So strong is he that you can scarcely hope to conquer him in open war--yet snakes may crawl where men cannot walk.

Therefore, Prince, let your part be that of a snake.

Do you send an embassy to the king, your brother and say to him:-- "'My brother, you have been preferred before me and set up to be king in my place, and because of this my heart is bitter, so bitter that I have gathered my strength to make war upon you.

Yet, at the last, I have taken another council, bethinking me that, if we fight, in the end it may chance that neither of us will be left alive to rule, and that the people also will be brought to nothing.

To the north there lies a good country and a wide, where but few men live, and thither I would go, setting the mountains and the river between us; for there, far beyond your borders, I also can be a king.