There is a famous fable from Russia about a scorpion and a frog.
The scorpion wants to cross a river, but can’t swim. So he asks the frog to carry him across on his back.
“But I’m scared,” says the frog. “You might sting me.”
The scorpion reassures him. “Of course I won’t sting you. If I were to sting you while you were carrying me across the river, we would both die.”
The frog accepts this logic, and kindly agrees to help the scorpion across the river.
Half-way across the river, the scorpion stings the frog.
As the frog feels the venom killing him, he asks in shock, “Why did you sting me? You will die too!”
The scorpion answers, “I stung you because I am a scorpion. It is in my nature to sting.”
*
This strikes me as a very Russian story.
I have a story about a scorpion too. When I was a child, my family went on holiday to Luca in Italy. We didn’t stay in a hotel, but rented the use of an Italian man’s house for a week.
On the first night, as I was going to bed, I pulled back the covers. I was tired and almost got into bed without looking. But luckily I did look. And inside the bed, underneath the covers, was a large scorpion.
I screamed and called for my father. He was enjoying his holiday and was drunk on red wine.
“What are you shouting about?” he demanded.
“There’s a scorpion in my bed!” I said.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “It’s probably just a spider or something.”
He then marched into my room, picked up the scorpion by its tail and flung it out of the window, the alcohol making him fearless.
“Now go to bed,” he said.
We never investigated how a scorpion could have gotten inside my bed. It seems incredibly unlikely that it could have gotten there by itself. Did the Italian man who rented us his house put it there? Did some angry maid or house cleaner put it there? I will never know.
But I’ll never trust a scorpion. It is in their nature to sting.
No comments:
Post a Comment