189.The Ill Kite
A KITE, ill to death, said to his mother: “Mother! do not mourn, but at once invoke the hereafter that my life may be prolonged.”
She replied,
“Alas, son! Which in the hereafter do you think will pity you? Is there one whom you have not outraged by eating the flesh from their bones on the roof-tops?”
❖ We should make friends in prosperity if we would have their help in adversity.
The ancient burial custom in Persia and other places was to leave corpses on flat roofs of houses to let large birds eat them.
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