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The Drunk Husband and His Wife

(Aesop’s Fables)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

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　There was a wife suffering from her husband who had been drinking too much.

　She really wanted him to quit the bad habit, so she came up with some plan.

　When her husband was very drunk, and was sleeping like the dead as usual,

　she carried him over her shoulder to the cemetery.

　She left him between graves in the enclosure, and went home.

　After a while, when he was about to become sober,

　the wife went back to the cemetery, and knocked on a door on the wall.

”Who is it?! Who is knocking on the door?”

”I'm the one that brings food to the dead.”

　Then he said to her,

”I don't need any food. Please bring me some alcohol.

　It's awful to bring only food, and not to bring any alcohol.”

　Finally she tore at her heart and cried out,

”What a pitiable thing!

　I thought hard to come up with this plan for you, but it doesn't do any good to you at all.

　What is worse, your habit is now turning into something

　that is not called a habit anymore

　but more or less your nature.”


　This story tells us that

　those of us who do something bad over and over again will make it a habit unconsciously,

　and will not be able to overcome it, so we have to be careful on that.

The end

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