Reading Notes: Tales of a Parrot, Part A

The Old Lion and the Cat

This article immediately caught my eye because the title mentions animals. However, when I first started reading I was confused why it started off with talking about people. I then realized this was a 'story inside of a story'. The main idea is that there is a parrot that lives with Khojisteh, and gives her advice about different situations. Khojisteh noticed the parrot was deep in thought and asks him what he was thinking about. The parrot responded how he was thinking about Khojisteh and her husband and how she might repent her actions. He then began to tell her a story of a mouse and a cat. That is where the title comes from. In this story, an old desert lion would get shreds of meat stuck in between his teeth. Mice then would scurry up to him when he slept, and eat the pieces of meat out of his teeth. This caused the lion's rest to become disturbed and not sleep well. A friend of the lion, a fox, said that he should 'hire' a cat to keep watch over him as he slept and keep the mice away. Agreeing to the idea, he did just that. The cat was very successful in keeping the mice away, making sure to be careful not to kill any of the mice. She knew that if all the mice were dead, she would essential be out of a job. The lion increased her rank for the great job she was doing, and one day she asked the lion for a day off for business. In her place, she offered her kitten to stand watch over the sleeping lion that night. The lion agreed and that night the kitten killed all the mice. When the cat returned, she saw the damage that had been done and scolded her kitten. The kitten was confused though because the cat had never told her not to kill the mice. As the cat predicted, the lion did not need her anymore and let her go.

This concluded the story from the parrot and he warned Khojisteh that she may be in the same situation as the cat, repenting her actions with her husband. I really enjoyed reading the story about the lion and the cat, and if I were to recreate this story I would leave out the 'story within a story' aspect of it. Instead of the parrot telling the story, I would instead make the plot between the lion and cat the entire story.

[Lion and a cat. Image information.]

Bibliography

Nakhshabi, Ziya'al-Din. The Old Lion and the Cat. Tales of a Parrot 1801. Link

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