The Glow Worm and the Jackdaw
In this fable from India, a sly little insect teaches a jackdaw that all that glisters is not necessarily edible.
1887
In this fable from India, a sly little insect teaches a jackdaw that all that glisters is not necessarily edible.
1887
William Cowper’s ‘The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm’ told how a glow-worm persuaded a hungry bird to spare his life because light and song complement each other so beautifully. In the following Indian fable by Ramaswami Raju (playwright, London barrister and Oxford professor of Telugu), the hard-pressed glow-worm does not have such dainty material to work with.
A JACKDAW once ran up to a glow-worm, and was about to seize him. “Wait a moment, good friend,” said the worm “and you shall hear something to your advantage.”
“Ah! what is it?” said the daw.
“I am but one of the many glow-worms that live in this forest. If you wish to have them all, follow me,” said the glow-worm.
“Certainly!” said the daw.
Then the glow-worm led him to a place in the wood where a fire had been kindled by some woodmen, and pointing to the sparks flying about, said, “There you find the glow-worms warming themselves round a fire. When you have done with them, I shall show you some more, at a distance from this place.”
The daw darted at the sparks, and tried to swallow some of them; but his mouth being burnt by the attempt, he ran away exclaiming, “Ah, the glow-worm is a dangerous little creature!”
Said the glow-worm with pride, “Wickedness yields to wisdom!”*
* See also William Cowper’s English verse-fable of The Nightingale and the Glow Worm.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.