Forthwith the Cogia, seizing a stick, fell to banging his ox.
'O Cogia,' said the people, 'why do you beat the ox; how can he be in
fault?' 'All the fault is his,' said the Cogia, 'if he had taught him
the calf would have known how to turn.'
One day as the Cogia was travelling in the Derbend he met a shepherd.
Said the shepherd to the Cogia, 'Art thou a faquir?' 'Yes,' said the
Cogia. Said the shepherd, 'See these seven men who are lying here, they
were men like you whom I killed because they could not answer questions
which I asked. Now, in the first place let us come to an understanding;
if you can answer my questions let us hold discourse, if not, let us say
nothing.' Says the Cogia, 'What may your questions be?' Said the
shepherd, 'The moon, when it is new, is small, afterwards it increases,
until it looks like a wheel; after the fifteenth, it diminishes, and does
not remain; then again, there is a little one, of the size of Hilal,
which does remain. Now what becomes of the old moons?' Says the Cogia,
'How is it that you don't know a thing like that? They take those old
moons and make lightning of them; have you not seen them when the heaven
thunders, glittering like so many swords?' 'Bravo, Faquir,' said the
shepherd. 'Well art thou acquainted with the matter, I had come to the
same conclusion myself.
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