0028. The Scorpion and the Tortoise

From The Fables of Pilpay online at Internet Archive. No author or translator's name is given, but the book appears to be based on Joseph Harris's English translation of the French version by Gilbert Gaulmin. The illustrations are by Thomas Scott.

Notes. This story might remind you of Aesop's fable about The Frog and the Mouse, and also the story of the frog and the scorpion in the film, The Crying Game.

Summary: Things get complicated when two friends, a scorpion and a tortoise, decide to cross a river together.

Read the story below:

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THE SCORPION AND THE TORTOISE

(Thomas Scott)

A Tortoise and Scorpion had once contracted a great intimacy, and bound themselves in such a tie of friendship, that the one could not live without the other. These inseparable companions, one day, finding themselves obliged to change their habitation, travelled together; but in their way meeting with a large and deep river, the Scorpion, making a stop, said to the Tortoise, "My dear friend, you are well provided for what we see before us, but how shall I get over this water?"

"Never trouble yourself, my dear friend, for that," replied the Tortoise; "I will carry you upon my back secure from all danger."

The Scorpion, on this, without hesitation, got upon the back of the Tortoise, who immediately took water and began to swim. But he was hardly got half-way across the river, when he heard a terrible rumbling upon his back; which made him ask the Scorpion what he was doing.

"Doing!" replied the Scorpion; "why I am whetting my sting, to try whether I can bore this horny cuirass of yours, that covers your flesh like a shield, from all injuries."

"Oh, ungrateful wretch!" cried the Tortoise; "would'st thou, at a time when I am giving thee such a demonstration of my friendship, would'st thou, at such a time, pierce with thy venomous sting the defence that nature has given me, and take away my life? It is well, however, I have it in my power, both to save myself, and reward thee as thou deservest."

So saying, he sunk his back to some depth under water, threw off the Scorpion, and left him to pay his life, the just forfeit of his monstrous ingratitude.