‘The Vile Monkey and the Patient Buffalo’: A Folktale in Poetry by Terry Norton

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The Vile Monkey and the Patient Buffalo

—adapted from a Jataka tale of India

A powerful old buffalo
Once ranged the Indian countryside.
Over the rolling hills, in cool
Dark caves and tangled woods, he plied.
One day, he found a tree where he could rest
And for a moment cease his browsing quest.

As he relaxed beneath the shade,
Upon his back a monkey plopped
And, squatting, dropped a nasty mess,
Then grabbed a horn as off he hopped
To spin and somersault along the ground,
Before he bared his fangs, yakked, grinned, and clowned.

The buffalo, yet unperturbed,
To these rude antics paid no heed
And ever was his temper mild,
Despite the fact, when he had need
To stop beneath the tree, the monkey’s act
Remained the same as when he first attacked.

One day, the Spirit of the Tree
Appeared along its trunk to say,
“Why, Buffalo, do you abide
That hateful ape’s disgusting way?
Why not with horns impale him? Or you could
With hooves his nasty doings end for good.

“Ah, Spirit of the Tree,” replied
The buffalo, “instead of me,
Should here another bull repose,
The ape would still act spitefully,
Thinking this bull like rudeness would endure
And leave the culprit in offense secure.

“Yet, if that buffalo is fierce,
The baleful monkey will obtain
His just reward, and when he is
Destroyed, on me adheres no stain.
I will be free from his effronteries,
And for his death, my conscience rest at ease.”

A few days passed. The old bull found
A place where fresher grass he cropped.
Another bull then chanced to halt
Beneath the tree. The monkey dropped
Down as before, behaving just the same
Yet setting this new buffalo aflame.

With sudden rage, he shook himself
To toss the rude pest off his back.
Then snorting once, with hooves and horns,
He madly launched his wild attack.
The monkey’s viscera the sharp horns slashed
Before the heavy hooves his body smashed.

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The above is adapted from “Mahisa-Jataka,” in The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, vol. 2, ed. E. B. Cowell, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1895), 262-263.

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Terry L. Norton is a retired professor of literacy at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He is the author of Cherokee Myths and Legends (2014), Trickster Tales of Southeastern Native Americans (2023), and Monkey Tales Around the World: A Folklore Anthology (2024), all published by McFarland.