5

Beasts of Burden

(SEVEN FABLES)

Once upon a time, a hawk caught a quail with violence and swooped her off to his high nest to be eaten. While in his sharp talons, the quail said, “I shall forgive you for this action, sir. I am to blame for my own misfortune; it was I who foraged on unlawful ground, in a foreign region not of my ancestors….”

—From a Buddhist fable