The Merchant’s Secret

A long time ago, a wealthy merchant lived in the country. He had a rare gift. He could understand the languages of animals and birds, but if he ever revealed this wonderful secret, he would die. So he kept it to himself alone.

He had in his shed a bull and a donkey standing side by side. One day, as he was sitting nearby with his servants and his children, he heard the bull say to the donkey:

"Hello, donkey, you are taken well care of. Men wait on you and feed you, and you have chosen barley to eat and drink pure spring water, while I am put to work even in the middle of the night, when they make me draw a plough from dawn to sunset. I am forced to bear all manners of ill-treatment in the fields. Then they take me back with my sides torn, my neck beaten, my legs aching, and my eyelids sored with tears. They shut me up in the byre and throw me beans and crushed straw mixed with dirt and chaff, and I lie in dung and filth where the foul stinks through the long night.

But you are ever in a place swept and sprinkled and cleansed, and you are always lying at ease, save when it happens from time to time that the master has some business, when he mounts on you and rides you to the town and returns with you right afterwards. But here I am toiling and distressed and get contempt while you get goodwill."

When the bull stopped speaking, the donkey turned to him and said: "I understand you lack forethought and good advisers. Now listen to me. Play ill and stop doing the things you have been doing for a day or two days or even three days."

When the bull heard these words, he thanked the donkey, "Thank you and you ‘re pretty right."

The next day the driver took the bull and made him work as usual. But the bull began to shirk, and broke the yoke and made off. At night, when he was handed beans and husks, he just sniffed at them and would have nothing. Again the next morning the bull was lying on his back with legs outstretched and swollen belly. The merchant was sent for and told what the matter was. The merchant-farmer understood what all this meant because he had overheard the talk between the bull and the donkey, so he said, "Take the donkey and set the yoke on his neck, bind him to the plough and make him do the bull's work."

It was done as he said. When the donkey came home in the evening he could hardly drag his limbs along, either forehand or the hind legs. But as for the bull, he had passed the day lying and resting, eating his fodder with an excellent appetite, and did not cease calling down blessings on the donkey for his good advice. So when night set in and the donkey returned to the buyer, the bull rose up and said: "I have some good news! I have rested all this day and eaten my food in peace and silence."

But the donkey only said to himself: "This comes of my folly in giving the good counsel," and went weary to his manger while the bull thanked him and blessed him.

Later that night the merchant sat down on the roof of his house and watched the full moon with his children playing about him. As he sat there, he once again overheard the animals talk.

"Tell me," said the donkey to the bull, "What do you have in your mind to do tomorrow?"

The bull answered: "I will go on following your counsel. It was as good as could be, it has given me rest and repose. So when they bring me my meal, I will refuse it and play ill."

The donkey shook his head and said, "Beware. I heard our owner say, "'If the bull is unable to do his work and if he will not eat tomorrow, I send him to the butcher that he may slaughter him. I fear for you. So take my advice, and peace be with you!"

The bull stood up and bellowed aloud and thanked the donkey, "Tomorrow I’ll go forth with them." And he at once ate up all his food and even licked the manager.

All this took place when the owner was listening to them both talk. The following morning, he and his wife went to the bull's side and sat down, and the driver came and led forth the bull, who frisked about so much that the merchant laughed loudly and kept laughing.

His wife asked him, "What are you laughing at like this?"

He answered, "I can’t help laughing at something secret."

She said, "If you laughed at me, I will leave you at once." And she sat down and cried. In this way she made him so mad that he said, "Summon your father and mother and our kith and kin and all our neighbors, and then I will tell why I’ve laughed."

She did, while the merchant sent for people who could make his will before he revealed his secret and died from it, for he loved her very much because she was both his cousin and the mother of his children, and he had lived with her for eighty-two years.

Having gathered all the family and his neighbours, he said to them, "My wife nags me to tell a secret. But if I tell it, I am as well as dead."

His wife would still know the secret, so the merchant prepared to tell them - but then he heard one of his farm dogs say to the rooster, "Our master is making ready for his death, and we dogs know why, and mourn, but you just clap your wings and crow."

The rooster answered the dog, "Is that really so? Then our master lacks understanding and sense. If he cannot manage just a single wife, his life is out of control. I have a flock of fifty hens to take care of, and they are all well governed by me.

"The dog asked the rooster, "What should he do, then?"

The rooster said, "He should get up and take some twigs from the mulberry tree over there and give her a sound beating till she cries: "I repent! I will not force you to tell your secret." Then our master can sleep free from care and enjoy life."

When the merchant heard the words of his rooster to his dog, he stood up quickly and went to his wife's chamber, after cutting some mulberry twigs. Then he said, "Will you keep asking me questions about what is not your concern or not?"

She saw the twigs and understood what they meant, for she cried out: "I repent sincerely and wholesomely! I will ask you no more questions."

Then she kissed him and he led her out of the room to the gathering, and said he did not have to reveal his secret after all, so he would not have to die.

Thus the merchant learnt a dire lesson from his rooster.

What is the moral....? Please add a suitable moral to the story yourself.

Abridged from Aesop's Fables

The End