بخش 110 - دوم بار آمدن روبه بر این خر گریخته تا باز بفریبدش

Then the fox came quickly towards the ass: the ass said, “One must beware of a friend like you.

Ignoble creature, what did I do to you that you brought me into the presence of a dragon?

What but the malignity of your nature was the cause of your enmity to my life, O perverse one?”—

Like the scorpion, which bites a man's foot though no inconvenience has come to it from him,

Or like the Devil who is the enemy of our souls, though no inconvenience or injury has befallen him from us;

Nay, but he is naturally the adversary of the human soul and rejoices at the destruction of Man;

He never breaks off his pursuit of any human being: how should he abandon his wicked disposition and nature?

For, without any cause, his essential malignity pulls him on to (commit) injustice and tyranny.

He continually invites thee to a spacious tent in order that he may cast thee into a pit,

Saying, “In such and such a place there is a tank of water and (many) fountains,” that he may cast thee headlong into the tank.

That accursed one caused an Adam, notwithstanding all his inspiration and insight, to fall into woe and bane,

Without any sin (having been committed against him) and without any previous harm having been wrongfully done to him by Adam.

The fox replied, “It was a spell of magic that appeared in your eyes as a lion;

Else I am more puny in body than you, and I always feed there by night and day.

If he (the magician) had not wrought a spell of that kind, every famishing (animal) would have run thither.

(In) a foodless world full of elephants and rhinoceroses how should the meadow have remained verdant without (the protection of) a spell?

Truly, I meant to tell you, by way of instruction, not to be afraid if you should see a terrible thing like that;

But I forgot to impart (this) knowledge to you, because I was overwhelmed with grief and pity on your account.

I saw you were ravenously hungry and without food, (therefore) I was making haste so that you might attain to the remedy;

Otherwise I would have explained the spell to you: it (the lion) presents itself as an apparition, it is not a (real) body.”