Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta was reigning Benares, the future Buddha was born in a minister's family; when he grew up, he became the king's adviser in things temporal and spiritual. Brahmadatta was very talkative; while he was speaking, others had no opportunity to say a word. The future Buddha was constantly seeking some means of curing the king of his talkativeness.

At that time there was a tortoise which lived in a pond in the Himalayan mountains. Two young wild ducks who came to feed there made friends with him. One day, when they had become very intimate with him, they said to the tortoise, "Friend tortoise, the place where we live is a beautiful spot. Will you come there with us?"

"But how can I get there?"

"We can take you, but only if you hold your tongue and say nothing to anybody."

"Oh, that I can do. Take me with you."

So the birds made the tortoise bite and hold a stick, and then they took the two ends in their beaks and flew up into the air.

Seeing him thus carried by the ducks, some villagers called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a tortoise along on a stick!"

Whereupon the tortoise opened his mouth to say, "If my friends choose to carry me, what is that to you, you wretched slaves?" So just as the swift flight of the wild ducks had brought him over the king's palace in the city of Benares, he fell in the open courtyard and split in two!

The king, taking the future Buddha, went to the place, surrounded by his courtiers and asked the Bodisat, "Teacher, how has it possible that he has fallen here?"

The future Buddha thought to himself, "For long I have been wishing to admonish the king, now I have the means of doing it. This tortoise must have made friends with the wild ducks; and they must have made him bite hold of the stick, and have flown up into the air to take him to the hills. But he, being unable to hold his tongue when he hears anyone else talk, must have wanted to say something and let go of the stick; and so must have fallen down from the sky, and thus lost his life."

He said, "Truly, oh king, those who are called chatterboxes -- people whose words have no end -- come to grief like this.

The king saw that the Bodisat was referring to himself, and said, "Oh teacher, are you speaking of us?"

So the Bodisat spoke openly and said, "Oh great king, be it you, or be it any other, whoever talks beyond measure meets with some mishap like this."

And the king henceforth restrained himself and became a man of few words.