The Cuckoo and the Turtle-dove
A Cuckoo sat on a bough, bitterly complaining.
“Why art thou so sad, dear friend?” sympathizingly cooed the Turtle-dove to her, from a neighbouring twig. “Is it because spring has passed away from us, and love with it; that the sun has sunk lower, and that we are nearer to the winter?”
“How can I help grieving, unhappy one that I am?” replied the Cuckoo: “thou shalt thyself be the judge. This spring my love was a happy one, and, after a while, I became a mother. But my offspring utterly refused even to recognize me. Was it such a return that I expected from them? And how can I help being envious when I see how ducklings crowd around their mother—how chickens hasten to the hen when she calls to them. Just like an orphan I sit here, utterly alone, and know not what filial affection means.”
“Poor thing!” says the Dove, “I pity you from my heart. As for me, though I know such things often occur, I should die outright it my dovelets did not love me. But tell me, have you already brought up your little ones? When did you find time to build a nest? I never saw you doing anything of the kind: you were always flying and fluttering about.”
“No, indeed!” says the Cuckoo. “Pretty nonsense it would have been if I had spent such fine days in sitting on a nest! That would, indeed, have been the highest pitch of stupidity! I always laid my eggs in the nests of other birds.”
“Then how can you expect your little ones to care for you?” says the Turtle-dove.