me. The ocean seized my eggs today. I told you more than once that we should move, but you were stupid as Fatalist and would not go. Now I am so sad at the loss of my children that I have decided to burn myself."
"My dear," said the plover, "wait until you witness my power, until I dry up that rascally ocean with my bill." But she replied: "My dear husband, how can you fight the ocean? Furthermore,
Gay simpletons who fight,
Not estimating right
The foe's power and their own,
Like moths in flame atone."
"My dear," said the plover, "you should not say such things.
The sun's new-risen beams
Upon the mountains fall:
Where glory is cognate,
Age matters not at all.
With this bill I shall dry up the water to the last drop, and turn the sea into dry land." "Darling," said his wife, "with a bill that holds one drop how will you dry up the ocean, into which pour without ceasing the Ganges and the Indus, bearing the water of nine times nine hundred tributary streams? Why talk nonsense?" But the plover said:
Success is rooted in the will;
And I possess an iron-strong bill;
Long days and nights before me lie:
Why should not ocean's flood go dry?
