Then said the leopard's wife: The lion loved the fox, but the fox had no
faith in him, and plotted his death. One day the fox went to the lion
whining that a pain had seized him in the head. "I have heard," said the
fox, "that physicians prescribe for a headache, that the patient shall be
tied up hand and foot." The lion assented, and bound up the fox with a
cord. "Ah," blithely said the fox, "my pain is gone." Then the lion
loosed him. Time passed, and the lion's turn came to suffer in his head.
In sore distress he went to the fox, fast as a bird to the snare, and
exclaimed, "Bind me up, brother, that I, too, may be healed, as happened
with thee." The fox took fresh withes, and bound the lion up. Then he
went to fetch great stones, which he cast on the lion's head, and thus
crushed him. "Therefore, my dear leopard," concluded his wife, "trust not
the fox, for I fear him and his wiles. If the place he tells of be so
fair, why does not the fox take it for himself?" "Nay," said the leopard,
"thou art a silly prattler. I have often proved my friend, and there is
no dross in the silver of his love."
The leopard would not hearken to his wife's advice, yet he was somewhat
moved by her warning, and he told the fox of his misgiving, adding, that
his wife refused to accompany him. "Ah," replied the fox, "I fear your fate
will be like the silversmith's; let me tell you his story, and you will
know how silly it is to listen to a wife's counsel."