Wisdom from the Panchatantra
1
In houses where no snakes are found,
One sleeps; or where the snakes are bound:
But perfect rest is hard to win
With serpents bobbing out and in.
2
Caress a rascal as you will,
He was and is a rascal still:
All salve- and sweating-treatments fail
To take the kink from doggy's tail.
3
Scholarship is less than sense;
Therefore seek intelligence.
4
For lost and dead and past
The wise have no laments:
Between the wise and fools
Is just this difference.
5
On hours of talk or squabbling rude,
Of physic, barber, flirting, food,
A gentleman does not intrude.
6
Some things a man should tell his wife,
Some things to friend and some to son;
All these are trusted. He should not
Tell everything to everyone.
7
Who ever saw or heard
A gambler's truthful word,
A neat and cleanly crow,
A woman going slow
In love, a kindly snake,
A eunuch's pluck awake,
A drunkard's love of science,
A king in friend's alliance?
8
Some eat the countries; these are kings;
The doctors, those whom sickness stings;
The merchants, those who buy their things;
And learned men, the fools.
The married are the clergy's meat;
The thieves devour the indiscreet;
The flirts their eager lovers eat;
And Labor eats us all.
9
'Tis only saints in youth
That can be saints in truth:
Ah, who is not a saint
When ebbing passions faint?
10
Learn science with the gods above
Or imps in nether space,
Yet women's wit will rival it:
How keep them in their place?
Behold the faults with woman born:
Impurity, and heartless scorn,
Untruth, and folly, reckless heat,
Excessive greediness, deceit.
Be not enslaved by women's charm,
Nor wish them growth in power to harm:
Their slaves, of manly feeling stripped,
Are tame, pet crows whose wings are clipped.
Honey in a woman's words,
Poison in her breast:
So, although you taste her lip,
Drub her on the chest.
11
A hundred benefits are lost,
If lavished on the mean;
A hundred epigrams, with their
True relevance unseen;
A hundred counsels, when a life
Obeys no rigid rule;
A hundred cogent arguments
Are lost upon a fool.
12
Even a pearl, so smoothly hard and round,
Is fastened by a thread and safely bound,
After a way to pierce its heart is found.
In houses where no snakes are found,
One sleeps; or where the snakes are bound:
But perfect rest is hard to win
With serpents bobbing out and in.
2
Caress a rascal as you will,
He was and is a rascal still:
All salve- and sweating-treatments fail
To take the kink from doggy's tail.
3
Scholarship is less than sense;
Therefore seek intelligence.
4
For lost and dead and past
The wise have no laments:
Between the wise and fools
Is just this difference.
5
On hours of talk or squabbling rude,
Of physic, barber, flirting, food,
A gentleman does not intrude.
6
Some things a man should tell his wife,
Some things to friend and some to son;
All these are trusted. He should not
Tell everything to everyone.
7
Who ever saw or heard
A gambler's truthful word,
A neat and cleanly crow,
A woman going slow
In love, a kindly snake,
A eunuch's pluck awake,
A drunkard's love of science,
A king in friend's alliance?
8
Some eat the countries; these are kings;
The doctors, those whom sickness stings;
The merchants, those who buy their things;
And learned men, the fools.
The married are the clergy's meat;
The thieves devour the indiscreet;
The flirts their eager lovers eat;
And Labor eats us all.
9
'Tis only saints in youth
That can be saints in truth:
Ah, who is not a saint
When ebbing passions faint?
10
Learn science with the gods above
Or imps in nether space,
Yet women's wit will rival it:
How keep them in their place?
Behold the faults with woman born:
Impurity, and heartless scorn,
Untruth, and folly, reckless heat,
Excessive greediness, deceit.
Be not enslaved by women's charm,
Nor wish them growth in power to harm:
Their slaves, of manly feeling stripped,
Are tame, pet crows whose wings are clipped.
Honey in a woman's words,
Poison in her breast:
So, although you taste her lip,
Drub her on the chest.
11
A hundred benefits are lost,
If lavished on the mean;
A hundred epigrams, with their
True relevance unseen;
A hundred counsels, when a life
Obeys no rigid rule;
A hundred cogent arguments
Are lost upon a fool.
12
Even a pearl, so smoothly hard and round,
Is fastened by a thread and safely bound,
After a way to pierce its heart is found.
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