In this prose tale from Jami's Baharestan, a frog, grieving the loss of its mate, sits at the seashore and, seeing a fish glide through the water, longs to make it a companion and asks for its friendship. The fish declines, explaining that companionship depends on suitability and likeness (monasebat): an ill-matched association makes companionship unbecoming. Their natures and dwellings are fundamentally different (the fish belongs to the depths of the sea, the frog to the shore; one is silent-mouthed, the other clamorous), so they are unfit as companions.

The tale distills a moral principle common to Persian didactic literature: enduring, meaningful companionship requires compatibility and kinship of nature between the parties, while association between dissimilar beings is discordant and cannot last. Reading this interpretive concept helps a learner move from the surface narrative (a frog and a fish by the water) to its ethical lesson about choosing companions of one's own kind.