Now the royal Golden Goose had a daughter, a young goose most beautiful to see; and he gave her her choice of a husband. And she chose the one she liked the best. For, having given her the right to choose, he called together all the birds in the Himālaya region. And crowds of geese, and peacocks, and other birds of various kinds, met together on a great flat piece of rock. The king sent for his daughter, saying, “Come and choose the husband you like best!” On looking over the assembly of the birds, she caught sight of the peacock, with a neck as bright as gems, and a many-coloured tail; and she made the choice with the words, “Let this one be my husband!” So the assembly of the birds went up to the peacock, and said, “Friend Peacock! this king’s daughter having to choose her husband from amongst so many birds, has fixed her choice upon you!” “Up to to-day you would not see my greatness,” said the peacock, so overflowing with delight that in breach of all modesty he began to spread his wings and dance in the midst of the vast assembly,--and in dancing he exposed himself. Then the royal Golden Goose was shocked! And he said, “This fellow has neither modesty in his heart, nor decency in his outward behaviour! I shall not give my daughter to him. He has broken loose from all sense of shame!” And he uttered this verse to all the assembly-- “Pleasant is your cry, brilliant is your back, Almost like the opal in its colour is your neck, The feathers in your tail reach about a fathom’s length, But to such a dancer I can give no daughter, sir, of mine!” Then the king in the midst of the whole assembly bestowed his daughter on a young goose, his nephew. And the peacock was covered with shame at not getting the fair gosling, and rose straight up from the place and flew away. But the king of the Golden Geese went back to the place where he dwelt. * * * * * When the Teacher had finished this lesson in virtue, in illustration of what he had said (“Not only, O monks, has this brother now lost the jewel of the faith by immodesty, formerly also he lost a jewel of a wife by the same cause”), he made the connexion, and summed up the Jātaka, by saying, “The peacock of that time was the luxurious monk, but the King of the Geese was I myself.” END OF THE STORY ABOUT THE DANCING PEACOCK.[326] No. 33. SAMMODAMĀNA JĀTAKA. The sad Quarrel of the Quails. “_So long as the birds but agree._”--This the Master told while at the Banyan Grove, near Kapilavatthu, concerning a quarrel about a _chumbat_ (a circular roll of cloth placed on the head when carrying a vessel or other weight).