jâtaka.[2]
The greedy and angry Cats.
In days long since past, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn in the family of a stonemason, and he grew up to be a faultless artisan. In a certain village in the Kâsi district there lived a very wealthy merchant who had fourteen kotis[3] of gold coins in his treasury.
