The Old Man, his Young Wife and the Thief

Panchtantra Stories

Once there lived an old widowed merchant in the south, who desired for another wife. He married a young daughter of another merchant by offering him lots of money. But the young wife did not love her husband. One night, when both the husband and wife were asleep on different sides of the bed, a thief entered their house. So shocked the wife became on the sight of the thief, that she embraced her old husband out of fear. The husband was both thrilled and surprised by the embrace and began thinking about what made her do so. He searched every nook and corner of the house and at last found the thief lurking in a corner. He then realised that his wife had embraced him because the thief had frightened her. The husband told the thief, "My dear young man, today I had the fortune of being hugged by my wife. Thanks to you. Take away whatever you want."  The thief replied, "My dear sir, I do not find anything in your house that I could take with me. But I will come back soon and see if there is anything to carry away. Or, you could call whenever you need love from your wife."  "That is why," Deeptaksha said, "when even a thief could do some good for someone, why not this Sthirajeevi who has sought asylum? He will give us useful information about the handicaps of the enemy. Therefore, in my view he should not be killed."  Then Arimardana turned to another minister, Vakranasa, and asked him, "Tell me what should we do with this crow?" Vakranasa told him that "the refugee’s life should be spared because it may benefit us when two rivals fight each other like the quarrel between a thief and a monster had saved the life of a Brahmin and his two calves."  "How was that?" asked the owl king.  Vakranasa narrated him the following story.