  At a city there is a King who knows the Ant language. At the time when the King and his Queen, both of them, are continuing to eat sugar-cane, a male Red Ant (kum?biya) and the Ant’s wife having said, “Let us go to eat sugar-cane,” went to the place where the two persons are eating it. Thereupon, the male Ant says, “Ane! Bolan, the things that women eat I cannot eat. Do you eat them. I will eat the things that the King is eating,” the male Ant said to the Ant-wife. She having said, “It is good,” out of the refuse which the King and Queen having eaten and eaten throw down, the male Ant eats the refuse which the King throws down, and the female Ant eats the refuse which the Queen throws down. Then the male Ant’s belly being filled, he spoke to the Ant-wife, and said, “Now then, let us go.” Then she says, “It is insufficient for me yet.” Thereupon the male Ant says, “In any case women would be gluttonous; their bellies are large,” he said. The King, understanding it, laughed. These two filling their bellies went away. Thereupon the Queen asks the King, “What did you laugh at? Please tell me,” she asks. The King does not tell her. Well then, every day she asks. The King, being unable to get rid of it, went away into the midst of a forest. Having gone [there], while he was walking and walking in the forest, Sakra, having seen that this King is walking about hungry, creates five hundred Grey Monkeys (Semnopithecus) in the forest, plucking and A female Monkey having said, “I don’t want those things,” quarrelled with the male Monkey. “If so, what shall I give thee?” the male Monkey asked. Having seen that there is a large Mora fruit at the end of the branch, she says, “Pluck that and give me it (dinan).” “One cannot go there to pluck that; eat thou these,” the male Monkey said. The female Monkey said, “I will not.” Thereupon the male Monkey says, “If five hundred are able to eat these, why canst thou not eat them?” Having said it, the male Monkey, taking a stick, beats her well. Then the female Monkey, weeping and weeping, was saying, “I will eat these.” The King having been looking on at this quarrel, thinks, “These irrational animals are not afraid of their wives.” Thinking, “Why am I in this fear?” he came to the King’s palace [after] breaking a stick. At the very time when he was coming, the Queen said, “Tell me what it was you laughed at that day.” Thereupon, at the time when the King, holding the Queen’s hair-knot, was beating her, saying and saying, “Will you ask me again?” the Queen began to cry, saying and saying, “Ane! Lord, I will not ask again.” Thereupon the King remained [there] quietly. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 386 (vol. iii, p. 175), a Naga King gave a King of Benares a spell which enabled him to understand all sounds. One day he heard ants conversing regarding the food that had fallen on the ground; on another occasion he heard flies talking; on a third he overheard more ant talk. As he laughed each time, the Queen pestered him about it and wanted to know the spell, to give which the Naga had warned him would ensure his instant death. When he was about to yield, Sakra saved him by advising him to beat his wife as the usual preliminary before repeating the spell to her; this effectually checked her curiosity. |
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