Confession of the Venerable Toad

Dr Swan struck the gavel once, "O my brothers and sisters! You should know, may Allah grant you success, that the stages of life are five,

• The first stage, starts from birth until puberty and that is fifteen years;
• The second stage, starts from puberty until the end of youth, which is until one reaches thirty five years of age. This is deemed as the stage of youthfulness;
• The third stage, starts from thirty five years of age until fifty years of age, and that is the stage of maturity;
• The fourth stage, starts from fifty years of age until seventy years of age, and that is the stage of old age;
• The fifth stage, starts from seventy years of age until death, and that is the stage of decrepitude;

The start and end of these stages may fluctuate from person to person, nonetheless their stages are five. There are differences between the words 'age' and 'maturity.' As verbs, the difference is that, age is to cause to grow old; to impart the characteristics of age to; while mature, is to become mature; to ripen. As a noun, age is the whole duration of a being, whether animal, vegetable, or other kind; duration of life. As an adjective, mature is fully developed; grown up in terms of physical appearance, behavior or thinking; ripe. The Arabic ''umr' means remaining time of life. 

All praise to the One Who made the different stages of life. During these stages, there are those who submit to Allah’s orders and thereby advance. Others, who are a wasteful of this time and thereby struck with loss and regret. Indeed, life has been designated so that people, use to reach the sought, and to remove all that which causes loss and defect. Whoever lives his life appropriately as per Allah’s commands, his life will be a trade generating for him, abundantly multiplied profits, whereas the corrupt one, who does not act accordingly, will find his soul ruined. A good deed is written as ten full deeds to seven hundred and more, and a sin makes the upright return to the state of disturbance he was at before.

Observe this embellished apologue,

Three hundred years ago or more, on the tongue of men, when in the days of yore, in the age of Cadmus, there lived a toad, retired within a shady grot, who was dull, sleepy, or mellow, passing years away, in lonely state. Something miraculous happened to the toad. Every little things she did, would turn to be a gold. When she moved forward, backwards, sideways, even if she was snoring, would produce gold.

When she awoke, it seemed that, beside a petrifying stream, which she even didn't yet realized, gold-stones enclosed her, so tightly fitted to her shape. She could not stretch, nor even gape. If only she had known, prior to her repose, how many years she had forty winks, no doubt, she would have settled all her wordly matters, great and small; nor left her own cummunity, fighting battles about their miserable life. Three thousand years she had to pass, imbedded in the solid mass of gold.

Not a year ago, as some workmen were digging marble in a mountain, they came upon a Toad of enormous size, in the midst of a solid gold, when it was sawn into two. They were in great surprised at so uncommon an appearance, the drowsy reptile met their eyes, and the more they considered the circumstances of it, the more their wonder increased. It was hard to conceive, by what means this venerable toad, had preserved life, and received nourishment, in so narrow a prison, and still more difficult to account, for her birth and existence, in a place so totally inaccessible to all her species. They could come to no other conclusion but, that this remnant of antiquity, was formed together with the rock in which she had been bred, and was coeval with the mountain itself.

The crowds drew near from far to see this antiquity creature, who fully conscious of the fact, what exactly their utmost homage. In a morning show, while the host was pursuing these speculations, the Toad sat, swelling and bloating as like the usual toad, till he was ready to burst, to which at last she thus confessed, “Yes,” said she, “You behold in me a specimen of the antediluvian race of animals. I was begotten before the Flood; and who is there among the present upstart race of mortals, that shall dare to contend with me in nobility of birth or dignity of character?”

A mayfly, sprung that morning from the river, as she was flying about from place to place, chanced to be present, and observed all that passed with great attention and curiosity. “It was rather odd,” said she, “What foundation hast thou for pride, either in thy descent, merely because it is ancient, or thy life, because it has been long? What good qualities hast thou received from thy ancestors? Insignificant even to thyself, as well as useless to others, thou art almost as insensible as the gold-block in which thou wast bred. "And so," said she, "I find its true, this world's but twice as old as you. But a poor ephemeron am I, this day was born, this day must die, yet I maintain, say what you will, my life has been the longest still."

"Pardon?" said the toad, with her surprise. "What do you mean by such a speech as this?"

"O Signora," said the mayfly, with ready breath, "Sleep is another kind of death. Your days, though more than I can number, you've spent in long continued slumber.

Even I, that had my birth only from the scum of the neighbouring river, at the rising of this day’s sun, and who shall die at its setting, have more reason to applaud my condition than thou hast to be proud of thine. I have enjoyed the warmth of the sun, the light of day, and the purity of the air: I have flown from stream to stream, from tree to tree, and from the plain to the mountain. I have provided for posterity, and I shall leave behind me a numerous offspring to people the next age of tomorrow; in short, I have fulfilled all the ends of my being, and I have been happy. My whole life, ’tis true, is but of twelve hours, but even one hour of it, is to be preferred to a thousand years of mere existence which have been spent, like thine, passiveness, heedlessness and ignorance.

I'd like to add further add, in the sense to fix. Lie not till nine, but rise at five. The longer you can keep awake, the longer your life will make.  Do not sing a lullaby, plzz!”

The crowd cheered, slowly disbursed, as they left the show, chanting,

Every little thing she does is magic

Everything she do just turns me on

Even though my life before was tragic

Now I know my love for her goes on *)

Dr Swan struck the gavel trice, "O my brothers and sisters! In the eternal life and the never-ending immortality which is like the immortality of the All-Merciful, can be obtained by investing this short life appropriately, as whoever wastes his life is indeed a loser. Therefore a sensible person should know the value of his life and should reflect on his state, so that he captures what cannot be restored, if it is missed and because of which he might be ruined for wasting. And Allah knows best!"

Citations & References:
- Ibn Al-Jawzi, Awaking From the Sleep of Heedlessness, Dar As-Sunnah
- Jefferys Taylor, Aesop in Rhyme with Some Originals, Baldwin and Cradock

*) "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" written by Sting

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