Original content

English translation

A mouse spent several years in the shop of a grocer, amid its abundance of dry snacks and fresh fruits, feeding on those dry and fresh bounties. The grocer would see this and overlook it, refraining from punishing it, until one day, in accordance with the saying:

When the belly of a base wretch becomes full, He grows bold toward a thousand mischiefs and evils.

Greed drove it to carry off the grocer's purse, and it dragged whatever there was, red and white, to its own house. When the grocer, in his time of need, reached for the purse, he found it empty like a pauper's wallet and hollow like a hungry man's belly, and he knew it was the work of the mouse.

Like a cat he lay in ambush, caught it, tied a long string to its leg, and let it go until it went down into its hole; and by the length of the string he gauged the hole's depth. He followed it and dug up the hole until he reached its house.

He saw a house like a money-changers' little shop, red and white heaped together, dinars and dirhams mixed. He took possession of his own right, brought out the mouse, and delivered it to the cat's claws, so that it received its due — what it received — and suffered the reward of its own ingratitude — what it suffered.

If there is mischief and evil, it belongs to the greedy ones of the world; Happy the contented heart, for it is freed from every mischief and evil. In the honor of contentment came all spirit and ease; In greed there is excess — if there be any trouble at all.