Original content

English translation

A frog was parted from its mate, and the affliction of its matelessness set it down on the seashore. It cast its gaze in every direction, ridding its grief-stricken heart of the sorrow of being without a mate. Suddenly,

It saw a fish in the midst of the water, flowing swiftly, like flowing water, or like a pair of scissors of a silver ingot, splitting the satin surface of the water in two, or like a safe crescent free of waxing and waning, inclining in its movement to left and right.

When the frog saw it, its heart was drawn to its company; it broached the tale of its own matelessness and sought companionship from it. The fish said: Companionship requires congeniality, and unfitting companionship makes company unseemly.

What congeniality have I with you? My place is in the depths of the sea, and your dwelling is at the edge of the shore; my mouth is silent, and your tongue is full of clamor; your ugliness of face is a shield against calamity—whoever sees your form will not wish to sit with you; my beauty of aspect is capital for fear and peril—whoever brightens their eye with my beauty fixes the eye of greed upon union with me.

The birds of the sky desire me, and the beasts of the desert are lovesick for me; the hunters are sometimes like a net in search of me, with a thousand eyes, and sometimes like a hook, bent-backed from the burden of their longing for me. This it said, and took the road to the depths of the sea, and left the frog alone upon the shore.

Sit not with one who is not one with you in essence; the thread that binds companionship is oneness of essence. If you measure kind against kind, and kind against unkind— this is like water and oil, and that like milk and sugar.