Panchatantra: The Dog Who Went Abroad

From The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, translated by Arthur W. Ryder (1925).

The Dog Who Went Abroad

[Inside Book 4. Loss Of Gains.]

There was once a dog named Spot in a certain town which was afflicted by a long famine. And as food gave out, dogs and others began to lose their homes. In fear of this, Spot felt his throat pinched by hunger, and he went to another country far away. In a city of that country he found a citizen's wife who was slipshod in her housekeeping, so he entered her house every day, and ate his fill from a diversified bill of fare. But as he left the house, other dogs, drunk with aristocratic spleen, closed in from all sides, and tore him in every limb with their fangs.

Then he thought: "Better one's native land, where one lives at peace even in times of famine, and no one picks a quarrel. It is better to return to my own city." Having thus reasoned it through, he returned to his own place.

Then his relatives asked him questions, as one returning from foreign parts: "Come now, tell us about it. What is the country like? How do the people behave? What do they eat? And what are their habits?"

And he replied: "Why speak of the country?

The food is very good to eat

And does not lack variety;

While easy-going women meet

You in the town's society:

But kinsmen in that foreign street

Are wanting in sobriety."