A FOOLISH STAG

Once, a stag felt very thirsty. He went to a stream to quench his thirst. The stream was full of cool water. He drank to his fill. Eventually, he caught sight of his reflection in his clear crystal water of the stream.

 He greatly admired the size and offshoots of his antlers that looked so outstanding in beauty and grace. He felt tremendously proud of his being such a paragon of beauty. While he was captivated by the striking elegance of his antlers, he caught sight of his thin legs.

                            “The beauty of his antlers praised,

                              But at his legs in horror gazed:

                              They looked like spindles as they shrank,

                               Out of his sight beneath the bank.”

He became downhearted and disappointed. He began to deplore his hard luck for having such clumsy slender legs and cloven hoof. Thus, He became ungrateful of Allah. It was like finding fault with divine hand. He scolded Nature for making him imperfect. All of a sudden, he heard he howls of hounds from a distance. A sudden fright paralyzed him. He saw a pack of hounds racing towards him. The innate instinct to save his life startled him from his numbness and he took to flight with breakneck speed. As long as the plain was smooth and open, he kept himself easily at a safe distance from the hounds. Soon he got away from the hounds. Eventually he had to cross a patch of forest of forest overgrown with thorny bushes. While running through the thickly grown thickest, his attractive antlers of which he was so proud got entangled in them.

 He made desperate efforts to free himself, but all to not avail. His lean legs, which he hated so much, had proved of huge help to him. But his majestic antlers had put him on the threshold of death. He thus reproached himself: “Woe is me! How I was deceived! The hoofs which could have saved me.” In no time, the howling arrived there. They fell upon him and tore him apart.