Pride Goeth Before a Fall
Adapted from Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892)
In a certain village long ago, there lived ten cloth merchants who always traveled together. After a particularly successful journey far from home, they were returning with a great deal of money earned from selling their wares.
Early one morning, their path led them through a dense forest near their village. Unknown to the merchants, this forest was home to three notorious robbers. The merchants had never heard of these dangerous men before, and were completely unprepared when the robbers suddenly appeared before them, brandishing swords and cudgels.
“Lay down everything you have!” the robbers demanded.
Though the merchants outnumbered the robbers, they carried no weapons to defend themselves. With great reluctance, they surrendered all their possessions—their money, goods, and even their clothes. The robbers left each merchant with nothing but a small loin-cloth, barely a span in width and a cubit in length.
The successful robbery filled the three thieves with arrogance. They seated themselves like kings on the grass, placing their weapons on the ground beside them, convinced they had thoroughly intimidated the ten merchants.
“Now dance for us before you return home,” they commanded, not yet satisfied with their humiliation of the merchants.
The merchants were devastated. They had lost everything except their loin-cloths, and now these cruel robbers wanted to further humiliate them by making them dance. Among the ten merchants was one particularly clever man. As he prepared to lead the dance, he carefully observed their situation—the robbers’ proud posture, their weapons carelessly set aside, and his nine dejected companions.
As was customary, the leader began to sing while the others kept time with their hands and feet. He sang:
“We are enty men,
They are erith men:
If each erith man,
Surround eno man,
Eno man remains.
Tâ, tai, tôm, tadingana.“
The uneducated robbers thought this was merely a traditional song. They didn’t realize that the merchants used a special trade language when discussing business in front of customers—a code that allowed them to communicate secretly.
In this secret language, “enty” meant “ten,” “erith” meant “three,” and “eno” meant “one.” The clever merchant was actually telling his companions: “We are ten men, they are three men. If three of us surround each robber, one man will remain free.”
The leader began singing from a distance and repeated the song twice as he and his companions gradually approached the robbers. His fellow merchants, trained in the same trade language, immediately understood his plan.
The three thieves, proud of their victory and completely unaware of the merchants’ intentions, sat chewing betel and tobacco, enjoying their moment of triumph.
When the song was sung for the third time, just as the leader finished singing “Tâ tai tôm” and before “tadingana” left his lips, the merchants sprang into action. They quickly divided into three groups of three, and each group pounced upon one of the robbers. The remaining merchant—the clever leader—tore a large piece of cloth into long strips and used them to bind the robbers’ hands and feet.
The tables had turned completely. Now the three robbers lay helpless on the ground, rolling about like sacks of rice. The ten merchants reclaimed all their property and armed themselves with the swords and cudgels that had been used against them.
When they finally reached their village, they often entertained their friends and relatives by telling the story of how cleverness and cooperation had overcome brute force, and how pride had indeed gone before a fall.
This tale reminds us that intelligence can triumph over physical strength, and that cooperation can overcome seemingly impossible odds. It also warns against the dangers of arrogance and underestimating others—a lesson the three robbers learned too late.
