“Really, looking at the famous places of Osaka, which I have heard so much about, they don’t seem to me to differ a bit from Kioto.  Instead of giving myself any further trouble to go on, I shall just return home.”

The Osaka frog, blinking with his eyes, said, with a contemptuous smile, “Well, I have heard a great deal of talk about this Kioto being as beautiful as the flowers, but it is just Osaka over again.  We had better go home.”

And so the two frogs, politely bowing to one another, hopped off home with an important swagger.

Now, although this is a very funny little story, you will not understand the drift of it at once.  The frogs thought that they were looking in front of them; but as, when they stood up, their eyes were in the back of their heads, each was looking at his native place, all the while that he believed himself to be looking at the place he wished to go to.  The frogs stared to any amount, it is true; but then they did not take care that the object looked at was the right object, and so it was that they fell into error.  Please, listen attentively.  A certain poet says—­

“Wonderful are the frogs!  Though they go on all-fours in an attitude of humility, their eyes are always turned ambitiously upwards.”

A delightful poem!  Men, although they say with their mouths, “Yes, yes, your wishes shall be obeyed,—­certainly, certainly, you are perfectly right,” are like frogs, with their eyes turned upwards.  Vain fools! meddlers ready to undertake any job, however much above their powers!  This is what is called in the text, “casting away your heart, and not knowing where to seek for it.”  Although these men profess to undertake any earthly thing, when it comes to the point, leave them to themselves, and they are unequal to the task; and if you tell them this, they answer—­

“By the labour of our own bodies we earn our money; and the food of our mouths is of our own getting.  We are under obligation to no man.  If we did not depend upon ourselves, how could we live in the world?”

There are plenty of people who use these words, myself and my own, thoughtlessly and at random.  How false is this belief that they profess!  If there were no system of government by superiors, but an anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers, would not stand for a day.  In the old days, at the time of the war at Ichi-no-tani, Minamoto no Yoshitsune[89] left Mikusa, in the province of Tamba, and attacked Settsu.  Overtaken by the night among the mountains, he knew not what road to follow; so he sent for his retainer, Benkei, of the Temple called Musashi, and told him to light the big torches which they had agreed upon.  Benkei received his orders and transmitted them to the troops, who immediately dispersed through all the valleys, and set fire to the houses of the inhabitants, so that one and all blazed up, and, thanks to the light of this fire, they reached Ichi-no-tani, as the story