One rich woman, secretly from her husband, made a date in the steppe for her lover. While she was walking to the meeting place, thieves robbed her and left her completely naked. She couldn’t return home like that and decided to wait until dark. She covered herself with willow branches and sat down near a tree on the shore of a large lake. He sees a fox running and carrying a piece of meat in its teeth, and a crow circling above it. Suddenly the wind rose, the water in the lake surged, and a fish was thrown ashore in a large wave. The wave rolled back, and the fish fluttered and fluttered on the shore. Looking at this, the fox left his piece of meat and ran to grab the fish. Meanwhile, another wave rose and, covering the fish, carried it back into the lake. So the fox did not have time to grab her. And the crow, circling over the fox, did not hesitate, grabbed a piece of meat and was gone. Here is a fox sitting, wagging its tail, and looking now towards the lake, now after the crow that has flown away.
A woman who was sitting under a tree, covered with willow branches, saw all this and said to the fox:
“This is how it turns out: you were holding meat in your teeth, but you wanted fish.” And then a piece of meat rose into the sky, and the fish sank into the depths of the lake. You set your sights on this and that, but were left with nothing.
“Looking at you, I lost my hair,” the fox answers. “You had a husband, but you wanted to see your lover.” While you were on a date, you were robbed by thieves. So you sit here, covered with leaves, you can’t go to your lover in this form, or return home.
Every person has his own vice, without it there is no person. So don’t rush to make fun of other people’s shortcomings and mistakes, forgetting about your own, wise people say.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru