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An eagle once pounced upon a huge fish in a lake, and plunged his talons into his back. The fish pulled downwards, and the eagle upwards. But, neither succeeding in disengaging itself from the other, the fish called all the other fish in the lake to its aid, and the eagle summoned all the birds of the air to its side. The birds pulled the eagle up, and broke its wings. The fish pulled their friend down, and hurt him severely, till in the end both sank exhausted into the lake.
The birds and the fish exclaimed, "When neither yields in strife, neither can keep his life. In such cases, friends can only aggravate, in their attempts to alleviate."