蜂蝸之爭
One day the king of the bees with his followers passed by the snail’s
door with a great noise. The mother snail said, “I have sixteen babies
asleep on a leaf, and they must sleep fifteen days before they can
walk. You will surely wake them. You are the noisiest creatures that
pass my door. How can my children sleep? Yesterday your family and a
crowd of your silly followers were here and made a great noise, and now
to-day you come again. If I lose one baby because of all this, I will
go to your house and destroy it. Then you will have no place to live.
Do you know that this tree belongs to me? My master planted it twenty
years ago, that I and my children might feed on its fruit. Every year
your people come here when my tree has flowers upon it and take the
honey away from them; and you not only rob me, but while you are doing
it, you make loud and foolish noises. If you do not go away, I will
call my master and my people.”
The king bee answered, “You have no master in the world. You came from
the dirt. Your ancestors all died in the wilderness and nobody even
cared, because you are of no use to the world. Our name is Fon (Bee).
People like us and they grow fat from our honey, which is better than
medicine. My people live in all parts of the world. All mankind likes
us and feeds us flowers. Do you think you are better than man?
“One day a bad boy tried to spoil our house, but his mother said, ‘You
spoil many things, but you shall not trouble the bees. They work hard
every day and make honey for us. If you kill one bee-mother, her
children will all leave us and in winter we shall have no honey for our
bread.’ And the boy obeyed. He might catch birds and goldfish, destroy
flowers, do anything he wished, but he could not trouble us, because we
are so useful. But you, slow creeper, are not good for anything.”
Then the snail was angry and went to her house and said to her family,
“The bees are our enemies. In fifteen days, five of you must go to
their house and destroy it.”
So they went. But when they reached the bee’s house, they found no one
there; and they said, “We are glad, for we can eat their honey.” And
they ate honey until sunset. Then the bee king and all his people in
great numbers came with joyous singing, drumming, and dancing to their
home.
When the bee king saw the five snails in his house he said, “Friends,
this is not your home nor your food. Why do you come here and eat all
our honey? But it is late, and you are welcome to stay overnight with
us, if you do not hurt our children.”
The big snail only laughed and answered, “This is very good honey. I
have moved my family here. We will stay not only one night or two
nights, but forever, and we will eat your honey for our food as long as
it lasts.”
The bee king said, “I will allow you to stay only one night here. You
can not live in my house. You do no good thing to help. I am afraid
even to let you stay one night. My honey may be all taken and the
babies killed while we sleep to-night.”
And he said to the wise old bees, “Do not sleep. We can not trust
them.”
The next morning the wise bees came and told the king, “Thirty-five
babies died last night. The snails crept all about our house and
poisoned them. And they left much mouth-dirt in the honey so that we
fear it will kill even man to eat it. We must drive them away, O king.”
“One day more and if they do not go, we will do some other thing,” said
the bee king.
Then he went to talk to the snails again and said, “Friends, you are
looking fat; I know you are satisfied here and like my honey, but why
do you kill my people and why do you spoil our honey? I think I know
why. I believe you are an enemy, for I remember now that I met a snail
mother some time ago, who scolded me and my people. I believe you are
her children.
“Be that as it may, I now tell you that if you snails do not leave my
house before to-morrow at midday, you die here.”
“Do what you will,” said the snail, “we will stay. We are a free
people. We go where we will, we eat what we like, and just now we like
honey. We shall eat all the honey you have, if we wish it. At any rate,
we will stay now, for we would like to see what you can do that is so
great.”
Then the bee king looked grave and called all his soldiers together,
and told them to prepare for battle. The first order was, “Make ready
your wax until midday!” The second order was, “Sharpen your swords and
be ready!”
The great army of thousands with sharpened stings was commanded to make
the noise of battle and sting to the death if need be.
The snails were frightened at the battle cries and drew into their
shells. Then the king ordered the soldiers to bring wax quickly. And
while thousands of bees kept the snails frightened by the great noise
of battle, other soldiers filled the snails’ mouths with the wax; and
in two hours they were sealed so that they could not move nor breathe.
The bee king then said to the snails, “At first I thought you were
friends, and I offered you shelter for the night and all the honey you
could eat. But you thought the Creator made the earth for you alone and
nothing for any one else. With such natures as yours, if you were as
large and powerful as the birds or the beasts, there would be no room
for any other creature in all the world. Truly you spoke, when you said
you would stay, for now you die.”
Then the king moved all his people away to a new house and left the
snails to die.
One day when the master came to get honey and saw the empty house and
the five dead snails, he said, “This bee house, with all the honey, is
poisoned. It must be cleansed.”
And the dead snails and the spoiled honey were sunk into the earth
together, but the bees lived on and were happy and useful.
Ee-Sze (Meaning): The proud and selfish want everything, but deserve
nothing.