Original Text
Two shepherd boys entered a mountain and came upon a wolf's den, where they discovered two wolf cubs inside. After consulting together, they each seized one cub. Then each climbed a separate tree, the two trees being about several tens of paces apart. Before long, the mother wolf returned and, entering the den, found the cubs missing, immediately showing signs of great distress. At that moment, one boy on his tree twisted the cub's paws and ears, deliberately making it yelp. The mother wolf, hearing the sound, looked up and, maddened, rushed straight to the base of that tree, howling and clawing at the trunk in an attempt to climb. Meanwhile, the other boy on the other tree made his cub cry out loudly. The mother wolf ceased her howling, looked all around, and spied the cub on that tree; abandoning the first, she dashed to the second tree, running and howling as before. Then the cub on the first tree cried out again, and the mother wolf turned and rushed back. Without ceasing her howls and without pausing in her running, she repeated this back and forth dozens of times, until her pace gradually slowed and her cries grew faint. At last, gasping for breath, she collapsed to the ground and lay motionless for a long while. The boys descended from their trees and found the mother wolf already dead.
Nowadays there is a kind of domineering fellow who glares fiercely, bristling with rage and gripping his sword as if ready to fight and devour his opponent, yet the one who offends him simply closes the door and walks away. The fellow shouts himself hoarse but finds no adversary—does he not feel elated and fancy himself a hero? Little does he know that this is merely the bluster of a beast, and people mock him deliberately for their own amusement.
Commentary
This chapter and "The Great Rat" can be read together for mutual reference, as both employ what might be called guerrilla tactics to overcome an adversary, though in "The Great Rat" it is a lion cat dealing with a huge rat, while in this chapter it is two shepherd boys dealing with an old wolf.
From the standpoint of humanity, especially in those days when wolf attacks were rampant, the shepherd boy did nothing wrong; by his cunning he eliminated a great wolf beyond his strength to confront directly, and indeed deserved praise. Yet employing the old wolf's maternal love to slay her cannot help but make one feel that there is also a cruelty inherent in human nature.