The Louse and the Bug

In a certain king's handsome bedchamber, between two sheets, there lived a white louse named Mandavisarpini. She drank the king's blood and lived in great comfort, moving so slowly and carefully that no one ever noticed her.

One day a bug named Agnimukha came drifting onto that bed. Seeing him, the louse said unhappily: "Agnimukha! How did you get to this place? Go away, while nobody knows you are here."

The bug said: "Lady! One does not speak so to a guest who has come to one's house. Good people give even the lowly a kind word — 'Come in, sit, it has been long, what news?' That is the householder's ancient duty. And listen: I have tasted the blood of many creatures, but it was all bitter, sharp or salty; sweet blood I have never tasted. A king's body is nursed on soft and delicate food — his blood must be like nectar. Be kind, and let me taste it once."

The louse said: "Very well, but on one condition — you will not bite until the king is deep asleep, and you will respect the hours of my own feeding." The bug swore: "Until you say the word, I shall not taste him."

But he was a restless creature. The king came to bed, and before sleep had even reached him the bug could not hold his tongue — he bit. The king started up, smarting, and called out: "Look! There is a bug or a louse in this bed! Search at once."

The servants began shaking out the sheets. The quick-witted bug slipped into a crack in the joint of the cot — and Mandavisarpini was found inside the sheet, and killed on the spot.

So it is said: give shelter to one whose character you have not tested, and it is your own ruin you have arranged.

क्वाविज्ञातशीलस्य प्रदातव्यः प्रतिश्रयः । मत्कुणस्य च दोषेण हता मन्दविसर्पिणी ॥

Moral: Where is shelter to be given to one whose character is untested? Through the bug's fault, Mandavisarpini was killed.

From the Panchatantra, Book I — The Loss of Friends.