The Walnut (from the Fables of Mkhitar Gosh)
Բամբասել սկսան միանգամայն տունկք ի միասին զընկուզի, եւ ասեն.
All of the plants simultaneously began to slander the walnut, saying: "You are entirely stingy, unobliging, tart and wicked, and you bear inedible fruit." [The walnut] said in response: "Truly, should I be unlike you? For who among you gives up its fruit for eating before the [proper] time?" They answered: "They eat of us before we are ripe, but you keep [your fruit] in a sordid way until the end." Then [the walnut] said: "Yet I am the most generous of all to humankind and to the birds, not, like you, providing [fruit] irregularly." Thus did [the walnut] vindicate itself over them. "Especially", it said, reiterating, "since many of you do the same thing. And [by keeping] all [the fruit] uneaten, at the right time I shed my stinginess." Nothing is dubious in this fable. For the well-ordered are always slandered by the tipsy as penurious; the dispensation of goodness is called stubborness; and rebuke against eaters termed bitterness. However, [the walnut] gives abundantly at the proper time, appears benevolent and also has numerous witnesses to this. Now the foolish, expending what they have inopportunely, have nothing to give at the right moment, and in this appear tipsy.
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