4. THE KITE AND THE EAGLE

By StellaInForest January 31, 2026

This is a specimen of Indian satire. The coward is boastful when there is no danger: pretension succeeds in the absence of real merit! A Kite was boasting how high he could fly, and ventured to speak disparagingly of the eagle, not knowing that the latter overheard him. He began to sing in a loud voice,

  I upward fly
I! I alone disdain the air
Till I hang as by a hair
  Poised in the sky.

The Eagle answers disdainfully, looking down from a branch far above the Kite,

  Who _mounts_ the sky?
Who is this, with babbling tongue
As he had on the storm-cloud hung,
  Who flies so high?

The Kite in a shrinking, feeble voice,

  The great Khakake
I've sometimes thought he flew so high
That he must see within the sky
  The dawn awake.

The Eagle despises him, and yet cannot forbear to answer,

I spurn you all, ye prating throng
How often have I passed ye by
When my broad pinions fleet and strong,
Soared up where leapt the thunder cry!
Nor ye with feeble wing might dare,
Those hill-tops high, to mount in air.

and he soared off, up, up into the sky till the boaster could not behold him. But no sooner was the Kite left alone to himself than he began to sing again so as to be heard on every side,

  I upward fly
I, I alone disdain the air
Till I hang as by a hair
  Poised in the sky.

Literally thus.

Kite.     Neen a             (I alone)
          Neen a             (I alone)
          Ta wa e ya         (can go up)
          Bai bwau         }
          As shau dau      } (so as to seem as if hanging by a hair)
          Wa ke ge naun    }
          O shau wush ko geezhig oong a  (from the blue sky.)
Eagle.    Au wa nain         (Who is this?)
          Au wa nain         (Who is this?)
          Tshe mud je wa wa  (with babbling tongue, who boasts)
          Ke pim o saing.    (of flying so high?)

Kite (shrinkingly) replies, "Oh I was only singing of the great Khakake, it is he who is said to fly so high."

Eagle disdainfully replies, "Tshe mud je wa wa, that is great babbler, or bad-tongue, you are below my notice," &c., and soars aloft.

Kite, resuming its boasting tone, as soon as the eagle is out of hearing,

Neen a   (I alone &c., the whole being a
Neen a      repetition of the first part.)
Ta we ya
Bai bwau
As shau dau
Wa ke ge naun,
O shau wush ko, geezhig oong a.

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