A monkey and a Crab once met when going round a mountain.
The Monkey had picked up a persimmon-seed, and the Crab had a piece
of toasted rice-cake. The Monkey, seeing this, and wishing to get
something that could be turned to good account at once, said, "Pray,
exchange that rice-cake for this persimmon-seed." The Crab, without a
word, gave up his cake, and took the persimmon-seed and planted it. At
once it sprung up, and soon became a tree so high one had to look far
up to see it. The tree was full of persimmons, but the Crab had no
means of climbing it, so he asked the Monkey to scramble up and get
the fruit for him. The Monkey got up on a limb of the tree and began
to eat the persimmons. The unripe ones he threw at the Crab, but all
the ripe and good ones he put in his pouch. The Crab under the tree
thus got his shell badly bruised, and only by good luck escaped into
his hole, where he lay distressed with pain, and not able to get up.
Now, when the relatives and household of the Crab heard how matters
stood, they were surprised and angry, and declared war, and attacked
the Monkey, who, leading forth a numerous following, bade defiance to
the other party. The crabs, finding themselves unable to meet and
cope with this force, became still more exasperated and enraged,
and retreated into their hole and held a council of war. Then came a
rice-mortar, a pestle, a bee, and an egg, and together they devised a
deep-laid plot to be avenged.
First, they requested that peace be made with the crabs; and thus they
induced the king of the monkeys to enter their hole unattended, and
seated him on the hearth. The Monkey, not suspecting any plot, took
the _hibashi_, or poker, to stir up the slumbering fire, when bang!
went the egg, which was lying hidden in the ashes, and burned the
Monkey's arm. Surprised and alarmed, he plunged his arm into the
pickle-tub in the kitchen to relieve the pain of the burn. Then the
bee which was hidden near the tub stung him sharply in his face,
already wet with tears. Without waiting to brush off the bee, and
howling bitterly, he rushed for the back door; but just then some
seaweed entangled his legs and made him slip. Then down came the
pestle, tumbling on him from a shelf, and the mortar, too, came
rolling down on him from the roof of the porch and broke his back, and
so weakened him that he was unable to rise up. Then out came the crabs
in a crowd, and brandishing on high their pinchers they pinched the
Monkey so sorely that he begged them for forgiveness and promised
never to repeat his meanness and treachery.
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