Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend

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Ae­sop’s Fa­bles Trans­lat­ed by George Fyler Townsend

The Wolf and the Lamb WOLF, meet­ing with a Lamb astray from the fold, re­solved not to lay vi­olent hands on him, but to find some plea to jus­ti­fy to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus ad­dressed him: “Sir­rah, last year you gross­ly in­sult­ed me.” “In­deed,” bleat­ed the Lamb in a mourn­ful tone of voice, “I was not then born.” Then said the Wolf, “You feed in my pas­ture.” “No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tast­ed grass.” Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.” “No,” ex­claimed the Lamb, “I nev­er yet drank wa­ter, for as yet my moth­er’s milk is both food and drink to me.” Up­on which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, say­ing, “Well! I won’t re­main sup­per­less, even though you re­fute ev­ery one of my im­pu­ta­tions.” The tyrant will al­ways find a pre­text for his tyran­ny.

The Bat and the Weasels A BAT who fell up­on the ground and was caught by a Weasel plead­ed to be spared his life. The Weasel re­fused, say­ing that he was by na­ture the en­emy of all birds. The Bat as­sured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Short­ly af­ter­wards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by an­oth­er Weasel, whom he like­wise en­treat­ed not to eat him. The Weasel said that he had a spe­cial hos­til­ity to mice. The Bat as­sured him that he was not a mouse, but a bat, and thus a sec­ond time es­caped. It is wise to turn cir­cum­stances to good ac­count.

The Ass and the Grasshop­per AN ASS hav­ing heard some Grasshop­pers chirp­ing, was high­ly en­chant­ed; and, de­sir­ing to pos­sess the same charms of melody, de­mand­ed what sort of food they lived on to give them such beau­ti­ful voic­es. They replied, “The dew.” The Ass re­solved that he would live on­ly up­on dew, and in a short time died of hunger.

The Li­on and the Mouse A LI­ON was awak­ened from sleep by a Mouse run­ning over his face. Ris­ing up an­gri­ly, he caught him and was about to kill him, when the Mouse piteous­ly en­treat­ed, say­ing: “If you would on­ly spare my life, I would be sure to re­pay your kind­ness.” The Li­on laughed and let him go. It hap­pened short­ly af­ter this that the Li­on was caught by some hunters, who bound him by st ropes to the ground. The Mouse, rec­og­niz­ing his roar, came gnawed the rope with his teeth, and set him free, ex­claim “You ridiculed the idea of my ev­er be­ing able to help you, ex­pect­ing to re­ceive from me any re­pay­ment of your fa­vor; I now you know that it is pos­si­ble for even a Mouse to con ben­efits on a Li­on.”

The Char­coal-​Burn­er and the Fuller A CHAR­COAL-​BURN­ER car­ried on his trade in his own house. One day he met a friend, a Fuller, and en­treat­ed him to come and live with him, say­ing that they should be far bet­ter neigh­bors and that their house­keep­ing ex­pens­es would be less­ened. The Fuller replied, “The ar­range­ment is im­pos­si­ble as far as I am con­cerned, for what­ev­er I should whiten, you would im­me­di­ate­ly black­en again with your char­coal.” Like will draw like.

The Fa­ther and His Sons A FA­THER had a fam­ily of sons who were per­pet­ual­ly quar­rel­ing among them­selves. When he failed to heal their dis­putes by his ex­hor­ta­tions, he de­ter­mined to give them a prac­ti­cal il­lus­tra­tion of the evils of dis­union; and for this pur­pose he one day told them to bring him a bun­dle of sticks. When they had done so, he placed the fag­got in­to the hands of each of them in suc­ces­sion, and or­dered them to break it in pieces. They tried with all their strength, and were not able to do it. He next opened the fag­got, took the sticks sep­arate­ly, one by one, and again put them in­to his sons’ hands, up­on which they broke them eas­ily. He then ad­dressed them in these words: “My sons, if you are of one mind, and unite to as­sist each oth­er, you will be as this fag­got, un­in­jured by all the at­tempts of your en­emies; but if you are di­vid­ed among your­selves, you will be bro­ken as eas­ily as these sticks.”

The Boy Hunt­ing Lo­custs A BOY was hunt­ing for lo­custs. He had caught a good­ly num­ber, when he saw a Scor­pi­on, and mis­tak­ing him for a lo­cust, reached out his hand to take him. The Scor­pi­on, show­ing his sting, said: If you had but touched me, my friend, you would have lost me, and all your lo­custs too!”

The Cock and the Jew­el A COCK, scratch­ing for food for him­self and his hens, found a pre­cious stone and ex­claimed: “If your own­er had found thee, and not I, he would have tak­en thee up, and have set thee in thy first es­tate; but I have found thee for no pur­pose. I would rather have one bar­ley­corn than all the jew­els in the world.”

The King­dom of the Li­on THE BEASTS of the field and for­est had a Li­on as their king. He was nei­ther wrath­ful, cru­el, nor tyran­ni­cal, but just and gen­tle as a king could be. Dur­ing his reign he made a roy­al procla­ma­tion for a gen­er­al as­sem­bly of all the birds and beasts, and drew up con­di­tions for a uni­ver­sal league, in which the Wolf and the Lamb, the Pan­ther and the Kid, the Tiger and the Stag, the Dog and the Hare, should live to­geth­er in per­fect peace and ami­ty. The Hare said, “Oh, how I have longed to see this day, in which the weak shall take their place with im­puni­ty by the side of the strong.” And af­ter the Hare said this, he ran for his life.

The Wolf and the Crane A WOLF who had a bone stuck in his throat hired a Crane, for a large sum, to put her head in­to his mouth and draw out the bone. When the Crane had ex­tract­ed the bone and de­mand­ed the promised pay­ment, the Wolf, grin­ning and grind­ing his teeth, ex­claimed: “Why, you have sure­ly al­ready had a suf­fi­cient rec­om­pense, in hav­ing been per­mit­ted to draw out your head in safe­ty from the mouth and jaws of a wolf.” In serv­ing the wicked, ex­pect no re­ward, and be thank­ful if you es­cape in­jury for your pains.

The Fish­er­man Pip­ing A FISH­ER­MAN skilled in mu­sic took his flute and his nets to the seashore. Stand­ing on a pro­ject­ing rock, he played sev­er­al tunes in the hope that the fish, at­tract­ed by his melody, would of their own ac­cord dance in­to his net, which he had placed be­low. At last, hav­ing long wait­ed in vain, he laid aside his flute, and cast­ing his net in­to the sea, made an ex­cel­lent haul of fish. When he saw them leap­ing about in the net up­on the rock he said: “O you most per­verse crea­tures, when I piped you would not dance, but now that I have ceased you do so mer­ri­ly.”

Her­cules and the Wag­oner A CARTER was driv­ing a wag­on along a coun­try lane, when the wheels sank down deep in­to a rut. The rus­tic driv­er, stu­pe­fied and aghast, stood look­ing at the wag­on, and did noth­ing but ut­ter loud cries to Her­cules to come and help him. Her­cules, it is said, ap­peared and thus ad­dressed him: “Put your shoul­ders to the wheels, my man. Goad on your bul­locks, and nev­er more pray to me for help, un­til you have done your best to help your­self, or de­pend up­on it you will hence­forth pray in vain.” Self-​help is the best help.

The Ants and the Grasshop­per THE ANTS were spend­ing a fine win­ter’s day dry­ing grain col­lect­ed in the sum­mer­time. A Grasshop­per, per­ish­ing with famine, passed by and earnest­ly begged for a lit­tle food. The Ants in­quired of him, “Why did you not trea­sure up food dur­ing the sum­mer?’ He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in de­ri­sion: “If you were fool­ish enough to sing all the sum­mer, you must dance sup­per­less to bed in the win­ter.”

The Trav­el­er and His Dog A TRAV­EL­ER about to set out on a jour­ney saw his Dog stand at the door stretch­ing him­self. He asked him sharply: “Why do you stand there gap­ing? Ev­ery­thing is ready but you, so come with me in­stant­ly.” The Dog, wag­ging his tail, replied: “O, mas­ter! I am quite ready; it is you for whom I am wait­ing.” The loi­ter­er of­ten blames de­lay on his more ac­tive friend.

The Dog and the Shad­ow A DOG, cross­ing a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shad­ow in the wa­ter and took it for that of an­oth­er Dog, with a piece of meat dou­ble his own in size. He im­me­di­ate­ly let go of his own, and fierce­ly at­tacked the oth­er Dog to get his larg­er piece from him. He thus lost both: that which he grasped at in the wa­ter, be­cause it was a shad­ow; and his own, be­cause the stream swept it away.

The Mole and His Moth­er A MOLE, a crea­ture blind from birth, once said to his Moth­er: “I am sure than I can see, Moth­er!” In the de­sire to prove to him his mis­take, his Moth­er placed be­fore him a few grains of frank­in­cense, and asked, “What is it?’ The young Mole said, “It is a peb­ble.” His Moth­er ex­claimed: “My son, I am afraid that you are not on­ly blind, but that you have lost your sense of smell.

The Herds­man and the Lost Bull A HERDS­MAN tend­ing his flock in a for­est lost a Bull-​calf from the fold. Af­ter a long and fruit­less search, he made a vow that, if he could on­ly dis­cov­er the thief who had stolen the Calf, he would of­fer a lamb in sac­ri­fice to Her­mes, Pan, and the Guardian Deities of the for­est. Not long af­ter­wards, as he as­cend­ed a small hillock, he saw at its foot a Li­on feed­ing on the Calf. Ter­ri­fied at the sight, he lift­ed his eyes and his hands to heav­en, and said: “Just now I vowed to of­fer a lamb to the Guardian Deities of the for­est if I could on­ly find out who had robbed me; but now that I have dis­cov­ered the thief, I would will­ing­ly add a full-​grown Bull to the Calf I have lost, if I may on­ly se­cure my own es­cape from him in safe­ty.”

The Hare and the Tor­toise A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tor­toise, who replied, laugh­ing: “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.” The Hare, be­liev­ing her as­ser­tion to be sim­ply im­pos­si­ble, as­sent­ed to the pro­pos­al; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day ap­point­ed for the race the two start­ed to­geth­er. The Tor­toise nev­er for a mo­ment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, ly­ing down by the way­side, fell fast asleep. At last wak­ing up, and mov­ing as fast as he could, he saw the Tor­toise had reached the goal, and was com­fort­ably doz­ing af­ter her fa­tigue. Slow but steady wins the race.

The Pomegranate, Ap­ple-​Tree, and Bram­ble THE POMEGRANATE and Ap­ple-​Tree dis­put­ed as to which was the most beau­ti­ful. When their strife was at its height, a Bram­ble from the neigh­bor­ing hedge lift­ed up its voice, and said in a boast­ful tone: “Pray, my dear friends, in my pres­ence at least cease from such vain dis­put­ings.”

The Farmer and the Stork A FARMER placed nets on his new­ly-​sown plow­lands and caught a num­ber of Cranes, which came to pick up his seed. With them he trapped a Stork that had frac­tured his leg in the net and was earnest­ly be­seech­ing the Farmer to spare his life. “Pray save me, Mas­ter,” he said, “and let me go free this once. My bro­ken limb should ex­cite your pity. Be­sides, I am no Crane, I am a Stork, a bird of ex­cel­lent char­ac­ter; and see how I love and slave for my fa­ther and moth­er. Look too, at my feath­ers– they are not the least like those of a Crane.” The Farmer laughed aloud and said, “It may be all as you say, I on­ly know this: I have tak­en you with these rob­bers, the Cranes, and you must die in their com­pa­ny.” Birds of a feath­er flock to­geth­er.

The Farmer and the Snake ONE WIN­TER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had com­pas­sion on it, and tak­ing it up, placed it in his bo­som. The Snake was quick­ly re­vived by the warmth, and re­sum­ing its nat­ural in­stincts, bit its bene­fac­tor, in­flict­ing on him a mor­tal wound. “Oh,” cried the Farmer with his last breath, “I am right­ly served for pity­ing a scoundrel.” The great­est kind­ness will not bind the un­grate­ful.

The Fawn and His Moth­er A YOUNG FAWN once said to his Moth­er, “You are larg­er than a dog, and swifter, and more used to run­ning, and you have your horns as a de­fense; why, then, O Moth­er! do the hounds fright­en you so?” She smiled, and said: “I know full well, my son, that all you say is true. I have the ad­van­tages you men­tion, but when I hear even the bark of a sin­gle dog I feel ready to faint, and fly away as fast as I can.” No ar­gu­ments will give courage to the cow­ard.

The Bear and the Fox A BEAR boast­ed very much of his phi­lan­thropy, say­ing that of all an­imals he was the most ten­der in his re­gard for man, for he had such re­spect for him that he would not even touch his dead body. A Fox hear­ing these words said with a smile to the Bear, “Oh! that you would eat the dead and not the liv­ing.”

The Swal­low and the Crow THE SWAL­LOW and the Crow had a con­tention about their plumage. The Crow put an end to the dis­pute by say­ing, “Your feath­ers are all very well in the spring, but mine pro­tect me against the win­ter.” Fair weath­er friends are not worth much.

The Moun­tain in La­bor A MOUN­TAIN was once great­ly ag­itat­ed. Loud groans and nois­es were heard, and crowds of peo­ple came from all parts to see what was the mat­ter. While they were as­sem­bled in anx­ious ex­pec­ta­tion of some ter­ri­ble calami­ty, out came a Mouse. Don’t make much ado about noth­ing.

The Ass, the Fox, and the Li­on THE ASS and the Fox, hav­ing en­tered in­to part­ner­ship to­geth­er for their mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion, went out in­to the for­est to hunt. They had not pro­ceed­ed far when they met a Li­on. The Fox, see­ing im­mi­nent dan­ger, ap­proached the Li­on and promised to con­trive for him the cap­ture of the Ass if the Li­on would pledge his word not to harm the Fox. Then, up­on as­sur­ing the Ass that he would not be in­jured, the Fox led him to a deep pit and ar­ranged that he should fall in­to it. The Li­on, see­ing that the Ass was se­cured, im­me­di­ate­ly clutched the Fox, and at­tacked the Ass at his leisure.

The Tor­toise and the Ea­gle

A TOR­TOISE, lazi­ly bask­ing in the sun, com­plained to the sea-​birds of her hard fate, that no one would teach her to fly. An Ea­gle, hov­er­ing near, heard her lamen­ta­tion and de­mand­ed what re­ward she would give him if he would take her aloft and float her in the air. “I will give you,” she said, “all the rich­es of the Red Sea.” “I will teach you to fly then,” said the Ea­gle; and tak­ing her up in his talons he car­ried her al­most to the clouds sud­den­ly he let her go, and she fell on a lofty moun­tain, dash­ing her shell to pieces. The Tor­toise ex­claimed in the mo­ment of death: “I have de­served my present fate; for what had I to do with wings and clouds, who can with dif­fi­cul­ty move about on the earth?’ If men had all they wished, they would be of­ten ru­ined.

The Flies and the Hon­ey-​Pot A NUM­BER of Flies were at­tract­ed to a jar of hon­ey which had been over­turned in a house­keep­er’s room, and plac­ing their feet in it, ate greed­ily. Their feet, how­ev­er, be­came so smeared with the hon­ey that they could not use their wings, nor re­lease them­selves, and were suf­fo­cat­ed. Just as they were ex­pir­ing, they ex­claimed, “O fool­ish crea­tures that we are, for the sake of a lit­tle plea­sure we have de­stroyed our­selves.” Plea­sure bought with pains, hurts.

The Man and the Li­on A MAN and a Li­on trav­eled to­geth­er through the for­est. They soon be­gan to boast of their re­spec­tive su­pe­ri­or­ity to each oth­er in strength and prowess. As they were dis­put­ing, they passed a stat­ue carved in stone, which rep­re­sent­ed “a Li­on stran­gled by a Man.” The trav­el­er point­ed to it and said: “See there! How strong we are, and how we pre­vail over even the king of beasts.” The Li­on replied: “This stat­ue was made by one of you men. If we Li­ons knew how to erect stat­ues, you would see the Man placed un­der the paw of the Li­on.” One sto­ry is good, till an­oth­er is told.

The Farmer and the Cranes SOME CRANES made their feed­ing grounds on some plow­lands new­ly sown with wheat. For a long time the Farmer, bran­dish­ing an emp­ty sling, chased them away by the ter­ror he in­spired; but when the birds found that the sling was on­ly swung in the air, they ceased to take any no­tice of it and would not move. The Farmer, on see­ing this, charged his sling with stones, and killed a great num­ber. The re­main­ing birds at once for­sook his fields, cry­ing to each oth­er, “It is time for us to be off to Liliput: for this man is no longer con­tent to scare us, but be­gins to show us in earnest what he can do.” If words suf­fice not, blows must fol­low.

The Dog in the Manger A DOG lay in a manger, and by his growl­ing and snap­ping pre­vent­ed the ox­en from eat­ing the hay which had been placed for them. “What a self­ish Dog!” said one of them to his com­pan­ions; “he can­not eat the hay him­self, and yet re­fus­es to al­low those to eat who can.”

The Fox and the Goat A FOX one day fell in­to a deep well and could find no means of es­cape. A Goat, over­come with thirst, came to the same well, and see­ing the Fox, in­quired if the wa­ter was good. Con­ceal­ing his sad plight un­der a mer­ry guise, the Fox in­dulged in a lav­ish praise of the wa­ter, say­ing it was ex­cel­lent be­yond mea­sure, and en­cour­ag­ing him to de­scend. The Goat, mind­ful on­ly of his thirst, thought­less­ly jumped down, but just as he drank, the Fox in­formed him of the dif­fi­cul­ty they were both in and sug­gest­ed a scheme for their com­mon es­cape. “If,” said he, “you will place your forefeet up­on the wall and bend your head, I will run up your back and es­cape, and will help you out af­ter­wards.” The Goat read­ily as­sent­ed and the Fox leaped up­on his back. Steady­ing him­self with the Goat’s horns, he safe­ly reached the mouth of the well and made off as fast as he could. When the Goat up­braid­ed him for break­ing his promise, he turned around and cried out, “You fool­ish old fel­low! If you had as many brains in your head as you have hairs in your beard, you would nev­er have gone down be­fore you had in­spect­ed the way up, nor have ex­posed your­self to dan­gers from which you had no means of es­cape.” Look be­fore you leap.

The Bear and the Two Trav­el­ers TWO MEN were trav­el­ing to­geth­er, when a Bear sud­den­ly met them on their path. One of them climbed up quick­ly in­to a tree and con­cealed him­self in the branch­es. The oth­er, see­ing that he must be at­tacked, fell flat on the ground, and when the Bear came up and felt him with his snout, and smelt him all over, he held his breath, and feigned the ap­pear­ance of death as much as he could. The Bear soon left him, for it is said he will not touch a dead body. When he was quite gone, the oth­er Trav­el­er de­scend­ed from the tree, and joc­ular­ly in­quired of his friend what it was the Bear had whis­pered in his ear. “He gave me this ad­vice,” his com­pan­ion replied. “Nev­er trav­el with a friend who deserts you at the ap­proach of dan­ger.” Mis­for­tune tests the sin­cer­ity of friends.

The Ox­en and the Axle-​Trees A HEAVY WAG­ON was be­ing dragged along a coun­try lane by a team of Ox­en. The Axle-​trees groaned and creaked ter­ri­bly; where­upon the Ox­en, turn­ing round, thus ad­dressed the wheels: “Hul­lo there! why do you make so much noise? We bear all the la­bor, and we, not you, ought to cry out.” Those who suf­fer most cry out the least.

The Thirsty Pi­geon A PI­GEON, op­pressed by ex­ces­sive thirst, saw a gob­let of wa­ter paint­ed on a sign­board. Not sup­pos­ing it to be on­ly a pic­ture, she flew to­wards it with a loud whir and un­wit­ting­ly dashed against the sign­board, jar­ring her­self ter­ri­bly. Hav­ing bro­ken her wings by the blow, she fell to the ground, and was caught by one of the by­standers. Zeal should not out­run dis­cre­tion.

The Raven and the Swan A RAVEN saw a Swan and de­sired to se­cure for him­self the same beau­ti­ful plumage. Sup­pos­ing that the Swan’s splen­did white col­or arose from his wash­ing in the wa­ter in which he swam, the Raven left the al­tars in the neigh­bor­hood where he picked up his liv­ing, and took up res­idence in the lakes and pools. But cleans­ing his feath­ers as of­ten as he would, he could not change their col­or, while through want of food he per­ished. Change of habit can­not al­ter Na­ture.

The Goat and the Goatherd A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock. He whis­tled and sound­ed his horn in vain; the strag­gler paid no at­ten­tion to the sum­mons. At last the Goatherd threw a stone, and break­ing its horn, begged the Goat not to tell his mas­ter. The Goat replied, “Why, you sil­ly fel­low, the horn will speak though I be silent.” Do not at­tempt to hide things which can­not be hid.

The Miser A MISER sold all that he had and bought a lump of gold, which he buried in a hole in the ground by the side of an old wall and went to look at dai­ly. One of his work­men ob­served his fre­quent vis­its to the spot and de­cid­ed to watch his move­ments. He soon dis­cov­ered the se­cret of the hid­den trea­sure, and dig­ging down, came to the lump of gold, and stole it. The Miser, on his next vis­it, found the hole emp­ty and be­gan to tear his hair and to make loud lamen­ta­tions. A neigh­bor, see­ing him over­come with grief and learn­ing the cause, said, “Pray do not grieve so; but go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fan­cy that the gold is still ly­ing there. It will do you quite the same ser­vice; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did not make the slight­est use of it.”

The Sick Li­on A LI­ON, un­able from old age and in­fir­mi­ties to pro­vide him­self with food by force, re­solved to do so by ar­ti­fice. He re­turned to his den, and ly­ing down there, pre­tend­ed to be sick, tak­ing care that his sick­ness should be pub­licly known. The beasts ex­pressed their sor­row, and came one by one to his den, where the Li­on de­voured them. Af­ter many of the beasts had thus dis­ap­peared, the Fox dis­cov­ered the trick and pre­sent­ing him­self to the Li­on, stood on the out­side of the cave, at a re­spect­ful dis­tance, and asked him how he was. “I am very mid­dling,” replied the Li­on, “but why do you stand with­out? Pray en­ter with­in to talk with me.” “No, thank you,” said the Fox. “I no­tice that there are many prints of feet en­ter­ing your cave, but I see no trace of any re­turn­ing.” He is wise who is warned by the mis­for­tunes of oth­ers.

The Horse and Groom A GROOM used to spend whole days in cur­rycomb­ing and rub­bing down his Horse, but at the same time stole his oats and sold them for his own prof­it. “Alas!” said the Horse, “if you re­al­ly wish me to be in good con­di­tion, you should groom me less, and feed me more.”

The Ass and the Lap­dog A MAN had an Ass, and a Mal­tese Lap­dog, a very great beau­ty. The Ass was left in a sta­ble and had plen­ty of oats and hay to eat, just as any oth­er Ass would. The Lap­dog knew many tricks and was a great fa­vorite with his mas­ter, who of­ten fon­dled him and sel­dom went out to dine with­out bring­ing him home some tid­bit to eat. The Ass, on the con­trary, had much work to do in grind­ing the corn-​mill and in car­ry­ing wood from the for­est or bur­dens from the farm. He of­ten lament­ed his own hard fate and con­trast­ed it with the lux­ury and idle­ness of the Lap­dog, till at last one day he broke his cords and hal­ter, and gal­loped in­to his mas­ter’s house, kick­ing up his heels with­out mea­sure, and frisk­ing and fawn­ing as well as he could. He next tried to jump about his mas­ter as he had seen the Lap­dog do, but he broke the ta­ble and smashed all the dish­es up­on it to atoms. He then at­tempt­ed to lick his mas­ter, and jumped up­on his back. The ser­vants, hear­ing the strange hub­bub and per­ceiv­ing the dan­ger of their mas­ter, quick­ly re­lieved him, and drove out the Ass to his sta­ble with kicks and clubs and cuffs. The Ass, as he re­turned to his stall beat­en near­ly to death, thus lament­ed: “I have brought it all on my­self! Why could I not have been con­tent­ed to la­bor with my com­pan­ions, and not wish to be idle all the day like that use­less lit­tle Lap­dog!”

The Li­oness A CON­TRO­VER­SY pre­vailed among the beasts of the field as to which of the an­imals de­served the most cred­it for pro­duc­ing the great­est num­ber of whelps at a birth. They rushed clam­orous­ly in­to the pres­ence of the Li­oness and de­mand­ed of her the set­tle­ment of the dis­pute. “And you,” they said, “how many sons have you at a birth?’ The Li­oness laughed at them, and said: “Why! I have on­ly one; but that one is al­to­geth­er a thor­ough­bred Li­on.” The val­ue is in the worth, not in the num­ber.

The Boast­ing Trav­el­er A MAN who had trav­eled in for­eign lands boast­ed very much, on re­turn­ing to his own coun­try, of the many won­der­ful and hero­ic feats he had per­formed in the dif­fer­ent places he had vis­it­ed. Among oth­er things, he said that when he was at Rhodes he had leaped to such a dis­tance that no man of his day could leap any­where near him as to that, there were in Rhodes many per­sons who saw him do it and whom he could call as wit­ness­es. One of the by­standers in­ter­rupt­ed him, say­ing: “Now, my good man, if this be all true there is no need of wit­ness­es. Sup­pose this to be Rhodes, and leap for us.”

The Cat and the Cock A CAT caught a Cock, and pon­dered how he might find a rea­son­able ex­cuse for eat­ing him. He ac­cused him of be­ing a nui­sance to men by crow­ing in the night­time and not per­mit­ting them to sleep. The Cock de­fend­ed him­self by say­ing that he did this for the ben­efit of men, that they might rise in time for their labors. The Cat replied, “Al­though you abound in specious apolo­gies, I shall not re­main sup­per­less”; and he made a meal of him.

The Piglet, the Sheep, and the Goat A YOUNG PIG was shut up in a fold-​yard with a Goat and a Sheep. On one oc­ca­sion when the shep­herd laid hold of him, he grunt­ed and squeaked and re­sist­ed vi­olent­ly. The Sheep and the Goat com­plained of his dis­tress­ing cries, say­ing, “He of­ten han­dles us, and we do not cry out.” To this the Pig replied, “Your han­dling and mine are very dif­fer­ent things. He catch­es you on­ly for your wool, or your milk, but he lays hold on me for my very life.”

The Boy and the Fil­berts A BOY put his hand in­to a pitch­er full of fil­berts. He grasped as many as he could pos­si­bly hold, but when he tried to pull out his hand, he was pre­vent­ed from do­ing so by the neck of the pitch­er. Un­will­ing to lose his fil­berts, and yet un­able to with­draw his hand, he burst in­to tears and bit­ter­ly lament­ed his dis­ap­point­ment. A by­stander said to him, “Be sat­is­fied with half the quan­ti­ty, and you will read­ily draw out your hand.” Do not at­tempt too much at once.

The Li­on in Love A LI­ON de­mand­ed the daugh­ter of a wood­cut­ter in mar­riage. The Fa­ther, un­will­ing to grant, and yet afraid to refuse his re­quest, hit up­on this ex­pe­di­ent to rid him­self of his im­por­tu­ni­ties. He ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to ac­cept the Li­on as the suit­or of his daugh­ter on one con­di­tion: that he should al­low him to ex­tract his teeth, and cut off his claws, as his daugh­ter was fear­ful­ly afraid of both. The Li­on cheer­ful­ly as­sent­ed to the pro­pos­al. But when the tooth­less, claw­less Li­on re­turned to re­peat his re­quest, the Wood­man, no longer afraid, set up­on him with his club, and drove him away in­to the for­est.

The La­bor­er and the Snake A SNAKE, hav­ing made his hole close to the porch of a cot­tage, in­flict­ed a mor­tal bite on the Cot­tager’s in­fant son. Griev­ing over his loss, the Fa­ther re­solved to kill the Snake. The next day, when it came out of its hole for food, he took up his axe, but by swing­ing too hasti­ly, missed its head and cut off on­ly the end of its tail. Af­ter some time the Cot­tager, afraid that the Snake would bite him al­so, en­deav­ored to make peace, and placed some bread and salt in the hole. The Snake, slight­ly hiss­ing, said: “There can hence­forth be no peace be­tween us; for when­ev­er I see you I shall re­mem­ber the loss of my tail, and when­ev­er you see me you will be think­ing of the death of your son.” No one tru­ly for­gets in­juries in the pres­ence of him who caused the in­jury.

The Wolf in Sheep’s Cloth­ing ONCE UP­ON A TIME a Wolf re­solved to dis­guise his ap­pear­ance in or­der to se­cure food more eas­ily. En­cased in the skin of a sheep, he pas­tured with the flock de­ceiv­ing the shep­herd by his cos­tume. In the evening he was shut up by the shep­herd in the fold; the gate was closed, and the en­trance made thor­ough­ly se­cure. But the shep­herd, re­turn­ing to the fold dur­ing the night to ob­tain meat for the next day, mis­tak­en­ly caught up the Wolf in­stead of a sheep, and killed him in­stant­ly. Harm seek. harm find.

The Ass and the Mule A MULE­TEER set forth on a jour­ney, driv­ing be­fore him an Ass and a Mule, both well laden. The Ass, as long as he trav­eled along the plain, car­ried his load with ease, but when he be­gan to as­cend the steep path of the moun­tain, felt his load to be more than he could bear. He en­treat­ed his com­pan­ion to re­lieve him of a small por­tion, that he might car­ry home the rest; but the Mule paid no at­ten­tion to the re­quest. The Ass short­ly af­ter­wards fell down dead un­der his bur­den. Not know­ing what else to do in so wild a re­gion, the Mule­teer placed up­on the Mule the load car­ried by the Ass in ad­di­tion to his own, and at the top of all placed the hide of the Ass, af­ter he had skinned him. The Mule, groan­ing be­neath his heavy bur­den, said to him­self: “I am treat­ed ac­cord­ing to my deserts. If I had on­ly been will­ing to as­sist the Ass a lit­tle in his need, I should not now be bear­ing, to­geth­er with his bur­den, him­self as well.”

The Frogs Ask­ing for a King THE FROGS, grieved at hav­ing no es­tab­lished Ruler, sent am­bas­sadors to Jupiter en­treat­ing for a King. Per­ceiv­ing their sim­plic­ity, he cast down a huge log in­to the lake. The Frogs were ter­ri­fied at the splash oc­ca­sioned by its fall and hid them­selves in the depths of the pool. But as soon as they re­al­ized that the huge log was mo­tion­less, they swam again to the top of the wa­ter, dis­missed their fears, climbed up, and be­gan squat­ting on it in con­tempt. Af­ter some time they be­gan to think them­selves ill-​treat­ed in the ap­point­ment of so in­ert a Ruler, and sent a sec­ond dep­uta­tion to Jupiter to pray that he would set over them an­oth­er sovereign. He then gave them an Eel to gov­ern them. When the Frogs dis­cov­ered his easy good na­ture, they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still an­oth­er King. Jupiter, dis­pleased with all their com­plaints, sent a Heron, who preyed up­on the Frogs day by day till there were none left to croak up­on the lake.

The Boys and the Frogs SOME BOYS, play­ing near a pond, saw a num­ber of Frogs in the wa­ter and be­gan to pelt them with stones. They killed sev­er­al of them, when one of the Frogs, lift­ing his head out of the wa­ter, cried out: “Pray stop, my boys: what is sport to you, is death to us.”

The Sick Stag A SICK STAG lay down in a qui­et cor­ner of its pas­ture-​ground. His com­pan­ions came in great num­bers to in­quire af­ter his health, and each one helped him­self to a share of the food which had been placed for his use; so that he died, not from his sick­ness, but from the fail­ure of the means of liv­ing. Evil com­pan­ions bring more hurt than prof­it.

The Salt Mer­chant and His Ass A PED­DLER drove his Ass to the seashore to buy salt. His road home lay across a stream in­to which his Ass, mak­ing a false step, fell by ac­ci­dent and rose up again with his load con­sid­er­ably lighter, as the wa­ter melt­ed the sack. The Ped­dler re­traced his steps and re­filled his pan­niers with a larg­er quan­ti­ty of salt than be­fore. When he came again to the stream, the Ass fell down on pur­pose in the same spot, and, re­gain­ing his feet with the weight of his load much di­min­ished, brayed tri­umphant­ly as if he had ob­tained what he de­sired. The Ped­dler saw through his trick and drove him for the third time to the coast, where he bought a car­go of sponges in­stead of salt. The Ass, again play­ing the fool, fell down on pur­pose when he reached the stream, but the sponges be­came swollen with wa­ter, great­ly in­creas­ing his load. And thus his trick re­coiled on him, for he now car­ried on his back a dou­ble bur­den.

The Ox­en and the Butch­ers THE OX­EN once up­on a time sought to de­stroy the Butch­ers, who prac­ticed a trade de­struc­tive to their race. They as­sem­bled on a cer­tain day to car­ry out their pur­pose, and sharp­ened their horns for the con­test. But one of them who was ex­ceed­ing­ly old (for many a field had he plowed) thus spoke: “These Butch­ers, it is true, slaugh­ter us, but they do so with skill­ful hands, and with no un­nec­es­sary pain. If we get rid of them, we shall fall in­to the hands of un­skill­ful op­er­ators, and thus suf­fer a dou­ble death: for you may be as­sured, that though all the Butch­ers should per­ish, yet will men nev­er want beef.” Do not be in a hur­ry to change one evil for an­oth­er.

The Li­on, the Mouse, and the Fox A LI­ON, fa­tigued by the heat of a sum­mer’s day, fell fast asleep in his den. A Mouse ran over his mane and ears and woke him from his slum­bers. He rose up and shook him­self in great wrath, and searched ev­ery cor­ner of his den to find the Mouse. A Fox see­ing him said: “A fine Li­on you are, to be fright­ened of a Mouse.” “‘Tis not the Mouse I fear,” said the Li­on; “I re­sent his fa­mil­iar­ity and ill-​breed­ing.” Lit­tle lib­er­ties are great of­fens­es.

The Vain Jack­daw JUPITER DE­TER­MINED, it is said, to cre­ate a sovereign over the birds, and made procla­ma­tion that on a cer­tain day they should all present them­selves be­fore him, when he would him­self choose the most beau­ti­ful among them to be king. The Jack­daw, know­ing his own ug­li­ness, searched through the woods and fields, and col­lect­ed the feath­ers which had fall­en from the wings of his com­pan­ions, and stuck them in all parts of his body, hop­ing there­by to make him­self the most beau­ti­ful of all. When the ap­point­ed day ar­rived, and the birds had as­sem­bled be­fore Jupiter, the Jack­daw al­so made his ap­pear­ance in his many feath­ered fin­ery. But when Jupiter pro­posed to make him king be­cause of the beau­ty of his plumage, the birds in­dig­nant­ly protest­ed, and each plucked from him his own feath­ers, leav­ing the Jack­daw noth­ing but a Jack­daw.

The Goatherd and the Wild Goats A GOATHERD, driv­ing his flock from their pas­ture at even­tide, found some Wild Goats min­gled among them, and shut them up to­geth­er with his own for the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not take the herd to their usu­al feed­ing places, but was obliged to keep them in the fold. He gave his own goats just suf­fi­cient food to keep them alive, but fed the strangers more abun­dant­ly in the hope of en­tic­ing them to stay with him and of mak­ing them his own. When the thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scam­pered away as fast as they could to the moun­tains. The Goatherd scold­ed them for their in­grat­itude in leav­ing him, when dur­ing the storm he had tak­en more care of them than of his own herd. One of them, turn­ing about, said to him: “That is the very rea­son why we are so cau­tious; for if you yes­ter­day treat­ed us bet­ter than the Goats you have had so long, it is plain al­so that if oth­ers came af­ter us, you would in the same man­ner pre­fer them to our­selves.”

Old friends can­not with im­puni­ty be sac­ri­ficed for new ones.

The Mis­chievous Dog A DOG used to run up qui­et­ly to the heels of ev­ery­one he met, and to bite them with­out no­tice. His mas­ter sus­pend­ed a bell about his neck so that the Dog might give no­tice of his pres­ence wher­ev­er he went. Think­ing it a mark of dis­tinc­tion, the Dog grew proud of his bell and went tin­kling it all over the mar­ket­place. One day an old hound said to him: Why do you make such an ex­hi­bi­tion of your­self? That bell that you car­ry is not, be­lieve me, any or­der of mer­it, but on the con­trary a mark of dis­grace, a pub­lic no­tice to all men to avoid you as an ill man­nered dog.” No­to­ri­ety is of­ten mis­tak­en for fame.

The Fox Who Had Lost His Tail A FOX caught in a trap es­caped, but in so do­ing lost his tail. There­after, feel­ing his life a bur­den from the shame and ridicule to which he was ex­posed, he schemed to con­vince all the oth­er Fox­es that be­ing tail­less was much more at­trac­tive, thus mak­ing up for his own de­pri­va­tion. He as­sem­bled a good many Fox­es and pub­licly ad­vised them to cut off their tails, say­ing that they would not on­ly look much bet­ter with­out them, but that they would get rid of the weight of the brush, which was a very great in­con­ve­nience. One of them in­ter­rupt­ing him said, “If you had not your­self lost your tail, my friend, you would not thus coun­sel us.”

The Boy and the Net­tles A BOY was stung by a Net­tle. He ran home and told his Moth­er, say­ing, “Al­though it hurts me very much, I on­ly touched it gen­tly.” “That was just why it stung you,” said his Moth­er. “The next time you touch a Net­tle, grasp it bold­ly, and it will be soft as silk to your hand, and not in the least hurt you.” What­ev­er you do, do with all your might.

The Man and His Two Sweet­hearts A MID­DLE-​AGED MAN, whose hair had be­gun to turn gray, court­ed two wom­en at the same time. One of them was young, and the oth­er well ad­vanced in years. The el­der wom­an, ashamed to be court­ed by a man younger than her­self, made a point, when­ev­er her ad­mir­er vis­it­ed her, to pull out some por­tion of his black hairs. The younger, on the con­trary, not wish­ing to be­come the wife of an old man, was equal­ly zeal­ous in re­mov­ing ev­ery gray hair she could find. Thus it came to pass that be­tween them both he very soon found that he had not a hair left on his head. Those who seek to please ev­ery­body please no­body.

The As­tronomer AN AS­TRONOMER used to go out at night to ob­serve the stars. One evening, as he wan­dered through the sub­urbs with his whole at­ten­tion fixed on the sky, he fell ac­ci­den­tal­ly in­to a deep well. While he lament­ed and be­wailed his sores and bruis­es, and cried loud­ly for help, a neigh­bor ran to the well, and learn­ing what had hap­pened said: “Hark ye, old fel­low, why, in striv­ing to pry in­to what is in heav­en, do you not man­age to see what is on earth?’

The Wolves and the Sheep “WHY SHOULD there al­ways be this fear and slaugh­ter be­tween us?” said the Wolves to the Sheep. “Those evil-​dis­posed Dogs have much to an­swer for. They al­ways bark when­ev­er we ap­proach you and at­tack us be­fore we have done any harm. If you would on­ly dis­miss them from your heels, there might soon be treaties of peace and rec­on­cil­ia­tion be­tween us.” The Sheep, poor sil­ly crea­tures, were eas­ily be­guiled and dis­missed the Dogs, where­upon the Wolves de­stroyed the un­guard­ed flock at their own plea­sure.

The Old Wom­an and the Physi­cian AN OLD WOM­AN hav­ing lost the use of her eyes, called in a Physi­cian to heal them, and made this bar­gain with him in the pres­ence of wit­ness­es: that if he should cure her blind­ness, he should re­ceive from her a sum of mon­ey; but if her in­fir­mi­ty re­mained, she should give him noth­ing. This agree­ment be­ing made, the Physi­cian, time af­ter time, ap­plied his salve to her eyes, and on ev­ery vis­it took some­thing away, steal­ing all her prop­er­ty lit­tle by lit­tle. And when he had got all she had, he healed her and de­mand­ed the promised pay­ment. The Old Wom­an, when she re­cov­ered her sight and saw none of her goods in her house, would give him noth­ing. The Physi­cian in­sist­ed on his claim, and. as she still re­fused, sum­moned her be­fore the Judge. The Old Wom­an, stand­ing up in the Court, ar­gued: “This man here speaks the truth in what he says; for I did promise to give him a sum of mon­ey if I should re­cov­er my sight: but if I con­tin­ued blind, I was to give him noth­ing. Now he de­clares that I am healed. I on the con­trary af­firm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house var­ious chat­tels and valu­able goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blind­ness, I am not able to see a sin­gle thing in it.”

The Fight­ing Cocks and the Ea­gle TWO GAME COCKS were fierce­ly fight­ing for the mas­tery of the farm­yard. One at last put the oth­er to flight. The van­quished Cock skulked away and hid him­self in a qui­et cor­ner, while the con­queror, fly­ing up to a high wall, flapped his wings and crowed ex­ult­ing­ly with all his might. An Ea­gle sail­ing through the air pounced up­on him and car­ried him off in his talons. The van­quished Cock im­me­di­ate­ly came out of his cor­ner, and ruled hence­forth with undis­put­ed mas­tery. Pride goes be­fore de­struc­tion.

The Charg­er and the Miller A CHARG­ER, feel­ing the in­fir­mi­ties of age, was sent to work in a mill in­stead of go­ing out to bat­tle. But when he was com­pelled to grind in­stead of serv­ing in the wars, he be­wailed his change of for­tune and called to mind his for­mer state, say­ing, “Ah! Miller, I had in­deed to go cam­paign­ing be­fore, but I was barbed from counter to tail, and a man went along to groom me; and now I can­not un­der­stand what ailed me to pre­fer the mill be­fore the bat­tle.” “For­bear,” said the Miller to him, “harp­ing on what was of yore, for it is the com­mon lot of mor­tals to sus­tain the ups and downs of for­tune.”

The Fox and the Mon­key A MON­KEY once danced in an as­sem­bly of the Beasts, and so pleased them all by his per­for­mance that they elect­ed him their King. A Fox, en­vy­ing him the hon­or, dis­cov­ered a piece of meat ly­ing in a trap, and lead­ing the Mon­key to the place where it was, said that she had found a store, but had not used it, she had kept it for him as trea­sure trove of his king­dom, and coun­seled him to lay hold of it. The Mon­key ap­proached care­less­ly and was caught in the trap; and on his ac­cus­ing the Fox of pur­pose­ly lead­ing him in­to the snare, she replied, “O Mon­key, and are you, with such a mind as yours, go­ing to be King over the Beasts?”

The Horse and His Rid­er A HORSE SOL­DIER took the ut­most pains with his charg­er. As long as the war last­ed, he looked up­on him as his fel­low-​helper in all emer­gen­cies and fed him care­ful­ly with hay and corn. But when the war was over, he on­ly al­lowed him chaff to eat and made him car­ry heavy loads of wood, sub­ject­ing him to much slav­ish drudgery and ill-​treat­ment. War was again pro­claimed, how­ev­er, and when the trum­pet sum­moned him to his stan­dard, the Sol­dier put on his charg­er its mil­itary trap­pings, and mount­ed, be­ing clad in his heavy coat of mail. The Horse fell down straight­way un­der the weight, no longer equal to the bur­den, and said to his mas­ter, “You must now go to the war on foot, for you have trans­formed me from a Horse in­to an Ass; and how can you ex­pect that I can again turn in a mo­ment from an Ass to a Horse?’

The Bel­ly and the Mem­bers THE MEM­BERS of the Body re­belled against the Bel­ly, and said, “Why should we be per­pet­ual­ly en­gaged in ad­min­is­ter­ing to your wants, while you do noth­ing but take your rest, and en­joy your­self in lux­ury and self-​in­dul­gence?’ The Mem­bers car­ried out their re­solve and re­fused their as­sis­tance to the Bel­ly. The whole Body quick­ly be­came de­bil­itat­ed, and the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes, when too late, re­pent­ed of their fol­ly.

The Vine and the Goat A VINE was lux­uri­ant in the time of vin­tage with leaves and grapes. A Goat, pass­ing by, nib­bled its young ten­drils and its leaves. The Vine ad­dressed him and said: “Why do you thus in­jure me with­out a cause, and crop my leaves? Is there no young grass left? But I shall not have to wait long for my just re­venge; for if you now should crop my leaves, and cut me down to my root, I shall pro­vide the wine to pour over you when you are led as a vic­tim to the sac­ri­fice.”

Jupiter and the Mon­key JUPITER IS­SUED a procla­ma­tion to all the beasts of the for­est and promised a roy­al re­ward to the one whose off­spring should be deemed the hand­somest. The Mon­key came with the rest and pre­sent­ed, with all a moth­er’s ten­der­ness, a flat-​nosed, hair­less, ill-​fea­tured young Mon­key as a can­di­date for the promised re­ward. A gen­er­al laugh salut­ed her on the pre­sen­ta­tion of her son. She res­olute­ly said, “I know not whether Jupiter will al­lot the prize to my son, but this I do know, that he is at least in the eyes of me his moth­er, the dear­est, hand­somest, and most beau­ti­ful of all.”

The Wid­ow and Her Lit­tle Maid­ens A WID­OW who was fond of clean­ing had two lit­tle maid­ens to wait on her. She was in the habit of wak­ing them ear­ly in the morn­ing, at cock­crow. The maid­ens, ag­gra­vat­ed by such ex­ces­sive la­bor, re­solved to kill the cock who roused their mis­tress so ear­ly. When they had done this, they found that they had on­ly pre­pared for them­selves greater trou­bles, for their mis­tress, no longer hear­ing the hour from the cock, woke them up to their work in the mid­dle of the night.

The Shep­herd’s Boy and the Wolf A SHEP­HERD-​BOY, who watched a flock of sheep near a vil­lage, brought out the vil­lagers three or four times by cry­ing out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and when his neigh­bors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains. The Wolf, how­ev­er, did tru­ly come at last. The Shep­herd-​boy, now re­al­ly alarmed, shout­ed in an agony of ter­ror: “Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep”; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor ren­dered any as­sis­tance. The Wolf, hav­ing no cause of fear, at his leisure lac­er­at­ed or de­stroyed the whole flock. There is no be­liev­ing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

The Cat and the Birds A CAT, hear­ing that the Birds in a cer­tain aviary were ail­ing dressed him­self up as a physi­cian, and, tak­ing his cane and a bag of in­stru­ments be­com­ing his pro­fes­sion, went to call on them. He knocked at the door and in­quired of the in­mates how they all did, say­ing that if they were ill, he would be hap­py to pre­scribe for them and cure them. They replied, “We are all very well, and shall con­tin­ue so, if you will on­ly be good enough to go away, and leave us as we are.”

The Kid and the Wolf A KID stand­ing on the roof of a house, out of harm’s way, saw a Wolf pass­ing by and im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan to taunt and re­vile him. The Wolf, look­ing up, said, “Sir­rah! I hear thee: yet it is not thou who mock­est me, but the roof on which thou art stand­ing.” Time and place of­ten give the ad­van­tage to the weak over the strong.

The Ox and the Frog AN OX drink­ing at a pool trod on a brood of young frogs and crushed one of them to death. The Moth­er com­ing up, and miss­ing one of her sons, in­quired of his broth­ers what had be­come of him. “He is dead, dear Moth­er; for just now a very huge beast with four great feet came to the pool and crushed him to death with his cloven heel.” The Frog, puff­ing her­self out, in­quired, “if the beast was as big as that in size.” “Cease, Moth­er, to puff your­self out,” said her son, “and do not be an­gry; for you would, I as­sure you, soon­er burst than suc­cess­ful­ly im­itate the huge­ness of that mon­ster.”

The Shep­herd and the Wolf A SHEP­HERD once found the whelp of a Wolf and brought it up, and af­ter a while taught it to steal lambs from the neigh­bor­ing flocks. The Wolf, hav­ing shown him­self an apt pupil, said to the Shep­herd, “Since you have taught me to steal, you must keep a sharp look­out, or you will lose some of your own flock.”

The Fa­ther and His Two Daugh­ters A MAN had two daugh­ters, the one mar­ried to a gar­den­er, and the oth­er to a tile-​mak­er. Af­ter a time he went to the daugh­ter who had mar­ried the gar­den­er, and in­quired how she was and how all things went with her. She said, “All things are pros­per­ing with me, and I have on­ly one wish, that there may be a heavy fall of rain, in or­der that the plants may be well wa­tered.” Not long af­ter, he went to the daugh­ter who had mar­ried the tile­mak­er, and like­wise in­quired of her how she fared; she replied, “I want for noth­ing, and have on­ly one wish, that the dry weath­er may con­tin­ue, and the sun shine hot and bright, so that the bricks might be dried.” He said to her, “If your sis­ter wish­es for rain, and you for dry weath­er, with which of the two am I to join my wish­es?’

The Farmer and His Sons A FA­THER, be­ing on the point of death, wished to be sure that his sons would give the same at­ten­tion to his farm as he him­self had giv­en it. He called them to his bed­side and said, “My sons, there is a great trea­sure hid in one of my vine­yards.” The sons, af­ter his death, took their spades and mat­tocks and care­ful­ly dug over ev­ery por­tion of their land. They found no trea­sure, but the vines re­paid their la­bor by an ex­traor­di­nary and su­per­abun­dant crop.

The Crab and Its Moth­er A CRAB said to her son, “Why do you walk so one-​sid­ed, my child? It is far more be­com­ing to go straight for­ward.” The young Crab replied: “Quite true, dear Moth­er; and if you will show me the straight way, I will promise to walk in it.” The Moth­er tried in vain, and sub­mit­ted with­out re­mon­strance to the re­proof of her child. Ex­am­ple is more pow­er­ful than pre­cept.

The Heifer and the Ox A HEIFER saw an Ox hard at work har­nessed to a plow, and tor­ment­ed him with re­flec­tions on his un­hap­py fate in be­ing com­pelled to la­bor. Short­ly af­ter­wards, at the har­vest fes­ti­val, the own­er re­leased the Ox from his yoke, but bound the Heifer with cords and led him away to the al­tar to be slain in hon­or of the oc­ca­sion. The Ox saw what was be­ing done, and said with a smile to the Heifer: “For this you were al­lowed to live in idle­ness, be­cause you were present­ly to be sac­ri­ficed.”

The Swal­low, the Ser­pent, and the Court of Jus­tice A SWAL­LOW, re­turn­ing from abroad and es­pe­cial­ly fond of dwelling with men, built her­self a nest in the wall of a Court of Jus­tice and there hatched sev­en young birds. A Ser­pent glid­ing past the nest from its hole in the wall ate up the young un­fledged nestlings. The Swal­low, find­ing her nest emp­ty, lament­ed great­ly and ex­claimed: “Woe to me a stranger! that in this place where all oth­ers’ rights are pro­tect­ed, I alone should suf­fer wrong.”

The Thief and His Moth­er A BOY stole a les­son-​book from one of his schoolfel­lows and took it home to his Moth­er. She not on­ly ab­stained from beat­ing him, but en­cour­aged him. He next time stole a cloak and brought it to her, and she again com­mend­ed him. The Youth, ad­vanced to adult­hood, pro­ceed­ed to steal things of still greater val­ue. At last he was caught in the very act, and hav­ing his hands bound be­hind him, was led away to the place of pub­lic ex­ecu­tion. His Moth­er fol­lowed in the crowd and vi­olent­ly beat her breast in sor­row, where­upon the young man said, “I wish to say some­thing to my Moth­er in her ear.” She came close to him, and he quick­ly seized her ear with his teeth and bit it off. The Moth­er up­braid­ed him as an un­nat­ural child, where­on he replied, “Ah! if you had beat­en me when I first stole and brought to you that les­son-​book, I should not have come to this, nor have been thus led to a dis­grace­ful death.”

The Old Man and Death AN OLD MAN was em­ployed in cut­ting wood in the for­est, and, in car­ry­ing the fag­gots to the city for sale one day, be­came very wea­ried with his long jour­ney. He sat down by the way­side, and throw­ing down his load, be­sought “Death” to come. “Death” im­me­di­ate­ly ap­peared in an­swer to his sum­mons and asked for what rea­son he had called him. The Old Man hur­ried­ly replied, “That, lift­ing up the load, you may place it again up­on my shoul­ders.”

The Fir-​Tree and the Bram­ble A FIR-​TREE said boast­ing­ly to the Bram­ble, “You are use­ful for noth­ing at all; while I am ev­ery­where used for roofs and hous­es.” The Bram­ble an­swered: ‘You poor crea­ture, if you would on­ly call to mind the ax­es and saws which are about to hew you down, you would have rea­son to wish that you had grown up a Bram­ble, not a Fir-​Tree.” Bet­ter pover­ty with­out care, than rich­es with.

The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk A MOUSE who al­ways lived on the land, by an un­lucky chance formed an in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance with a Frog, who lived for the most part in the wa­ter. The Frog, one day in­tent on mis­chief, bound the foot of the Mouse tight­ly to his own. Thus joined to­geth­er, the Frog first of all led his friend the Mouse to the mead­ow where they were ac­cus­tomed to find their food. Af­ter this, he grad­ual­ly led him to­wards the pool in which he lived, un­til reach­ing the very brink, he sud­den­ly jumped in, drag­ging the Mouse with him. The Frog en­joyed the wa­ter amaz­ing­ly, and swam croak­ing about, as if he had done a good deed. The un­hap­py Mouse was soon suf­fo­cat­ed by the wa­ter, and his dead body float­ed about on the sur­face, tied to the foot of the Frog. A Hawk ob­served it, and, pounc­ing up­on it with his talons, car­ried it aloft. The Frog, be­ing still fas­tened to the leg of the Mouse, was al­so car­ried off a pris­on­er, and was eat­en by the Hawk. Harm hatch, harm catch.

The Man Bit­ten by a Dog A MAN who had been bit­ten by a Dog went about in quest of some­one who might heal him. A friend, meet­ing him and learn­ing what he want­ed, said, “If you would be cured, take a piece of bread, and dip it in the blood from your wound, and go and give it to the Dog that bit you.” The Man who had been bit­ten laughed at this ad­vice and said, “Why? If I should do so, it would be as if I should beg ev­ery Dog in the town to bite me.” Ben­efits be­stowed up­on the evil-​dis­posed in­crease their means of in­jur­ing you.

The Two Pots A RIV­ER car­ried down in its stream two Pots, one made of earth­en­ware and the oth­er of brass. The Earth­en Pot said to the Brass Pot, “Pray keep at a dis­tance and do not come near me, for if you touch me ev­er so slight­ly, I shall be bro­ken in pieces, and be­sides, I by no means wish to come near you.” Equals make the best friends.

The Wolf and the Sheep A WOLF, sore­ly wound­ed and bit­ten by dogs, lay sick and maimed in his lair. Be­ing in want of food, he called to a Sheep who was pass­ing, and asked him to fetch some wa­ter from a stream flow­ing close be­side him. “For,” he said, “if you will bring me drink, I will find means to pro­vide my­self with meat.” “Yes,” said the Sheep, “if I should bring you the draught, you would doubt­less make me pro­vide the meat al­so.” Hyp­ocrit­ical speech­es are eas­ily seen through.

The Aethiop THE PUR­CHAS­ER of a black ser­vant was per­suad­ed that the col­or of his skin arose from dirt con­tract­ed through the ne­glect of his for­mer mas­ters. On bring­ing him home he re­sort­ed to ev­ery means of clean­ing, and sub­ject­ed the man to in­ces­sant scrub­bings. The ser­vant caught a se­vere cold, but he nev­er changed his col­or or com­plex­ion. What’s bred in the bone will stick to the flesh.

The Fish­er­man and His Nets A FISH­ER­MAN, en­gaged in his call­ing, made a very suc­cess­ful cast and cap­tured a great haul of fish. He man­aged by a skill­ful han­dling of his net to re­tain all the large fish and to draw them to the shore; but he could not pre­vent the small­er fish from falling back through the mesh­es of the net in­to the sea.

The Hunts­man and the Fish­er­man A HUNTS­MAN, re­turn­ing with his dogs from the field, fell in by chance with a Fish­er­man who was bring­ing home a bas­ket well laden with fish. The Hunts­man wished to have the fish, and their own­er ex­pe­ri­enced an equal long­ing for the con­tents of the game-​bag. They quick­ly agreed to ex­change the pro­duce of their day’s sport. Each was so well pleased with his bar­gain that they made for some time the same ex­change day af­ter day. Fi­nal­ly a neigh­bor said to them, “If you go on in this way, you will soon de­stroy by fre­quent use the plea­sure of your ex­change, and each will again wish to re­tain the fruits of his own sport.” Ab­stain and en­joy.

The Old Wom­an and the Wine-​Jar AN OLD WOM­AN found an emp­ty jar which had late­ly been full of prime old wine and which still re­tained the fra­grant smell of its for­mer con­tents. She greed­ily placed it sev­er­al times to her nose, and draw­ing it back­wards and for­wards said, “O most de­li­cious! How nice must the Wine it­self have been, when it leaves be­hind in the very ves­sel which con­tained it so sweet a per­fume!” The mem­ory of a good deed lives.

The Fox and the Crow A CROW hav­ing stolen a bit of meat, perched in a tree and held it in her beak. A Fox, see­ing this, longed to pos­sess the meat him­self, and by a wily stratagem suc­ceed­ed. “How hand­some is the Crow,” he ex­claimed, in the beau­ty of her shape and in the fair­ness of her com­plex­ion! Oh, if her voice were on­ly equal to her beau­ty, she would de­served­ly be con­sid­ered the Queen of Birds!” This he said de­ceit­ful­ly; but the Crow, anx­ious to re­fute the re­flec­tion cast up­on her voice, set up a loud caw and dropped the flesh. The Fox quick­ly picked it up, and thus ad­dressed the Crow: “My good Crow, your voice is right enough, but your wit is want­ing.”

The Two Dogs A MAN had two dogs: a Hound, trained to as­sist him in his sports, and a House­dog, taught to watch the house. When he re­turned home af­ter a good day’s sport, he al­ways gave the House­dog a large share of his spoil. The Hound, feel­ing much ag­grieved at this, re­proached his com­pan­ion, say­ing, “It is very hard to have all this la­bor, while you, who do not as­sist in the chase, lux­uri­ate on the fruits of my ex­er­tions.” The House­dog replied, “Do not blame me, my friend, but find fault with the mas­ter, who has not taught me to la­bor, but to de­pend for sub­sis­tence on the la­bor of oth­ers.” Chil­dren are not to be blamed for the faults of their par­ents.

The Stag in the Ox-​Stall A STAG, round­ly chased by the hounds and blind­ed by fear to the dan­ger he was run­ning in­to, took shel­ter in a farm­yard and hid him­self in a shed among the ox­en. An Ox gave him this kind­ly warn­ing: “O un­hap­py crea­ture! why should you thus, of your own ac­cord, in­cur de­struc­tion and trust your­self in the house of your en­emy?’ The Stag replied: “On­ly al­low me, friend, to stay where I am, and I will un­der­take to find some fa­vor­able op­por­tu­ni­ty of ef­fect­ing my es­cape.” At the ap­proach of the evening the herds­man came to feed his cat­tle, but did not see the Stag; and even the farm-​bailiff with sev­er­al la­bor­ers passed through the shed and failed to no­tice him. The Stag, con­grat­ulat­ing him­self on his safe­ty, be­gan to ex­press his sin­cere thanks to the Ox­en who had kind­ly helped him in the hour of need. One of them again an­swered him: “We in­deed wish you well, but the dan­ger is not over. There is one oth­er yet to pass through the shed, who has as it were a hun­dred eyes, and un­til he has come and gone, your life is still in per­il.” At that mo­ment the mas­ter him­self en­tered, and hav­ing had to com­plain that his ox­en had not been prop­er­ly fed, he went up to their racks and cried out: “Why is there such a scarci­ty of fod­der? There is not half enough straw for them to lie on. Those lazy fel­lows have not even swept the cob­webs away.” While he thus ex­am­ined ev­ery­thing in turn, he spied the tips of the antlers of the Stag peep­ing out of the straw. Then sum­mon­ing his la­bor­ers, he or­dered that the Stag should be seized and killed.

The Hawk, the Kite, and the Pi­geons THE PI­GEONS, ter­ri­fied by the ap­pear­ance of a Kite, called up­on the Hawk to de­fend them. He at once con­sent­ed. When they had ad­mit­ted him in­to the cote, they found that he made more hav­oc and slew a larg­er num­ber of them in one day than the Kite could pounce up­on in a whole year. Avoid a rem­edy that is worse than the dis­ease.

The Wid­ow and the Sheep A CER­TAIN poor wid­ow had one soli­tary Sheep. At shear­ing time, wish­ing to take his fleece and to avoid ex­pense, she sheared him her­self, but used the shears so un­skill­ful­ly that with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, “Why do you hurt me so, Mis­tress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? If you want my flesh, there is the butch­er, who will kill me in an in­stant; but if you want my fleece and wool, there is the shear­er, who will shear and not hurt me.” The least out­lay is not al­ways the great­est gain.

The Wild Ass and the Li­on A WILD ASS and a Li­on en­tered in­to an al­liance so that they might cap­ture the beasts of the for­est with greater ease. The Li­on agreed to as­sist the Wild Ass with his strength, while the Wild Ass gave the Li­on the ben­efit of his greater speed. When they had tak­en as many beasts as their ne­ces­si­ties re­quired, the Li­on un­der­took to dis­tribute the prey, and for this pur­pose di­vid­ed it in­to three shares. “I will take the first share,” he said, “be­cause I am King: and the sec­ond share, as a part­ner with you in the chase: and the third share (be­lieve me) will be a source of great evil to you, un­less you will­ing­ly re­sign it to me, and set off as fast as you can.” Might makes right.

The Ea­gle and the Ar­row AN EA­GLE sat on a lofty rock, watch­ing the move­ments of a Hare whom he sought to make his prey. An archer, who saw the Ea­gle from a place of con­ceal­ment, took an ac­cu­rate aim and wound­ed him mor­tal­ly. The Ea­gle gave one look at the ar­row that had en­tered his heart and saw in that sin­gle glance that its feath­ers had been fur­nished by him­self. “It is a dou­ble grief to me,” he ex­claimed, “that I should per­ish by an ar­row feath­ered from my own wings.”

The Sick Kite A KITE, sick un­to death, said to his moth­er: “O Moth­er! do not mourn, but at once in­voke the gods that my life may be pro­longed.” She replied, “Alas! my son, which of the gods do you think will pity you? Is there one whom you have not out­raged by filch­ing from their very al­tars a part of the sac­ri­fice of­fered up to them?’ We must make friends in pros­per­ity if we would have their help in ad­ver­si­ty.

The Li­on and the Dol­phin A LI­ON roam­ing by the seashore saw a Dol­phin lift up its head out of the waves, and sug­gest­ed that they con­tract an al­liance, say­ing that of all the an­imals they ought to be the best friends, since the one was the king of beasts on the earth, and the oth­er was the sovereign ruler of all the in­hab­itants of the ocean. The Dol­phin glad­ly con­sent­ed to this re­quest. Not long af­ter­wards the Li­on had a com­bat with a wild bull, and called on the Dol­phin to help him. The Dol­phin, though quite will­ing to give him as­sis­tance, was un­able to do so, as he could not by any means reach the land. The Li­on abused him as a traitor. The Dol­phin replied, “Nay, my friend, blame not me, but Na­ture, which, while giv­ing me the sovereign­ty of the sea, has quite de­nied me the pow­er of liv­ing up­on the land.”

The Li­on and the Boar ON A SUM­MER DAY, when the great heat in­duced a gen­er­al thirst among the beasts, a Li­on and a Boar came at the same mo­ment to a small well to drink. They fierce­ly dis­put­ed which of them should drink first, and were soon en­gaged in the ag­onies of a mor­tal com­bat. When they stopped sud­den­ly to catch their breath for a fiercer re­new­al of the fight, they saw some Vul­tures wait­ing in the dis­tance to feast on the one that should fall first. They at once made up their quar­rel, say­ing, “It is bet­ter for us to make friends, than to be­come the food of Crows or Vul­tures.”

The One-​Eyed Doe A DOE blind in one eye was ac­cus­tomed to graze as near to the edge of the cliff as she pos­si­bly could, in the hope of se­cur­ing her greater safe­ty. She turned her sound eye to­wards the land that she might get the ear­li­est tid­ings of the ap­proach of hunter or hound, and her in­jured eye to­wards the sea, from whence she en­ter­tained no an­tic­ipa­tion of dan­ger. Some boat­men sail­ing by saw her, and tak­ing a suc­cess­ful aim, mor­tal­ly wound­ed her. Yield­ing up her last breath, she gasped forth this lament: “O wretched crea­ture that I am! to take such pre­cau­tion against the land, and af­ter all to find this seashore, to which I had come for safe­ty, so much more per­ilous.”

The Shep­herd and the Sea A SHEP­HERD, keep­ing watch over his sheep near the shore, saw the Sea very calm and smooth, and longed to make a voy­age with a view to com­merce. He sold all his flock, in­vest­ed it in a car­go of dates, and set sail. But a very great tem­pest came on, and the ship be­ing in dan­ger of sink­ing, he threw all his mer­chan­dise over­board, and bare­ly es­caped with his life in the emp­ty ship. Not long af­ter­wards when some­one passed by and ob­served the un­ruf­fled calm of the Sea, he in­ter­rupt­ed him and said, “It is again in want of dates, and there­fore looks qui­et.”

The Ass, the Cock, and the Li­on AN ASS and a Cock were in a straw-​yard to­geth­er when a Li­on, des­per­ate from hunger, ap­proached the spot. He was about to spring up­on the Ass, when the Cock (to the sound of whose voice the Li­on, it is said, has a sin­gu­lar aver­sion) crowed loud­ly, and the Li­on fled away as fast as he could. The Ass, ob­serv­ing his trep­ida­tion at the mere crow­ing of a Cock sum­moned courage to at­tack him, and gal­loped af­ter him for that pur­pose. He had run no long dis­tance, when the Li­on, turn­ing about, seized him and tore him to pieces. False con­fi­dence of­ten leads in­to dan­ger.

The Mice and the Weasels THE WEASELS and the Mice waged a per­pet­ual war with each oth­er, in which much blood was shed. The Weasels were al­ways the vic­tors. The Mice thought that the cause of their fre­quent de­feats was that they had no lead­ers set apart from the gen­er­al army to com­mand them, and that they were ex­posed to dan­gers from lack of dis­ci­pline. They there­fore chose as lead­ers Mice that were most renowned for their fam­ily de­scent, strength, and coun­sel, as well as those most not­ed for their courage in the fight, so that they might be bet­ter mar­shaled in bat­tle ar­ray and formed in­to troops, reg­iments, and bat­tal­ions. When all this was done, and the army dis­ci­plined, and the her­ald Mouse had du­ly pro­claimed war by chal­leng­ing the Weasels, the new­ly cho­sen gen­er­als bound their heads with straws, that they might be more con­spic­uous to all their troops. Scarce­ly had the bat­tle be­gun, when a great rout over­whelmed the Mice, who scam­pered off as fast as they could to their holes. The gen­er­als, not be­ing able to get in on ac­count of the or­na­ments on their heads, were all cap­tured and eat­en by the Weasels. The more hon­or the more dan­ger.

The Mice in Coun­cil THE MICE sum­moned a coun­cil to de­cide how they might best de­vise means of warn­ing them­selves of the ap­proach of their great en­emy the Cat. Among the many plans sug­gest­ed, the one that found most fa­vor was the pro­pos­al to tie a bell to the neck of the Cat, so that the Mice, be­ing warned by the sound of the tin­kling, might run away and hide them­selves in their holes at his ap­proach. But when the Mice fur­ther de­bat­ed who among them should thus “bell the Cat,” there was no one found to do it.

The Wolf and the House­dog A WOLF, meet­ing a big well-​fed Mas­tiff with a wood­en col­lar about his neck asked him who it was that fed him so well and yet com­pelled him to drag that heavy log about wher­ev­er he went. “The mas­ter,” he replied. Then said the Wolf: “May no friend of mine ev­er be in such a plight; for the weight of this chain is enough to spoil the ap­petite.”

The Rivers and the Sea THE RIVERS joined to­geth­er to com­plain to the Sea, say­ing, “Why is it that when we flow in­to your tides so potable and sweet, you work in us such a change, and make us salty and un­fit to drink?” The Sea, per­ceiv­ing that they in­tend­ed to throw the blame on him, said, “Pray cease to flow in­to me, and then you will not be made briny.”

The Play­ful Ass AN ASS climbed up to the roof of a build­ing, and frisk­ing about there, broke in the tiling. The own­er went up af­ter him and quick­ly drove him down, beat­ing him severe­ly with a thick wood­en cud­gel. The Ass said, “Why, I saw the Mon­key do this very thing yes­ter­day, and you all laughed hearti­ly, as if it af­ford­ed you very great amuse­ment.”

The Three Trades­men A GREAT CITY was be­sieged, and its in­hab­itants were called to­geth­er to con­sid­er the best means of pro­tect­ing it from the en­emy. A Brick­lay­er earnest­ly rec­om­mend­ed bricks as af­ford­ing the best ma­te­ri­al for an ef­fec­tive re­sis­tance. A Car­pen­ter, with equal en­thu­si­asm, pro­posed tim­ber as a prefer­able method of de­fense. Up­on which a Cur­ri­er stood up and said, “Sirs, I dif­fer from you al­to­geth­er: there is no ma­te­ri­al for re­sis­tance equal to a cov­er­ing of hides; and noth­ing so good as leather.” Ev­ery man for him­self.

The Mas­ter and His Dogs A CER­TAIN MAN, de­tained by a storm in his coun­try house, first of all killed his sheep, and then his goats, for the main­te­nance of his house­hold. The storm still con­tin­uing, he was obliged to slaugh­ter his yoke ox­en for food. On see­ing this, his Dogs took coun­sel to­geth­er, and said, “It is time for us to be off, for if the mas­ter spare not his ox­en, who work for his gain, how can we ex­pect him to spare us?’ He is not to be trust­ed as a friend who mis­treats his own fam­ily.

The Wolf and the Shep­herds A WOLF, pass­ing by, saw some Shep­herds in a hut eat­ing a haunch of mut­ton for their din­ner. Ap­proach­ing them, he said, “What a clam­or you would raise if I were to do as you are do­ing!”

The Dol­phins, the Whales, and the Sprat THE DOL­PHINS and Whales waged a fierce war with each oth­er. When the bat­tle was at its height, a Sprat lift­ed its head out of the waves and said that he would rec­on­cile their dif­fer­ences if they would ac­cept him as an um­pire. One of the Dol­phins replied, “We would far rather be de­stroyed in our bat­tle with each oth­er than ad­mit any in­ter­fer­ence from you in our af­fairs.”

The Ass Car­ry­ing the Im­age AN ASS once car­ried through the streets of a city a fa­mous wood­en Im­age, to be placed in one of its Tem­ples. As he passed along, the crowd made low­ly pros­tra­tion be­fore the Im­age. The Ass, think­ing that they bowed their heads in to­ken of re­spect for him­self, bris­tled up with pride, gave him­self airs, and re­fused to move an­oth­er step. The driv­er, see­ing him thus stop, laid his whip lusti­ly about his shoul­ders and said, “O you per­verse dull-​head! it is not yet come to this, that men pay wor­ship to an Ass.” They are not wise who give to them­selves the cred­it due to oth­ers.

The Two Trav­el­ers and the Axe TWO MEN were jour­ney­ing to­geth­er. One of them picked up an axe that lay up­on the path, and said, “I have found an axe.” “Nay, my friend,” replied the oth­er, “do not say ‘I,’ but ‘We’ have found an axe.” They had not gone far be­fore they saw the own­er of the axe pur­su­ing them, and he who had picked up the axe said, “We are un­done.” “Nay,” replied the oth­er, “keep to your first mode of speech, my friend; what you thought right then, think right now. Say ‘I,’ not ‘We’ are un­done.” He who shares the dan­ger ought to share the prize.

The Old Li­on A LI­ON, worn out with years and pow­er­less from dis­ease, lay on the ground at the point of death. A Boar rushed up­on him, and avenged with a stroke of his tusks a long-​re­mem­bered in­jury. Short­ly af­ter­wards the Bull with his horns gored him as if he were an en­emy. When the Ass saw that the huge beast could be as­sailed with im­puni­ty, he let drive at his fore­head with his heels. The ex­pir­ing Li­on said, “I have re­luc­tant­ly brooked the in­sults of the brave, but to be com­pelled to en­dure such treat­ment from thee, a dis­grace to Na­ture, is in­deed to die a dou­ble death.”

The Old Hound A HOUND, who in the days of his youth and strength had nev­er yield­ed to any beast of the for­est, en­coun­tered in his old age a boar in the chase. He seized him bold­ly by the ear, but could not re­tain his hold be­cause of the de­cay of his teeth, so that the boar es­caped. His mas­ter, quick­ly com­ing up, was very much dis­ap­point­ed, and fierce­ly abused the dog. The Hound looked up and said, “It was not my fault. mas­ter: my spir­it was as good as ev­er, but I could not help my in­fir­mi­ties. I rather de­serve to be praised for what I have been, than to be blamed for what I am.”

The Bee and Jupiter A BEE from Mount Hymet­tus, the queen of the hive, as­cend­ed to Olym­pus to present Jupiter some hon­ey fresh from her combs. Jupiter, de­light­ed with the of­fer­ing of hon­ey, promised to give what­ev­er she should ask. She there­fore be­sought him, say­ing, “Give me, I pray thee, a sting, that if any mor­tal shall ap­proach to take my hon­ey, I may kill him.” Jupiter was much dis­pleased, for he loved the race of man, but could not refuse the re­quest be­cause of his promise. He thus an­swered the Bee: “You shall have your re­quest, but it will be at the per­il of your own life. For if you use your sting, it shall re­main in the wound you make, and then you will die from the loss of it.” Evil wish­es, like chick­ens, come home to roost.

The Milk-​Wom­an and Her Pail A FARMER’S daugh­ter was car­ry­ing her Pail of milk from the field to the farm­house, when she fell a-​mus­ing. “The mon­ey for which this milk will be sold, will buy at least three hun­dred eggs. The eggs, al­low­ing for all mishaps, will pro­duce two hun­dred and fifty chick­ens. The chick­ens will be­come ready for the mar­ket when poul­try will fetch the high­est price, so that by the end of the year I shall have mon­ey enough from my share to buy a new gown. In this dress I will go to the Christ­mas par­ties, where all the young fel­lows will pro­pose to me, but I will toss my head and refuse them ev­ery one.” At this mo­ment she tossed her head in uni­son with her thoughts, when down fell the milk pail to the ground, and all her imag­inary schemes per­ished in a mo­ment.

The Sea­side Trav­el­ers SOME TRAV­EL­ERS, jour­ney­ing along the seashore, climbed to the sum­mit of a tall cliff, and look­ing over the sea, saw in the dis­tance what they thought was a large ship. They wait­ed in the hope of see­ing it en­ter the har­bor, but as the ob­ject on which they looked was driv­en near­er to shore by the wind, they found that it could at the most be a small boat, and not a ship. When how­ev­er it reached the beach, they dis­cov­ered that it was on­ly a large fag­got of sticks, and one of them said to his com­pan­ions, “We have wait­ed for no pur­pose, for af­ter all there is noth­ing to see but a load of wood.” Our mere an­tic­ipa­tions of life out­run its re­al­ities.

The Bra­zier and His Dog A BRA­ZIER had a lit­tle Dog, which was a great fa­vorite with his mas­ter, and his con­stant com­pan­ion. While he ham­mered away at his met­als the Dog slept; but when, on the oth­er hand, he went to din­ner and be­gan to eat, the Dog woke up and wagged his tail, as if he would ask for a share of his meal. His mas­ter one day, pre­tend­ing to be an­gry and shak­ing his stick at him, said, “You wretched lit­tle slug­gard! what shall I do to you? While I am ham­mer­ing on the anvil, you sleep on the mat; and when I be­gin to eat af­ter my toil, you wake up and wag your tail for food. Do you not know that la­bor is the source of ev­ery bless­ing, and that none but those who work are en­ti­tled to eat?’

The Ass and His Shad­ow A TRAV­EL­ER hired an Ass to con­vey him to a dis­tant place. The day be­ing in­tense­ly hot, and the sun shin­ing in its strength, the Trav­el­er stopped to rest, and sought shel­ter from the heat un­der the Shad­ow of the Ass. As this af­ford­ed on­ly pro­tec­tion for one, and as the Trav­el­er and the own­er of the Ass both claimed it, a vi­olent dis­pute arose be­tween them as to which of them had the right to the Shad­ow. The own­er main­tained that he had let the Ass on­ly, and not his Shad­ow. The Trav­el­er as­sert­ed that he had, with the hire of the Ass, hired his Shad­ow al­so. The quar­rel pro­ceed­ed from words to blows, and while the men fought, the Ass gal­loped off. In quar­rel­ing about the shad­ow we of­ten lose the sub­stance.

The Ass and His Mas­ters AN ASS, be­long­ing to an herb-​sell­er who gave him too lit­tle food and too much work made a pe­ti­tion to Jupiter to be re­leased from his present ser­vice and pro­vid­ed with an­oth­er mas­ter. Jupiter, af­ter warn­ing him that he would re­pent his re­quest, caused him to be sold to a tile-​mak­er. Short­ly af­ter­wards, find­ing that he had heav­ier loads to car­ry and hard­er work in the brick-​field, he pe­ti­tioned for an­oth­er change of mas­ter. Jupiter, telling him that it would be the last time that he could grant his re­quest, or­dained that he be sold to a tan­ner. The Ass found that he had fall­en in­to worse hands, and not­ing his mas­ter’s oc­cu­pa­tion, said, groan­ing: “It would have been bet­ter for me to have been ei­ther starved by the one, or to have been over­worked by the oth­er of my for­mer mas­ters, than to have been bought by my present own­er, who will even af­ter I am dead tan my hide, and make me use­ful to him.”

The Oak and the Reeds A VERY LARGE OAK was up­root­ed by the wind and thrown across a stream. It fell among some Reeds, which it thus ad­dressed: “I won­der how you, who are so light and weak, are not en­tire­ly crushed by these strong winds.” They replied, “You fight and con­tend with the wind, and con­se­quent­ly you are de­stroyed; while we on the con­trary bend be­fore the least breath of air, and there­fore re­main un­bro­ken, and es­cape.” Stoop to con­quer.

The Fish­er­man and the Lit­tle Fish A FISH­ER­MAN who lived on the pro­duce of his nets, one day caught a sin­gle small Fish as the re­sult of his day’s la­bor. The Fish, pant­ing con­vul­sive­ly, thus en­treat­ed for his life: “O Sir, what good can I be to you, and how lit­tle am I worth? I am not yet come to my full size. Pray spare my life, and put me back in­to the sea. I shall soon be­come a large fish fit for the ta­bles of the rich, and then you can catch me again, and make a hand­some prof­it of me.” The Fish­er­man replied, “I should in­deed be a very sim­ple fel­low if, for the chance of a greater un­cer­tain prof­it, I were to forego my present cer­tain gain.”

The Hunter and the Wood­man A HUNTER, not very bold, was search­ing for the tracks of a Li­on. He asked a man felling oaks in the for­est if he had seen any marks of his foot­steps or knew where his lair was. “I will,” said the man, “at once show you the Li­on him­self.” The Hunter, turn­ing very pale and chat­ter­ing with his teeth from fear, replied, “No, thank you. I did not ask that; it is his track on­ly I am in search of, not the Li­on him­self.” The hero is brave in deeds as well as words.

The Wild Boar and the Fox A WILD BOAR stood un­der a tree and rubbed his tusks against the trunk. A Fox pass­ing by asked him why he thus sharp­ened his teeth when there was no dan­ger threat­en­ing from ei­ther hunts­man or hound. He replied, “I do it ad­vis­ed­ly; for it would nev­er do to have to sharp­en my weapons just at the time I ought to be us­ing them.”

The Li­on in a Farm­yard A LI­ON en­tered a farm­yard. The Farmer, wish­ing to catch him, shut the gate. When the Li­on found that he could not es­cape, he flew up­on the sheep and killed them, and then at­tacked the ox­en. The Farmer, be­gin­ning to be alarmed for his own safe­ty, opened the gate and re­leased the Li­on. On his de­par­ture the Farmer grievous­ly lament­ed the de­struc­tion of his sheep and ox­en, but his wife, who had been a spec­ta­tor to all that took place, said, “On my word, you are right­ly served, for how could you for a mo­ment think of shut­ting up a Li­on along with you in your farm­yard when you know that you shake in your shoes if you on­ly hear his roar at a dis­tance?’

Mer­cury and the Sculp­tor MER­CURY ONCE DE­TER­MINED to learn in what es­teem he was held among mor­tals. For this pur­pose he as­sumed the char­ac­ter of a man and vis­it­ed in this dis­guise a Sculp­tor’s stu­dio hav­ing looked at var­ious stat­ues, he de­mand­ed the price of two fig­ures of Jupiter and Juno. When the sum at which they were val­ued was named, he point­ed to a fig­ure of him­self, say­ing to the Sculp­tor, “You will cer­tain­ly want much more for this, as it is the stat­ue of the Mes­sen­ger of the Gods, and au­thor of all your gain.” The Sculp­tor replied, “Well, if you will buy these, I’ll fling you that in­to the bar­gain.”

The Swan and the Goose A CER­TAIN rich man bought in the mar­ket a Goose and a Swan. He fed the one for his ta­ble and kept the oth­er for the sake of its song. When the time came for killing the Goose, the cook went to get him at night, when it was dark, and he was not able to dis­tin­guish one bird from the oth­er. By mis­take he caught the Swan in­stead of the Goose. The Swan, threat­ened with death, burst forth in­to song and thus made him­self known by his voice, and pre­served his life by his melody.

The Swollen Fox A VERY HUN­GRY FOX, see­ing some bread and meat left by shep­herds in the hol­low of an oak, crept in­to the hole and made a hearty meal. When he fin­ished, he was so full that he was not able to get out, and be­gan to groan and lament his fate. An­oth­er Fox pass­ing by heard his cries, and com­ing up, in­quired the cause of his com­plain­ing. On learn­ing what had hap­pened, he said to him, “Ah, you will have to re­main there, my friend, un­til you be­come such as you were when you crept in, and then you will eas­ily get out.”

The Fox and the Wood­cut­ter A FOX, run­ning be­fore the hounds, came across a Wood­cut­ter felling an oak and begged him to show him a safe hid­ing-​place. The Wood­cut­ter ad­vised him to take shel­ter in his own hut, so the Fox crept in and hid him­self in a cor­ner. The hunts­man soon came up with his hounds and in­quired of the Wood­cut­ter if he had seen the Fox. He de­clared that he had not seen him, and yet point­ed, all the time he was speak­ing, to the hut where the Fox lay hid­den. The hunts­man took no no­tice of the signs, but be­liev­ing his word, has­tened for­ward in the chase. As soon as they were well away, the Fox de­part­ed with­out tak­ing any no­tice of the Wood­cut­ter: where­on he called to him and re­proached him, say­ing, “You un­grate­ful fel­low, you owe your life to me, and yet you leave me with­out a word of thanks.” The Fox replied, “In­deed, I should have thanked you fer­vent­ly if your deeds had been as good as your words, and if your hands had not been traitors to your speech.”

The Bird­catch­er, the Par­tridge, and the Cock A BIRD­CATCH­ER was about to sit down to a din­ner of herbs when a friend un­ex­pect­ed­ly came in. The bird-​trap was quite emp­ty, as he had caught noth­ing, and he had to kill a pied Par­tridge, which he had tamed for a de­coy. The bird en­treat­ed earnest­ly for his life: “What would you do with­out me when next you spread your nets? Who would chirp you to sleep, or call for you the cov­ey of an­swer­ing birds?’ The Bird­catch­er spared his life, and de­ter­mined to pick out a fine young Cock just at­tain­ing to his comb. But the Cock ex­pos­tu­lat­ed in piteous tones from his perch: “If you kill me, who will an­nounce to you the ap­pear­ance of the dawn? Who will wake you to your dai­ly tasks or tell you when it is time to vis­it the bird-​trap in the morn­ing?’ He replied, “What you say is true. You are a cap­ital bird at telling the time of day. But my friend and I must have our din­ners.” Ne­ces­si­ty knows no law.

The Mon­key and the Fish­er­men A MON­KEY perched up­on a lofty tree saw some Fish­er­men cast­ing their nets in­to a riv­er, and nar­row­ly watched their pro­ceed­ings. The Fish­er­men af­ter a while gave up fish­ing, and on go­ing home to din­ner left their nets up­on the bank. The Mon­key, who is the most im­ita­tive of an­imals, de­scend­ed from the tree­top and en­deav­ored to do as they had done. Hav­ing han­dled the net, he threw it in­to the riv­er, but be­came tan­gled in the mesh­es and drowned. With his last breath he said to him­self, “I am right­ly served; for what busi­ness had I who had nev­er han­dled a net to try and catch fish?’

The Flea and the Wrestler A FLEA set­tled up­on the bare foot of a Wrestler and bit him, caus­ing the man to call loud­ly up­on Her­cules for help. When the Flea a sec­ond time hopped up­on his foot, he groaned and said, “O Her­cules! if you will not help me against a Flea, how can I hope for your as­sis­tance against greater an­tag­onists?’

The Two Frogs TWO FROGS dwelt in the same pool. When the pool dried up un­der the sum­mer’s heat, they left it and set out to­geth­er for an­oth­er home. As they went along they chanced to pass a deep well, am­ply sup­plied with wa­ter, and when they saw it, one of the Frogs said to the oth­er, “Let us de­scend and make our abode in this well: it will fur­nish us with shel­ter and food.” The oth­er replied with greater cau­tion, “But sup­pose the wa­ter should fail us. How can we get out again from so great a depth?’ Do noth­ing with­out a re­gard to the con­se­quences.

The Cat and the Mice A CER­TAIN HOUSE was over­run with Mice. A Cat, dis­cov­er­ing this, made her way in­to it and be­gan to catch and eat them one by one. Fear­ing for their lives, the Mice kept them­selves close in their holes. The Cat was no longer able to get at them and per­ceived that she must tempt them forth by some de­vice. For this pur­pose she jumped up­on a peg, and sus­pend­ing her­self from it, pre­tend­ed to be dead. One of the Mice, peep­ing stealthi­ly out, saw her and said, “Ah, my good madam, even though you should turn in­to a meal-​bag, we will not come near you.”

The Li­on, the Bear, and the Fox A LI­ON and a Bear seized a Kid at the same mo­ment, and fought fierce­ly for its pos­ses­sion. When they had fear­ful­ly lac­er­at­ed each oth­er and were faint from the long com­bat, they lay down ex­haust­ed with fa­tigue. A Fox, who had gone round them at a dis­tance sev­er­al times, saw them both stretched on the ground with the Kid ly­ing un­touched in the mid­dle. He ran in be­tween them, and seiz­ing the Kid scam­pered off as fast as he could. The Li­on and the Bear saw him, but not be­ing able to get up, said, “Woe be to us, that we should have fought and be­la­bored our­selves on­ly to serve the turn of a Fox.” It some­times hap­pens that one man has all the toil, and an­oth­er all the prof­it.

The Doe and the Li­on A DOE hard pressed by hunters sought refuge in a cave be­long­ing to a Li­on. The Li­on con­cealed him­self on see­ing her ap­proach, but when she was safe with­in the cave, sprang up­on her and tore her to pieces. “Woe is me,” ex­claimed the Doe, “who have es­caped from man, on­ly to throw my­self in­to the mouth of a wild beast?’ In avoid­ing one evil, care must be tak­en not to fall in­to an­oth­er.

The Farmer and the Fox A FARMER, who bore a grudge against a Fox for rob­bing his poul­try yard, caught him at last, and be­ing de­ter­mined to take an am­ple re­venge, tied some rope well soaked in oil to his tail, and set it on fire. The Fox by a strange fa­tal­ity rushed to the fields of the Farmer who had cap­tured him. It was the time of the wheat har­vest; but the Farmer reaped noth­ing that year and re­turned home griev­ing sore­ly.

The Seag­ull and the Kite A SEAG­ULL hav­ing bolt­ed down too large a fish, burst its deep gul­let-​bag and lay down on the shore to die. A Kite saw him and ex­claimed: “You rich­ly de­serve your fate; for a bird of the air has no busi­ness to seek its food from the sea.” Ev­ery man should be con­tent to mind his own busi­ness.

The Philoso­pher, the Ants, and Mer­cury A PHILOSO­PHER wit­nessed from the shore the ship­wreck of a ves­sel, of which the crew and pas­sen­gers were all drowned. He in­veighed against the in­jus­tice of Prov­idence, which would for the sake of one crim­inal per­chance sail­ing in the ship al­low so many in­no­cent per­sons to per­ish. As he was in­dulging in these re­flec­tions, he found him­self sur­round­ed by a whole army of Ants, near whose nest he was stand­ing. One of them climbed up and stung him, and he im­me­di­ate­ly tram­pled them all to death with his foot. Mer­cury pre­sent­ed him­self, and strik­ing the Philoso­pher with his wand, said, “And are you in­deed to make your­self a judge of the deal­ings of Prov­idence, who hast thy­self in a sim­ilar man­ner treat­ed these poor Ants?’

The Mouse and the Bull A BULL was bit­ten by a Mouse and, an­gered by the wound, tried to cap­ture him. But the Mouse reached his hole in safe­ty. Though the Bull dug in­to the walls with his horns, he tired be­fore he could rout out the Mouse, and crouch­ing down, went to sleep out­side the hole. The Mouse peeped out, crept furtive­ly up his flank, and again bit­ing him, re­treat­ed to his hole. The Bull ris­ing up, and not know­ing what to do, was sad­ly per­plexed. At which the Mouse said, “The great do not al­ways pre­vail. There are times when the small and low­ly are the strongest to do mis­chief.”

The Li­on and the Hare A LI­ON came across a Hare, who was fast asleep. He was just in the act of seiz­ing her, when a fine young Hart trot­ted by, and he left the Hare to fol­low him. The Hare, scared by the noise, awoke and scud­ded away. The Li­on was un­able af­ter a long chase to catch the Hart, and re­turned to feed up­on the Hare. On find­ing that the Hare al­so had run off, he said, “I am right­ly served, for hav­ing let go of the food that I had in my hand for the chance of ob­tain­ing more.”

The Peas­ant and the Ea­gle A PEAS­ANT found an Ea­gle cap­tured in a trap, and much ad­mir­ing the bird, set him free. The Ea­gle did not prove un­grate­ful to his de­liv­er­er, for see­ing the Peas­ant sit­ting un­der a wall which was not safe, he flew to­ward him and with his talons snatched a bun­dle from his head. When the Peas­ant rose in pur­suit, the Ea­gle let the bun­dle fall again. Tak­ing it up, the man re­turned to the same place, to find that the wall un­der which he had been sit­ting had fall­en to pieces; and he mar­veled at the ser­vice ren­dered him by the Ea­gle.

The Im­age of Mer­cury and the Car­pen­ter A VERY POOR MAN, a Car­pen­ter by trade, had a wood­en im­age of Mer­cury, be­fore which he made of­fer­ings day by day, and begged the idol to make him rich, but in spite of his en­treaties he be­came poor­er and poor­er. At last, be­ing very an­gry, he took his im­age down from its pedestal and dashed it against the wall. When its head was knocked off, out came a stream of gold, which the Car­pen­ter quick­ly picked up and said, “Well, I think thou art al­to­geth­er con­tra­dic­to­ry and un­rea­son­able; for when I paid you hon­or, I reaped no ben­efits: but now that I mal­treat you I am load­ed with an abun­dance of rich­es.”

The Bull and the Goat A BULL, es­cap­ing from a Li­on, hid in a cave which some shep­herds had re­cent­ly oc­cu­pied. As soon as he en­tered, a He-​Goat left in the cave sharply at­tacked him with his horns. The Bull qui­et­ly ad­dressed him: “Butt away as much as you will. I have no fear of you, but of the Li­on. Let that mon­ster go away and I will soon let you know what is the re­spec­tive strength of a Goat and a Bull.” It shows an evil dis­po­si­tion to take ad­van­tage of a friend in dis­tress.

The Danc­ing Mon­keys A PRINCE had some Mon­keys trained to dance. Be­ing nat­ural­ly great mim­ics of men’s ac­tions, they showed them­selves most apt pupils, and when ar­rayed in their rich clothes and masks, they danced as well as any of the courtiers. The spec­ta­cle was of­ten re­peat­ed with great ap­plause, till on one oc­ca­sion a courtier, bent on mis­chief, took from his pock­et a hand­ful of nuts and threw them up­on the stage. The Mon­keys at the sight of the nuts for­got their danc­ing and be­came (as in­deed they were) Mon­keys in­stead of ac­tors. Pulling off their masks and tear­ing their robes, they fought with one an­oth­er for the nuts. The danc­ing spec­ta­cle thus came to an end amidst the laugh­ter and ridicule of the au­di­ence. The Fox and the Leop­ard THE FOX and the Leop­ard dis­put­ed which was the more beau­ti­ful of the two. The Leop­ard ex­hib­it­ed one by one the var­ious spots which dec­orat­ed his skin. But the Fox, in­ter­rupt­ing him, said, “And how much more beau­ti­ful than you am I, who am dec­orat­ed, not in body, but in mind.”

The Mon­keys and Their Moth­er THE MON­KEY, it is said, has two young ones at each birth. The Moth­er fon­dles one and nur­tures it with the great­est af­fec­tion and care, but hates and ne­glects the oth­er. It hap­pened once that the young one which was ca­ressed and loved was smoth­ered by the too great af­fec­tion of the Moth­er, while the de­spised one was nur­tured and reared in spite of the ne­glect to which it was ex­posed. The best in­ten­tions will not al­ways en­sure suc­cess.

The Oaks and Jupiter THE OAKS pre­sent­ed a com­plaint to Jupiter, say­ing, “We bear for no pur­pose the bur­den of life, as of all the trees that grow we are the most con­tin­ual­ly in per­il of the axe.” Jupiter made an­swer: “You have on­ly to thank your­selves for the mis­for­tunes to which you are ex­posed: for if you did not make such ex­cel­lent pil­lars and posts, and prove your­selves so ser­vice­able to the car­pen­ters and the farm­ers, the axe would not so fre­quent­ly be laid to your roots.”

The Hare and the Hound A HOUND start­ed a Hare from his lair, but af­ter a long run, gave up the chase. A goat-​herd see­ing him stop, mocked him, say­ing “The lit­tle one is the best run­ner of the two.” The Hound replied, “You do not see the dif­fer­ence be­tween us: I was on­ly run­ning for a din­ner, but he for his life.”

The Trav­el­er and For­tune A TRAV­EL­ER wea­ried from a long jour­ney lay down, over­come with fa­tigue, on the very brink of a deep well. Just as he was about to fall in­to the wa­ter, Dame For­tune, it is said, ap­peared to him and wak­ing him from his slum­ber thus ad­dressed him: “Good Sir, pray wake up: for if you fall in­to the well, the blame will be thrown on me, and I shall get an ill name among mor­tals; for I find that men are sure to im­pute their calami­ties to me, how­ev­er much by their own fol­ly they have re­al­ly brought them on them­selves.” Ev­ery­one is more or less mas­ter of his own fate.

The Bald Knight A BALD KNIGHT, who wore a wig, went out to hunt. A sud­den puff of wind blew off his hat and wig, at which a loud laugh rang forth from his com­pan­ions. He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by say­ing, “What a mar­vel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have for­sak­en even the man on whose head they grew.”

The Shep­herd and the Dog A SHEP­HERD pen­ning his sheep in the fold for the night was about to shut up a wolf with them, when his Dog per­ceiv­ing the wolf said, “Mas­ter, how can you ex­pect the sheep to be safe if you ad­mit a wolf in­to the fold?’

The Lamp A LAMP, soaked with too much oil and flar­ing bright­ly, boast­ed that it gave more light than the sun. Then a sud­den puff of wind arose, and the Lamp was im­me­di­ate­ly ex­tin­guished. Its own­er lit it again, and said: “Boast no more, but hence­forth be con­tent to give thy light in si­lence. Know that not even the stars need to be re­lit”

The Li­on, the Fox, and the Ass THE LI­ON, the Fox and the Ass en­tered in­to an agree­ment to as­sist each oth­er in the chase. Hav­ing se­cured a large booty, the Li­on on their re­turn from the for­est asked the Ass to al­lot his due por­tion to each of the three part­ners in the treaty. The Ass care­ful­ly di­vid­ed the spoil in­to three equal shares and mod­est­ly re­quest­ed the two oth­ers to make the first choice. The Li­on, burst­ing out in­to a great rage, de­voured the Ass. Then he re­quest­ed the Fox to do him the fa­vor to make a di­vi­sion. The Fox ac­cu­mu­lat­ed all that they had killed in­to one large heap and left to him­self the small­est pos­si­ble morsel. The Li­on said, “Who has taught you, my very ex­cel­lent fel­low, the art of di­vi­sion? You are per­fect to a frac­tion.” He replied, “I learned it from the Ass, by wit­ness­ing his fate.” Hap­py is the man who learns from the mis­for­tunes of oth­ers.

The Bull, the Li­oness, and the Wild-​Boar Hunter A BULL find­ing a li­on’s cub asleep gored him to death with his horns. The Li­oness came up, and bit­ter­ly lament­ed the death of her whelp. A wild-​boar Hunter, see­ing her dis­tress, stood at a dis­tance and said to her, “Think how many men there are who have rea­son to lament the loss of their chil­dren, whose deaths have been caused by you.”

The Oak and the Wood­cut­ters THE WOOD­CUT­TER cut down a Moun­tain Oak and split it in pieces, mak­ing wedges of its own branch­es for di­vid­ing the trunk. The Oak said with a sigh, “I do not care about the blows of the axe aimed at my roots, but I do grieve at be­ing torn in pieces by these wedges made from my own branch­es.” Mis­for­tunes spring­ing from our­selves are the hard­est to bear.

The Hen and the Gold­en Eggs A COT­TAGER and his wife had a Hen that laid a gold­en egg ev­ery day. They sup­posed that the Hen must con­tain a great lump of gold in its in­side, and in or­der to get the gold they killed it. Hav­ing done so, they found to their sur­prise that the Hen dif­fered in no re­spect from their oth­er hens. The fool­ish pair, thus hop­ing to be­come rich all at once, de­prived them­selves of the gain of which they were as­sured day by day.

The Ass and the Frogs AN ASS, car­ry­ing a load of wood, passed through a pond. As he was cross­ing through the wa­ter he lost his foot­ing, stum­bled and fell, and not be­ing able to rise on ac­count of his load, groaned heav­ily. Some Frogs fre­quent­ing the pool heard his lamen­ta­tion, and said, “What would you do if you had to live here al­ways as we do, when you make such a fuss about a mere fall in­to the wa­ter?”

Men of­ten bear lit­tle grievances with less courage than they do large mis­for­tunes.

The Crow and the Raven A CROW was jeal­ous of the Raven, be­cause he was con­sid­ered a bird of good omen and al­ways at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of men, who not­ed by his flight the good or evil course of fu­ture events. See­ing some trav­el­ers ap­proach­ing, the Crow flew up in­to a tree, and perch­ing her­self on one of the branch­es, cawed as loud­ly as she could. The trav­el­ers turned to­wards the sound and won­dered what it fore­bod­ed, when one of them said to his com­pan­ion, “Let us pro­ceed on our jour­ney, my friend, for it is on­ly the caw of a crow, and her cry, you know, is no omen.” Those who as­sume a char­ac­ter which does not be­long to them, on­ly make them­selves ridicu­lous.

The Trees and the Axe A MAN came in­to a for­est and asked the Trees to pro­vide him a han­dle for his axe. The Trees con­sent­ed to his re­quest and gave him a young ash-​tree. No soon­er had the man fit­ted a new han­dle to his axe from it, than he be­gan to use it and quick­ly felled with his strokes the no­blest gi­ants of the for­est. An old oak, lament­ing when too late the de­struc­tion of his com­pan­ions, said to a neigh­bor­ing cedar, “The first step has lost us all. If we had not giv­en up the rights of the ash, we might yet have re­tained our own priv­ileges and have stood for ages.”

The Crab and the Fox A CRAB, for­sak­ing the seashore, chose a neigh­bor­ing green mead­ow as its feed­ing ground. A Fox came across him, and be­ing very hun­gry ate him up. Just as he was on the point of be­ing eat­en, the Crab said, “I well de­serve my fate, for what busi­ness had I on the land, when by my na­ture and habits I am on­ly adapt­ed for the sea?’ Con­tent­ment with our lot is an el­ement of hap­pi­ness.

The Wom­an and Her Hen A WOM­AN pos­sessed a Hen that gave her an egg ev­ery day. She of­ten pon­dered how she might ob­tain two eggs dai­ly in­stead of one, and at last, to gain her pur­pose, de­ter­mined to give the Hen a dou­ble al­lowance of bar­ley. From that day the Hen be­came fat and sleek, and nev­er once laid an­oth­er egg.

The Ass and the Old Shep­herd A SHEP­HERD, watch­ing his Ass feed­ing in a mead­ow, was alarmed all of a sud­den by the cries of the en­emy. He ap­pealed to the Ass to fly with him, lest they should both be cap­tured, but the an­imal lazi­ly replied, “Why should I, pray? Do you think it like­ly the con­queror will place on me two sets of pan­niers?’ “No,” re­joined the Shep­herd. “Then,” said the Ass, “as long as I car­ry the pan­niers, what mat­ters it to me whom I serve?’ In a change of gov­ern­ment the poor change noth­ing be­yond the name of their mas­ter.

The Kites and the Swans TEE KITES of old­en times, as well as the Swans, had the priv­ilege of song. But hav­ing heard the neigh of the horse, they were so en­chant­ed with the sound, that they tried to im­itate it; and, in try­ing to neigh, they for­got how to sing. The de­sire for imag­inary ben­efits of­ten in­volves the loss of present bless­ings.

The Wolves and the Sheep­dogs THE WOLVES thus ad­dressed the Sheep­dogs: “Why should you, who are like us in so many things, not be en­tire­ly of one mind with us, and live with us as broth­ers should? We dif­fer from you in one point on­ly. We live in free­dom, but you bow down to and slave for men, who in re­turn for your ser­vices flog you with whips and put col­lars on your necks. They make you al­so guard their sheep, and while they eat the mut­ton throw on­ly the bones to you. If you will be per­suad­ed by us, you will give us the sheep, and we will en­joy them in com­mon, till we all are sur­feit­ed.” The Dogs lis­tened fa­vor­ably to these pro­pos­als, and, en­ter­ing the den of the Wolves, they were set up­on and torn to pieces.

The Hares and the Fox­es THE HARES waged war with the Ea­gles, and called up­on the Fox­es to help them. They replied, “We would will­ing­ly have helped you, if we had not known who you were, and with whom you were fight­ing.”

Count the cost be­fore you com­mit your­selves.

The Bow­man and Li­on A VERY SKILL­FUL BOW­MAN went to the moun­tains in search of game, but all the beasts of the for­est fled at his ap­proach. The Li­on alone chal­lenged him to com­bat. The Bow­man im­me­di­ate­ly shot out an ar­row and said to the Li­on: “I send thee my mes­sen­ger, that from him thou mayest learn what I my­self shall be when I as­sail thee.” The wound­ed Li­on rushed away in great fear, and when a Fox who had seen it all hap­pen told him to be of good courage and not to back off at the first at­tack he replied: “You coun­sel me in vain; for if he sends so fear­ful a mes­sen­ger, how shall I abide the at­tack of the man him­self?’ Be on guard against men who can strike from a dis­tance.

The Camel WHEN MAN first saw the Camel, he was so fright­ened at his vast size that he ran away. Af­ter a time, per­ceiv­ing the meek­ness and gen­tle­ness of the beast’s tem­per, he sum­moned courage enough to ap­proach him. Soon af­ter­wards, ob­serv­ing that he was an an­imal al­to­geth­er de­fi­cient in spir­it, he as­sumed such bold­ness as to put a bri­dle in his mouth, and to let a child drive him. Use serves to over­come dread.

The Wasp and the Snake A WASP seat­ed him­self up­on the head of a Snake and, strik­ing him un­ceas­ing­ly with his stings, wound­ed him to death. The Snake, be­ing in great tor­ment and not know­ing how to rid him­self of his en­emy, saw a wag­on heav­ily laden with wood, and went and pur­pose­ly placed his head un­der the wheels, say­ing, “At least my en­emy and I shall per­ish to­geth­er.”

The Dog and the Hare A HOUND hav­ing start­ed a Hare on the hill­side pur­sued her for some dis­tance, at one time bit­ing her with his teeth as if he would take her life, and at an­oth­er fawn­ing up­on her, as if in play with an­oth­er dog. The Hare said to him, “I wish you would act sin­cere­ly by me, and show your­self in your true col­ors. If you are a friend, why do you bite me so hard? If an en­emy, why do you fawn on me?’ No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or dis­trust him.

The Bull and the Calf A BULL was striv­ing with all his might to squeeze him­self through a nar­row pas­sage which led to his stall. A young Calf came up, and of­fered to go be­fore and show him the way by which he could man­age to pass. “Save your­self the trou­ble,” said the Bull; “I knew that way long be­fore you were born.”

The Stag, the Wolf, and the Sheep A STAG asked a Sheep to lend him a mea­sure of wheat, and said that the Wolf would be his sure­ty. The Sheep, fear­ing some fraud was in­tend­ed, ex­cused her­self, say­ing, “The Wolf is ac­cus­tomed to seize what he wants and to run off; and you, too, can quick­ly out­strip me in your rapid flight. How then shall I be able to find you, when the day of pay­ment comes?’ Two blacks do not make one white.

The Pea­cock and the Crane A PEA­COCK spread­ing its gor­geous tail mocked a Crane that passed by, ridi­cul­ing the ashen hue of its plumage and say­ing, “I am robed, like a king, in gold and pur­ple and all the col­ors of the rain­bow; while you have not a bit of col­or on your wings.” “True,” replied the Crane; “but I soar to the heights of heav­en and lift up my voice to the stars, while you walk be­low, like a cock, among the birds of the dunghill.” Fine feath­ers don’t make fine birds.

The Fox and the Hedge­hog A FOX swim­ming across a rapid riv­er was car­ried by the force of the cur­rent in­to a very deep ravine, where he lay for a long time very much bruised, sick, and un­able to move. A swarm of hun­gry blood-​suck­ing flies set­tled up­on him. A Hedge­hog, pass­ing by, saw his an­guish and in­quired if he should drive away the flies that were tor­ment­ing him. “By no means,” replied the Fox; “pray do not mo­lest them.” “How is this?’ said the Hedge­hog; “do you not want to be rid of them?’ “No,” re­turned the Fox, “for these flies which you see are full of blood, and sting me but lit­tle, and if you rid me of these which are al­ready sa­ti­at­ed, oth­ers more hun­gry will come in their place, and will drink up all the blood I have left.”

The Ea­gle, the Cat, and the Wild Sow AN EA­GLE made her nest at the top of a lofty oak; a Cat, hav­ing found a con­ve­nient hole, moved in­to the mid­dle of the trunk; and a Wild Sow, with her young, took shel­ter in a hol­low at its foot. The Cat cun­ning­ly re­solved to de­stroy this chance-​made colony. To car­ry out her de­sign, she climbed to the nest of the Ea­gle, and said, “De­struc­tion is prepar­ing for you, and for me too, un­for­tu­nate­ly. The Wild Sow, whom you see dai­ly dig­ging up the earth, wish­es to up­root the oak, so she may on its fall seize our fam­ilies as food for her young.” Hav­ing thus fright­ened the Ea­gle out of her sens­es, she crept down to the cave of the Sow, and said, “Your chil­dren are in great dan­ger; for as soon as you go out with your lit­ter to find food, the Ea­gle is pre­pared to pounce up­on one of your lit­tle pigs.” Hav­ing in­stilled these fears in­to the Sow, she went and pre­tend­ed to hide her­self in the hol­low of the tree. When night came she went forth with silent foot and ob­tained food for her­self and her kit­tens, but feign­ing to be afraid, she kept a look­out all through the day. Mean­while, the Ea­gle, full of fear of the Sow, sat still on the branch­es, and the Sow, ter­ri­fied by the Ea­gle, did not dare to go out from her cave. And thus they both, along with their fam­ilies, per­ished from hunger, and af­ford­ed am­ple pro­vi­sion for the Cat and her kit­tens.

The Thief and the Innkeep­er A THIEF hired a room in a tav­ern and stayed a while in the hope of steal­ing some­thing which should en­able him to pay his reck­on­ing. When he had wait­ed some days in vain, he saw the Innkeep­er dressed in a new and hand­some coat and sit­ting be­fore his door. The Thief sat down be­side him and talked with him. As the con­ver­sa­tion be­gan to flag, the Thief yawned ter­ri­bly and at the same time howled like a wolf. The Innkeep­er said, “Why do you howl so fear­ful­ly?’ “I will tell you,” said the Thief, “but first let me ask you to hold my clothes, or I shall tear them to pieces. I know not, sir, when I got this habit of yawn­ing, nor whether these at­tacks of howl­ing were in­flict­ed on me as a judg­ment for my crimes, or for any oth­er cause; but this I do know, that when I yawn for the third time, I ac­tu­al­ly turn in­to a wolf and at­tack men.” With this speech he com­menced a sec­ond fit of yawn­ing and again howled like a wolf, as he had at first. The Innkeep­er. hear­ing his tale and be­liev­ing what he said, be­came great­ly alarmed and, ris­ing from his seat, at­tempt­ed to run away. The Thief laid hold of his coat and en­treat­ed him to stop, say­ing, “Pray wait, sir, and hold my clothes, or I shall tear them to pieces in my fury, when I turn in­to a wolf.” At the same mo­ment he yawned the third time and set up a ter­ri­ble howl. The Innkeep­er, fright­ened lest he should be at­tacked, left his new coat in the Thief’s hand and ran as fast as he could in­to the inn for safe­ty. The Thief made off with the coat and did not re­turn again to the inn. Ev­ery tale is not to be be­lieved.

The Mule A MULE, frol­ic­some from lack of work and from too much corn, gal­loped about in a very ex­trav­agant man­ner, and said to him­self: “My fa­ther sure­ly was a high-​met­tled rac­er, and I am his own child in speed and spir­it.” On the next day, be­ing driv­en a long jour­ney, and feel­ing very wea­ried, he ex­claimed in a dis­con­so­late tone: “I must have made a mis­take; my fa­ther, af­ter all, could have been on­ly an ass.”

The Hart and the Vine A HART, hard pressed in the chase, hid him­self be­neath the large leaves of a Vine. The hunts­men, in their haste, over­shot the place of his con­ceal­ment. Sup­pos­ing all dan­ger to have passed, the Hart be­gan to nib­ble the ten­drils of the Vine. One of the hunts­men, at­tract­ed by the rustling of the leaves, looked back, and see­ing the Hart, shot an ar­row from his bow and struck it. The Hart, at the point of death, groaned: “I am right­ly served, for I should not have mal­treat­ed the Vine that saved me.”

The Ser­pent and the Ea­gle A SER­PENT and an Ea­gle were strug­gling with each oth­er in dead­ly con­flict. The Ser­pent had the ad­van­tage, and was about to stran­gle the bird. A coun­try­man saw them, and run­ning up, loosed the coil of the Ser­pent and let the Ea­gle go free. The Ser­pent, ir­ri­tat­ed at the es­cape of his prey, in­ject­ed his poi­son in­to the drink­ing horn of the coun­try­man. The rus­tic, ig­no­rant of his dan­ger, was about to drink, when the Ea­gle struck his hand with his wing, and, seiz­ing the drink­ing horn in his talons, car­ried it aloft.

The Crow and the Pitch­er A CROW per­ish­ing with thirst saw a pitch­er, and hop­ing to find wa­ter, flew to it with de­light. When he reached it, he dis­cov­ered to his grief that it con­tained so lit­tle wa­ter that he could not pos­si­bly get at it. He tried ev­ery­thing he could think of to reach the wa­ter, but all his ef­forts were in vain. At last he col­lect­ed as many stones as he could car­ry and dropped them one by one with his beak in­to the pitch­er, un­til he brought the wa­ter with­in his reach and thus saved his life. Ne­ces­si­ty is the moth­er of in­ven­tion.

The Two Frogs TWO FROGS were neigh­bors. One in­hab­it­ed a deep pond, far re­moved from pub­lic view; the oth­er lived in a gul­ly con­tain­ing lit­tle wa­ter, and tra­versed by a coun­try road. The Frog that lived in the pond warned his friend to change his res­idence and en­treat­ed him to come and live with him, say­ing that he would en­joy greater safe­ty from dan­ger and more abun­dant food. The oth­er re­fused, say­ing that he felt it so very hard to leave a place to which he had be­come ac­cus­tomed. A few days af­ter­wards a heavy wag­on passed through the gul­ly and crushed him to death un­der its wheels. A will­ful man will have his way to his own hurt.

The Wolf and the Fox AT ONE TIME a very large and strong Wolf was born among the wolves, who ex­ceed­ed all his fel­low-​wolves in strength, size, and swift­ness, so that they unan­imous­ly de­cid­ed to call him “Li­on.” The Wolf, with a lack of sense pro­por­tioned to his enor­mous size, thought that they gave him this name in earnest, and, leav­ing his own race, con­sort­ed ex­clu­sive­ly with the li­ons. An old sly Fox, see­ing this, said, “May I nev­er make my­self so ridicu­lous as you do in your pride and self-​con­ceit; for even though you have the size of a li­on among wolves, in a herd of li­ons you are def­inite­ly a wolf.”

The Wal­nut-​Tree A WAL­NUT TREE stand­ing by the road­side bore an abun­dant crop of fruit. For the sake of the nuts, the passers-​by broke its branch­es with stones and sticks. The Wal­nut-​Tree piteous­ly ex­claimed, “O wretched me! that those whom I cheer with my fruit should re­pay me with these painful re­quitals!”

The Gnat and the Li­on A GNAT came and said to a Li­on, “I do not in the least fear you, nor are you stronger than I am. For in what does your strength con­sist? You can scratch with your claws and bite with your teeth an a wom­an in her quar­rels. I re­peat that I am al­to­geth­er more pow­er­ful than you; and if you doubt it, let us fight and see who will con­quer.” The Gnat, hav­ing sound­ed his horn, fas­tened him­self up­on the Li­on and stung him on the nos­trils and the parts of the face de­void of hair. While try­ing to crush him, the Li­on tore him­self with his claws, un­til he pun­ished him­self severe­ly. The Gnat thus pre­vailed over the Li­on, and, buzzing about in a song of tri­umph, flew away. But short­ly af­ter­wards he be­came en­tan­gled in the mesh­es of a cob­web and was eat­en by a spi­der. He great­ly lament­ed his fate, say­ing, “Woe is me! that I, who can wage war suc­cess­ful­ly with the hugest beasts, should per­ish my­self from this spi­der, the most in­con­sid­er­able of in­sects!”

The Mon­key and the Dol­phin A SAILOR, bound on a long voy­age, took with him a Mon­key to amuse him while on ship­board. As he sailed off the coast of Greece, a vi­olent tem­pest arose in which the ship was wrecked and he, his Mon­key, and all the crew were obliged to swim for their lives. A Dol­phin saw the Mon­key con­tend­ing with the waves, and sup­pos­ing him to be a man (whom he is al­ways said to be­friend), came and placed him­self un­der him, to con­vey him on his back in safe­ty to the shore. When the Dol­phin ar­rived with his bur­den in sight of land not far from Athens, he asked the Mon­key if he were an Athe­ni­an. The lat­ter replied that he was, and that he was de­scend­ed from one of the most no­ble fam­ilies in that city. The Dol­phin then in­quired if he knew the Pi­raeus (the fa­mous har­bor of Athens). Sup­pos­ing that a man was meant, the Mon­key an­swered that he knew him very well and that he was an in­ti­mate friend. The Dol­phin, in­dig­nant at these false­hoods, dipped the Mon­key un­der the wa­ter and drowned him.

The Jack­daw and the Doves A JACK­DAW, see­ing some Doves in a cote abun­dant­ly pro­vid­ed with food, paint­ed him­self white and joined them in or­der to share their plen­ti­ful main­te­nance. The Doves, as long as he was silent, sup­posed him to be one of them­selves and ad­mit­ted him to their cote. But when one day he for­got him­self and be­gan to chat­ter, they dis­cov­ered his true char­ac­ter and drove him forth, peck­ing him with their beaks. Fail­ing to ob­tain food among the Doves, he re­turned to the Jack­daws. They too, not rec­og­niz­ing him on ac­count of his col­or. ex­pelled him from liv­ing with them. So de­sir­ing two ends, he ob­tained nei­ther.

The Horse and the Stag AT ONE TIME the Horse had the plain en­tire­ly to him­self. Then a Stag in­trud­ed in­to his do­main and shared his pas­ture. The Horse, de­sir­ing to re­venge him­self on the stranger, asked a man if he were will­ing to help him in pun­ish­ing the Stag. The man replied that if the Horse would re­ceive a bit in his mouth and agree to car­ry him, he would con­trive ef­fec­tive weapons against the Stag. The Horse con­sent­ed and al­lowed the man to mount him. From that hour he found that in­stead of ob­tain­ing re­venge on the Stag, he had en­slaved him­self to the ser­vice of man.

The Kid and the Wolf A KID, re­turn­ing with­out pro­tec­tion from the pas­ture, was pur­sued by a Wolf. See­ing he could not es­cape, he turned round, and said: “I know, friend Wolf, that I must be your prey, but be­fore I die I would ask of you one fa­vor you will play me a tune to which I may dance.” The Wolf com­plied, and while he was pip­ing and the Kid was danc­ing, some hounds hear­ing the sound ran up and be­gan chas­ing the Wolf. Turn­ing to the Kid, he said, “It is just what I de­serve; for I, who am on­ly a butch­er, should not have turned piper to please you.”

The Prophet A WIZ­ARD, sit­ting in the mar­ket­place, was telling the for­tunes of the passers-​by when a per­son ran up in great haste, and an­nounced to him that the doors of his house had been bro­ken open and that all his goods were be­ing stolen. He sighed heav­ily and has­tened away as fast as he could run. A neigh­bor saw him run­ning and said, “Oh! you fel­low there! you say you can fore­tell the for­tunes of oth­ers; how is it you did not fore­see your own?’

The Fox and the Mon­key A FOX and a Mon­key were trav­el­ing to­geth­er on the same road. As they jour­neyed, they passed through a ceme­tery full of mon­uments. “All these mon­uments which you see,” said the Mon­key, “are erect­ed in hon­or of my an­ces­tors, who were in their day freed­men and cit­izens of great renown.” The Fox replied, “You have cho­sen a most ap­pro­pri­ate sub­ject for your false­hoods, as I am sure none of your an­ces­tors will be able to con­tra­dict you.” A false tale of­ten be­trays it­self.

The Thief and the House­dog A THIEF came in the night to break in­to a house. He brought with him sev­er­al slices of meat in or­der to paci­fy the House­dog, so that he would not alarm his mas­ter by bark­ing. As the Thief threw him the pieces of meat, the Dog said, “If you think to stop my mouth, you will be great­ly mis­tak­en. This sud­den kind­ness at your hands will on­ly make me more watch­ful, lest un­der these un­ex­pect­ed fa­vors to my­self, you have some pri­vate ends to ac­com­plish for your own ben­efit, and for my mas­ter’s in­jury.”

The Man, the Horse, the Ox, and the Dog A HORSE, Ox, and Dog, driv­en to great straits by the cold, sought shel­ter and pro­tec­tion from Man. He re­ceived them kind­ly, light­ed a fire, and warmed them. He let the Horse make free with his oats, gave the Ox an abun­dance of hay, and fed the Dog with meat from his own ta­ble. Grate­ful for these fa­vors, the an­imals de­ter­mined to re­pay him to the best of their abil­ity. For this pur­pose, they di­vid­ed the term of his life be­tween them, and each en­dowed one por­tion of it with the qual­ities which chiefly char­ac­ter­ized him­self. The Horse chose his ear­li­est years and gave them his own at­tributes: hence ev­ery man is in his youth im­petu­ous, head­strong, and ob­sti­nate in main­tain­ing his own opin­ion. The Ox took un­der his pa­tron­age the next term of life, and there­fore man in his mid­dle age is fond of work, de­vot­ed to la­bor, and res­olute to amass wealth and to hus­band his re­sources. The end of life was re­served for the Dog, where­fore the old man is of­ten snap­pish, ir­ri­ta­ble, hard to please, and self­ish, tol­er­ant on­ly of his own house­hold, but averse to strangers and to all who do not ad­min­is­ter to his com­fort or to his ne­ces­si­ties.

The Apes and the Two Trav­el­ers TWO MEN, one who al­ways spoke the truth and the oth­er who told noth­ing but lies, were trav­el­ing to­geth­er and by chance came to the land of Apes. One of the Apes, who had raised him­self to be king, com­mand­ed them to be seized and brought be­fore him, that he might know what was said of him among men. He or­dered at the same time that all the Apes be ar­ranged in a long row on his right hand and on his left, and that a throne be placed for him, as was the cus­tom among men. Af­ter these prepa­ra­tions he sig­ni­fied that the two men should be brought be­fore him, and greet­ed them with this salu­ta­tion: “What sort of a king do I seem to you to be, O strangers?’ The Ly­ing Trav­el­er replied, “You seem to me a most mighty king.” “And what is your es­ti­mate of those you see around me?’ “These,” he made an­swer, “are wor­thy com­pan­ions of your­self, fit at least to be am­bas­sadors and lead­ers of armies.” The Ape and all his court, grat­ified with the lie, com­mand­ed that a hand­some present be giv­en to the flat­ter­er. On this the truth­ful Trav­el­er thought to him­self, “If so great a re­ward be giv­en for a lie, with what gift may not I be re­ward­ed, if, ac­cord­ing to my cus­tom, I tell the truth?’ The Ape quick­ly turned to him. “And pray how do I and these my friends around me seem to you?’ “Thou art,” he said, “a most ex­cel­lent Ape, and all these thy com­pan­ions af­ter thy ex­am­ple are ex­cel­lent Apes too.” The King of the Apes, en­raged at hear­ing these truths, gave him over to the teeth and claws of his com­pan­ions.

The Wolf and the Shep­herd A WOLF fol­lowed a flock of sheep for a long time and did not at­tempt to in­jure one of them. The Shep­herd at first stood on his guard against him, as against an en­emy, and kept a strict watch over his move­ments. But when the Wolf, day af­ter day, kept in the com­pa­ny of the sheep and did not make the slight­est ef­fort to seize them, the Shep­herd be­gan to look up­on him as a guardian of his flock rather than as a plot­ter of evil against it; and when oc­ca­sion called him one day in­to the city, he left the sheep en­tire­ly in his charge. The Wolf, now that he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty, fell up­on the sheep, and de­stroyed the greater part of the flock. When the Shep­herd re­turned to find his flock de­stroyed, he ex­claimed: “I have been right­ly served; why did I trust my sheep to a Wolf?’

The Hares and the Li­ons THE HARES ha­rangued the as­sem­bly, and ar­gued that all should be equal. The Li­ons made this re­ply: “Your words, O Hares! are good; but they lack both claws and teeth such as we have.”

The Lark and Her Young Ones A LARK had made her nest in the ear­ly spring on the young green wheat. The brood had al­most grown to their full strength and at­tained the use of their wings and the full plumage of their feath­ers, when the own­er of the field, look­ing over his ripe crop, said, “The time has come when I must ask all my neigh­bors to help me with my har­vest.” One of the young Larks heard his speech and re­lat­ed it to his moth­er, in­quir­ing of her to what place they should move for safe­ty. “There is no oc­ca­sion to move yet, my son,” she replied; “the man who on­ly sends to his friends to help him with his har­vest is not re­al­ly in earnest.” The own­er of the field came again a few days lat­er and saw the wheat shed­ding the grain from ex­cess of ripeness. He said, “I will come my­self to­mor­row with my la­bor­ers, and with as many reapers as I can hire, and will get in the har­vest.” The Lark on hear­ing these words said to her brood, “It is time now to be off, my lit­tle ones, for the man is in earnest this time; he no longer trusts his friends, but will reap the field him­self.” Self-​help is the best help.

The Fox and the Li­on WHEN A FOX who had nev­er yet seen a Li­on, fell in with him by chance for the first time in the for­est, he was so fright­ened that he near­ly died with fear. On meet­ing him for the sec­ond time, he was still much alarmed, but not to the same ex­tent as at first. On see­ing him the third time, he so in­creased in bold­ness that he went up to him and com­menced a fa­mil­iar con­ver­sa­tion with him. Ac­quain­tance soft­ens prej­udices.

The Weasel and the Mice A WEASEL, in­ac­tive from age and in­fir­mi­ties, was not able to catch mice as he once did. He there­fore rolled him­self in flour and lay down in a dark cor­ner. A Mouse, sup­pos­ing him to be food, leaped up­on him, and was in­stant­ly caught and squeezed to death. An­oth­er per­ished in a sim­ilar man­ner, and then a third, and still oth­ers af­ter them. A very old Mouse, who had es­caped many a trap and snare, ob­served from a safe dis­tance the trick of his crafty foe and said, “Ah! you that lie there, may you pros­per just in the same pro­por­tion as you are what you pre­tend to be!”

The Boy Bathing A BOY bathing in a riv­er was in dan­ger of be­ing drowned. He called out to a pass­ing trav­el­er for help, but in­stead of hold­ing out a help­ing hand, the man stood by un­con­cerned­ly, and scold­ed the boy for his im­pru­dence. “Oh, sir!” cried the youth, “pray help me now and scold me af­ter­wards.” Coun­sel with­out help is use­less.

The Ass and the Wolf AN ASS feed­ing in a mead­ow saw a Wolf ap­proach­ing to seize him, and im­me­di­ate­ly pre­tend­ed to be lame. The Wolf, com­ing up, in­quired the cause of his lame­ness. The Ass replied that pass­ing through a hedge he had trod with his foot up­on a sharp thorn. He re­quest­ed that the Wolf pull it out, lest when he ate him it should in­jure his throat. The Wolf con­sent­ed and lift­ed up the foot, and was giv­ing his whole mind to the dis­cov­ery of the thorn, when the Ass, with his heels, kicked his teeth in­to his mouth and gal­loped away. The Wolf, be­ing thus fear­ful­ly mauled, said, “I am right­ly served, for why did I at­tempt the art of heal­ing, when my fa­ther on­ly taught me the trade of a butch­er?’

The Sell­er of Im­ages A CER­TAIN MAN made a wood­en im­age of Mer­cury and of­fered it for sale. When no one ap­peared will­ing to buy it, in or­der to at­tract pur­chasers, he cried out that he had the stat­ue to sell of a bene­fac­tor who be­stowed wealth and helped to heap up rich­es. One of the by­standers said to him, “My good fel­low, why do you sell him, be­ing such a one as you de­scribe, when you may your­self en­joy the good things he has to give?’ “Why,” he replied, “I am in need of im­me­di­ate help, and he is wont to give his good gifts very slow­ly.”

The Fox and the Grapes A FAM­ISHED FOX saw some clus­ters of ripe black grapes hang­ing from a trel­lised vine. She re­sort­ed to all her tricks to get at them, but wea­ried her­self in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hid­ing her dis­ap­point­ment and say­ing: “The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.”

The Man and His Wife A MAN had a Wife who made her­self hat­ed by all the mem­bers of his house­hold. Wish­ing to find out if she had the same ef­fect on the per­sons in her fa­ther’s house, he made some ex­cuse to send her home on a vis­it to her fa­ther. Af­ter a short time she re­turned, and when he in­quired how she had got on and how the ser­vants had treat­ed her, she replied, “The herds­men and shep­herds cast on me looks of aver­sion.” He said, “O Wife, if you were dis­liked by those who go out ear­ly in the morn­ing with their flocks and re­turn late in the evening, what must have been felt to­wards you by those with whom you passed the whole day!” Straws show how the wind blows.

The Pea­cock and Juno THE PEA­COCK made com­plaint to Juno that, while the nightin­gale pleased ev­ery ear with his song, he him­self no soon­er opened his mouth than he be­came a laugh­ing­stock to all who heard him. The God­dess, to con­sole him, said, “But you far ex­cel in beau­ty and in size. The splen­dor of the emer­ald shines in your neck and you un­fold a tail gor­geous with paint­ed plumage.” “But for what pur­pose have I,” said the bird, “this dumb beau­ty so long as I am sur­passed in song?’ “The lot of each,” replied Juno, “has been as­signed by the will of the Fates–to thee, beau­ty; to the ea­gle, strength; to the nightin­gale, song; to the raven, fa­vor­able, and to the crow, un­fa­vor­able au­guries. These are all con­tent­ed with the en­dow­ments al­lot­ted to them.”

The Hawk and the Nightin­gale A NIGHTIN­GALE, sit­ting aloft up­on an oak and singing ac­cord­ing to his wont, was seen by a Hawk who, be­ing in need of food, swooped down and seized him. The Nightin­gale, about to lose his life, earnest­ly begged the Hawk to let him go, say­ing that he was not big enough to sat­is­fy the hunger of a Hawk who, if he want­ed food, ought to pur­sue the larg­er birds. The Hawk, in­ter­rupt­ing him, said: “I should in­deed have lost my sens­es if I should let go food ready in my hand, for the sake of pur­su­ing birds which are not yet even with­in sight.”

The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox A DOG and a Cock be­ing great friends, agreed to trav­el to­geth­er. At night­fall they took shel­ter in a thick wood. The Cock fly­ing up, perched him­self on the branch­es of a tree, while the Dog found a bed be­neath in the hol­low trunk. When the morn­ing dawned, the Cock, as usu­al, crowed very loud­ly sev­er­al times. A Fox heard the sound, and wish­ing to make a break­fast on him, came and stood un­der the branch­es, say­ing how earnest­ly he de­sired to make the ac­quain­tance of the own­er of so mag­nif­icent a voice. The Cock, sus­pect­ing his ci­vil­ities, said: “Sir, I wish you would do me the fa­vor of go­ing around to the hol­low trunk be­low me, and wak­ing my porter, so that he may open the door and let you in.” When the Fox ap­proached the tree, the Dog sprang out and caught him, and tore him to pieces.

The Wolf and the Goat A WOLF saw a Goat feed­ing at the sum­mit of a steep precipice, where he had no chance of reach­ing her. He called to her and earnest­ly begged her to come low­er down, lest she fall by some mishap; and he added that the mead­ows lay where he was stand­ing, and that the herbage was most ten­der. She replied, “No, my friend, it is not for the pas­ture that you in­vite me, but for your­self, who are in want of food.”

The Li­on and the Bull A LI­ON, great­ly de­sir­ing to cap­ture a Bull, and yet afraid to at­tack him on ac­count of his great size, re­sort­ed to a trick to en­sure his de­struc­tion. He ap­proached the Bull and said, “I have slain a fine sheep, my friend; and if you will come home and par­take of him with me, I shall be de­light­ed to have your com­pa­ny.” The Li­on said this in the hope that, as the Bull was in the act of re­clin­ing to eat, he might at­tack him to ad­van­tage, and make his meal on him. The Bull, on ap­proach­ing the Li­on’s den, saw the huge spits and gi­ant cal­drons, and no sign what­ev­er of the sheep, and, with­out say­ing a word, qui­et­ly took his de­par­ture. The Li­on in­quired why he went off so abrupt­ly with­out a word of salu­ta­tion to his host, who had not giv­en him any cause for of­fense. “I have rea­sons enough,” said the Bull. “I see no in­di­ca­tion what­ev­er of your hav­ing slaugh­tered a sheep, while I do see very plain­ly ev­ery prepa­ra­tion for your din­ing on a bull.”

The Goat and the Ass A MAN once kept a Goat and an Ass. The Goat, en­vy­ing the Ass on ac­count of his greater abun­dance of food, said, “How shame­ful­ly you are treat­ed: at one time grind­ing in the mill, and at an­oth­er car­ry­ing heavy bur­dens”; and he fur­ther ad­vised him to pre­tend to be epilep­tic and fall in­to a ditch and so ob­tain rest. The Ass lis­tened to his words, and falling in­to a ditch, was very much bruised. His mas­ter, send­ing for a leech, asked his ad­vice. He bade him pour up­on the wounds the lungs of a Goat. They at once killed the Goat, and so healed the Ass.

The Town Mouse and the Coun­try Mouse A COUN­TRY MOUSE in­vit­ed a Town Mouse, an in­ti­mate friend, to pay him a vis­it and par­take of his coun­try fare. As they were on the bare plow­lands, eat­ing there wheat-​stocks and roots pulled up from the hedgerow, the Town Mouse said to his friend, “You live here the life of the ants, while in my house is the horn of plen­ty. I am sur­round­ed by ev­ery lux­ury, and if you will come with me, as I wish you would, you shall have an am­ple share of my dain­ties.” The Coun­try Mouse was eas­ily per­suad­ed, and re­turned to town with his friend. On his ar­rival, the Town Mouse placed be­fore him bread, bar­ley, beans, dried figs, hon­ey, raisins, and, last of all, brought a dain­ty piece of cheese from a bas­ket. The Coun­try Mouse, be­ing much de­light­ed at the sight of such good cheer, ex­pressed his sat­is­fac­tion in warm terms and lament­ed his own hard fate. Just as they were be­gin­ning to eat, some­one opened the door, and they both ran off squeak­ing, as fast as they could, to a hole so nar­row that two could on­ly find room in it by squeez­ing. They had scarce­ly be­gun their repast again when some­one else en­tered to take some­thing out of a cup­board, where­upon the two Mice, more fright­ened than be­fore, ran away and hid them­selves. At last the Coun­try Mouse, al­most fam­ished, said to his friend: “Al­though you have pre­pared for me so dain­ty a feast, I must leave you to en­joy it by your­self. It is sur­round­ed by too many dan­gers to please me. I pre­fer my bare plow­lands and roots from the hedgerow, where I can live in safe­ty, and with­out fear.”

The Wolf, the Fox, and the Ape A WOLF ac­cused a Fox of theft, but the Fox en­tire­ly de­nied the charge. An Ape un­der­took to ad­judge the mat­ter be­tween them. When each had ful­ly stat­ed his case the Ape an­nounced this sen­tence: “I do not think you, Wolf, ev­er lost what you claim; and I do be­lieve you, Fox, to have stolen what you so stout­ly de­ny.” The dis­hon­est, if they act hon­est­ly, get no cred­it.

The Fly and the Draught-​Mule A FLY sat on the axle-​tree of a char­iot, and ad­dress­ing the Draught-​Mule said, “How slow you are! Why do you not go faster? See if I do not prick your neck with my sting.” The Draught-​Mule replied, “I do not heed your threats; I on­ly care for him who sits above you, and who quick­ens my pace with his whip, or holds me back with the reins. Away, there­fore, with your in­so­lence, for I know well when to go fast, and when to go slow.”

The Fish­er­men SOME FISH­ER­MEN were out trawl­ing their nets. Per­ceiv­ing them to be very heavy, they danced about for joy and sup­posed that they had tak­en a large catch. When they had dragged the nets to the shore they found but few fish: the nets were full of sand and stones, and the men were be­yond mea­sure cast down­so much at the dis­ap­point­ment which had be­fall­en them, but be­cause they had formed such very dif­fer­ent ex­pec­ta­tions. One of their com­pa­ny, an old man, said, “Let us cease lament­ing, my mates, for, as it seems to me, sor­row is al­ways the twin sis­ter of joy; and it was on­ly to be looked for that we, who just now were over-​re­joiced, should next have some­thing to make us sad.”

The Li­on and the Three Bulls THREE BULLS for a long time pas­tured to­geth­er. A Li­on lay in am­bush in the hope of mak­ing them his prey, but was afraid to at­tack them while they kept to­geth­er. Hav­ing at last by guile­ful speech­es suc­ceed­ed in sep­arat­ing them, he at­tacked them with­out fear as they fed alone, and feast­ed on them one by one at his own leisure. Union is strength.

The Fowler and the Viper A FOWLER, tak­ing his bird-​lime and his twigs, went out to catch birds. See­ing a thrush sit­ting up­on a tree, he wished to take it, and fit­ting his twigs to a prop­er length, watched in­tent­ly, hav­ing his whole thoughts di­rect­ed to­wards the sky. While thus look­ing up­wards, he un­know­ing­ly trod up­on a Viper asleep just be­fore his feet. The Viper, turn­ing about, stung him, and falling in­to a swoon, the man said to him­self, “Woe is me! that while I pur­posed to hunt an­oth­er, I am my­self fall­en un­awares in­to the snares of death.”

The Horse and the Ass A HORSE, proud of his fine trap­pings, met an Ass on the high­way. The Ass, be­ing heav­ily laden, moved slow­ly out of the way. “Hard­ly,” said the Horse, “can I re­sist kick­ing you with my heels.” The Ass held his peace, and made on­ly a silent ap­peal to the jus­tice of the gods. Not long af­ter­wards the Horse, hav­ing be­come bro­ken-​wind­ed, was sent by his own­er to the farm. The Ass, see­ing him draw­ing a dung­cart, thus de­rid­ed him: “Where, O boast­er, are now all thy gay trap­pings, thou who are thy­self re­duced to the con­di­tion you so late­ly treat­ed with con­tempt?’

The Fox and the Mask A FOX en­tered the house of an ac­tor and, rum­mag­ing through all his prop­er­ties, came up­on a Mask, an ad­mirable im­ita­tion of a hu­man head. He placed his paws on it and said, “What a beau­ti­ful head! Yet it is of no val­ue, as it en­tire­ly lacks brains.”

The Geese and the Cranes THE GEESE and the Cranes were feed­ing in the same mead­ow, when a bird­catch­er came to en­snare them in his nets. The Cranes, be­ing light of wing, fled away at his ap­proach; while the Geese, be­ing slow­er of flight and heav­ier in their bod­ies, were cap­tured.

The Blind Man and the Whelp A BLIND MAN was ac­cus­tomed to dis­tin­guish­ing dif­fer­ent an­imals by touch­ing them with his hands. The whelp of a Wolf was brought him, with a re­quest that he would feel it, and say what it was. He felt it, and be­ing in doubt, said: “I do not quite know whether it is the cub of a Fox, or the whelp of a Wolf, but this I know full well. It would not be safe to ad­mit him to the sheep­fold.” Evil ten­den­cies are shown in ear­ly life.

The Dogs and the Fox SOME DOGS, find­ing the skin of a li­on, be­gan to tear it in pieces with their teeth. A Fox, see­ing them, said, “If this li­on were alive, you would soon find out that his claws were stronger than your teeth.” It is easy to kick a man that is down.

The Cob­bler Turned Doc­tor A COB­BLER un­able to make a liv­ing by his trade and made des­per­ate by pover­ty, be­gan to prac­tice medicine in a town in which he was not known. He sold a drug, pre­tend­ing that it was an an­ti­dote to all poi­sons, and ob­tained a great name for him­self by long-​wind­ed puffs and ad­ver­tise­ments. When the Cob­bler hap­pened to fall sick him­self of a se­ri­ous ill­ness, the Gov­er­nor of the town de­ter­mined to test his skill. For this pur­pose he called for a cup, and while fill­ing it with wa­ter, pre­tend­ed to mix poi­son with the Cob­bler’s an­ti­dote, com­mand­ing him to drink it on the promise of a re­ward. The Cob­bler, un­der the fear of death, con­fessed that he had no knowl­edge of medicine, and was on­ly made fa­mous by the stupid clam­ors of the crowd. The Gov­er­nor then called a pub­lic as­sem­bly and ad­dressed the cit­izens: “Of what fol­ly have you been guilty? You have not hes­itat­ed to en­trust your heads to a man, whom no one could em­ploy to make even the shoes for their feet.”

The Wolf and the Horse A WOLF com­ing out of a field of oats met a Horse and thus ad­dressed him: “I would ad­vise you to go in­to that field. It is full of fine oats, which I have left un­touched for you, as you are a friend whom I would love to hear en­joy­ing good eat­ing.” The Horse replied, “If oats had been the food of wolves, you would nev­er have in­dulged your ears at the cost of your bel­ly.” Men of evil rep­uta­tion, when they per­form a good deed, fail to get cred­it for it.

The Broth­er and the Sis­ter A FA­THER had one son and one daugh­ter, the for­mer re­mark­able for his good looks, the lat­ter for her ex­traor­di­nary ug­li­ness. While they were play­ing one day as chil­dren, they hap­pened by chance to look to­geth­er in­to a mir­ror that was placed on their moth­er’s chair. The boy con­grat­ulat­ed him­self on his good looks; the girl grew an­gry, and could not bear the self-​prais­es of her Broth­er, in­ter­pret­ing all he said (and how could she do oth­er­wise?) in­to re­flec­tion on her­self. She ran off to her fa­ther. to be avenged on her Broth­er, and spite­ful­ly ac­cused him of hav­ing, as a boy, made use of that which be­longed on­ly to girls. The fa­ther em­braced them both, and be­stow­ing his kiss­es and af­fec­tion im­par­tial­ly on each, said, “I wish you both would look in­to the mir­ror ev­ery day: you, my son, that you may not spoil your beau­ty by evil con­duct; and you, my daugh­ter, that you may make up for your lack of beau­ty by your virtues.”

The Wasps, the Par­tridges, and the Farmer THE WASPS and the Par­tridges, over­come with thirst, came to a Farmer and be­sought him to give them some wa­ter to drink. They promised am­ply to re­pay him the fa­vor which they asked. The Par­tridges de­clared that they would dig around his vines and make them pro­duce fin­er grapes. The Wasps said that they would keep guard and drive off thieves with their stings. But the Farmer in­ter­rupt­ed them, say­ing: “I have al­ready two ox­en, who, with­out mak­ing any promis­es, do all these things. It is sure­ly bet­ter for me to give the wa­ter to them than to you.”

The Crow and Mer­cury A CROW caught in a snare prayed to Apol­lo to re­lease him, mak­ing a vow to of­fer some frank­in­cense at his shrine. But when res­cued from his dan­ger, he for­got his promise. Short­ly af­ter­wards, again caught in a snare, he passed by Apol­lo and made the same promise to of­fer frank­in­cense to Mer­cury. Mer­cury soon ap­peared and said to him, “O thou most base fel­low? how can I be­lieve thee, who hast dis­owned and wronged thy for­mer pa­tron?’

The North Wind and the Sun THE NORTH WIND and the Sun dis­put­ed as to which was the most pow­er­ful, and agreed that he should be de­clared the vic­tor who could first strip a way­far­ing man of his clothes. The North Wind first tried his pow­er and blew with all his might, but the keen­er his blasts, the clos­er the Trav­el­er wrapped his cloak around him, un­til at last, re­sign­ing all hope of vic­to­ry, the Wind called up­on the Sun to see what he could do. The Sun sud­den­ly shone out with all his warmth. The Trav­el­er no soon­er felt his ge­nial rays than he took off one gar­ment af­ter an­oth­er, and at last, fair­ly over­come with heat, un­dressed and bathed in a stream that lay in his path. Per­sua­sion is bet­ter than Force.

The Two Men Who Were En­emies TWO MEN, dead­ly en­emies to each oth­er, were sail­ing in the same ves­sel. De­ter­mined to keep as far apart as pos­si­ble, the one seat­ed him­self in the stem, and the oth­er in the prow of the ship. A vi­olent storm arose, and with the ves­sel in great dan­ger of sink­ing, the one in the stern in­quired of the pi­lot which of the two ends of the ship would go down first. On his re­ply­ing that he sup­posed it would be the prow, the Man said, “Death would not be grievous to me, if I could on­ly see my En­emy die be­fore me.”

The Game­cocks and the Par­tridge A MAN had two Game­cocks in his poul­try-​yard. One day by chance he found a tame Par­tridge for sale. He pur­chased it and brought it home to be reared with his Game­cocks. When the Par­tridge was put in­to the poul­try-​yard, they struck at it and fol­lowed it about, so that the Par­tridge be­came grievous­ly trou­bled and sup­posed that he was thus evil­ly treat­ed be­cause he was a stranger. Not long af­ter­wards he saw the Cocks fight­ing to­geth­er and not sep­arat­ing be­fore one had well beat­en the oth­er. He then said to him­self, “I shall no longer dis­tress my­self at be­ing struck at by these Game­cocks, when I see that they can­not even re­frain from quar­rel­ing with each oth­er.”

The Quack Frog A FROG once up­on a time came forth from his home in the marsh and pro­claimed to all the beasts that he was a learned physi­cian, skilled in the use of drugs and able to heal all dis­eases. A Fox asked him, “How can you pre­tend to pre­scribe for oth­ers, when you are un­able to heal your own lame gait and wrin­kled skin?’

The Li­on, the Wolf, and the Fox A LI­ON, grow­ing old, lay sick in his cave. All the beasts came to vis­it their king, ex­cept the Fox. The Wolf there­fore, think­ing that he had a cap­ital op­por­tu­ni­ty, ac­cused the Fox to the Li­on of not pay­ing any re­spect to him who had the rule over them all and of not com­ing to vis­it him. At that very mo­ment the Fox came in and heard these last words of the Wolf. The Li­on roar­ing out in a rage against him, the Fox sought an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­fend him­self and said, “And who of all those who have come to you have ben­efit­ed you so much as I, who have trav­eled from place to place in ev­ery di­rec­tion, and have sought and learnt from the physi­cians the means of heal­ing you?’ The Li­on com­mand­ed him im­me­di­ate­ly to tell him the cure, when he replied, “You must flay a wolf alive and wrap his skin yet warm around you.” The Wolf was at once tak­en and flayed; where­on the Fox, turn­ing to him, said with a smile, “You should have moved your mas­ter not to ill, but to good, will.”

The Dog’s House IN THE WIN­TER­TIME, a Dog curled up in as small a space as pos­si­ble on ac­count of the cold, de­ter­mined to make him­self a house. How­ev­er when the sum­mer re­turned again, he lay asleep stretched at his full length and ap­peared to him­self to be of a great size. Now he con­sid­ered that it would be nei­ther an easy nor a nec­es­sary work to make him­self such a house as would ac­com­mo­date him.

The Wolf and the Li­on ROAM­ING BY the moun­tain­side at sun­down, a Wolf saw his own shad­ow be­come great­ly ex­tend­ed and mag­ni­fied, and he said to him­self, “Why should I, be­ing of such an im­mense size and ex­tend­ing near­ly an acre in length, be afraid of the Li­on? Ought I not to be ac­knowl­edged as King of all the col­lect­ed beasts?’ While he was in­dulging in these proud thoughts, a Li­on fell up­on him and killed him. He ex­claimed with a too late re­pen­tance, “Wretched me! this over­es­ti­ma­tion of my­self is the cause of my de­struc­tion.”

The Birds, the Beasts, and the Bat THE BIRDS waged war with the Beasts, and each were by turns the con­querors. A Bat, fear­ing the un­cer­tain is­sues of the fight, al­ways fought on the side which he felt was the strongest. When peace was pro­claimed, his de­ceit­ful con­duct was ap­par­ent to both com­bat­ants. There­fore be­ing con­demned by each for his treach­ery, he was driv­en forth from the light of day, and hence­forth con­cealed him­self in dark hid­ing-​places, fly­ing al­ways alone and at night.

The Spendthrift and the Swal­low A YOUNG MAN, a great spendthrift, had run through all his pat­ri­mo­ny and had but one good cloak left. One day he hap­pened to see a Swal­low, which had ap­peared be­fore its sea­son, skim­ming along a pool and twit­ter­ing gai­ly. He sup­posed that sum­mer had come, and went and sold his cloak. Not many days lat­er, win­ter set in again with re­newed frost and cold. When he found the un­for­tu­nate Swal­low life­less on the ground, he said, “Un­hap­py bird! what have you done? By thus ap­pear­ing be­fore the spring­time you have not on­ly killed your­self, but you have wrought my de­struc­tion al­so.”

The Fox and the Li­on A FOX saw a Li­on con­fined in a cage, and stand­ing near him, bit­ter­ly re­viled him. The Li­on said to the Fox, “It is not thou who re­vilest me; but this mis­chance which has be­fall­en me.”

The Owl and the Birds AN OWL, in her wis­dom, coun­seled the Birds that when the acorn first be­gan to sprout, to pull it all up out of the ground and not al­low it to grow. She said acorns would pro­duce mistle­toe, from which an ir­re­me­di­able poi­son, the bird- lime, would be ex­tract­ed and by which they would be cap­tured. The Owl next ad­vised them to pluck up the seed of the flax, which men had sown, as it was a plant which bod­ed no good to them. And, last­ly, the Owl, see­ing an archer ap­proach, pre­dict­ed that this man, be­ing on foot, would con­trive darts armed with feath­ers which would fly faster than the wings of the Birds them­selves. The Birds gave no cre­dence to these warn­ing words, but con­sid­ered the Owl to be be­side her­self and said that she was mad. But af­ter­wards, find­ing her words were true, they won­dered at her knowl­edge and deemed her to be the wis­est of birds. Hence it is that when she ap­pears they look to her as know­ing all things, while she no longer gives them ad­vice, but in soli­tude laments their past fol­ly.

The Trum­peter Tak­en Pris­on­er A TRUM­PETER, brave­ly lead­ing on the sol­diers, was cap­tured by the en­emy. He cried out to his cap­tors, “Pray spare me, and do not take my life with­out cause or with­out in­quiry. I have not slain a sin­gle man of your troop. I have no arms, and car­ry noth­ing but this one brass trum­pet.” “That is the very rea­son for which you should be put to death,” they said; “for, while you do not fight your­self, your trum­pet stirs all the oth­ers to bat­tle.”

The Ass in the Li­on’s Skin AN ASS, hav­ing put on the Li­on’s skin, roamed about in the for­est and amused him­self by fright­en­ing all the fool­ish an­imals he met in his wan­der­ings. At last com­ing up­on a Fox, he tried to fright­en him al­so, but the Fox no soon­er heard the sound of his voice than he ex­claimed, “I might pos­si­bly have been fright­ened my­self, if I had not heard your bray.”

The Spar­row and the Hare A HARE pounced up­on by an ea­gle sobbed very much and ut­tered cries like a child. A Spar­row up­braid­ed her and said, “Where now is thy re­mark­able swift­ness of foot? Why were your feet so slow?” While the Spar­row was thus speak­ing, a hawk sud­den­ly seized him and killed him. The Hare was com­fort­ed in her death, and ex­pir­ing said, “Ah! you who so late­ly, when you sup­posed your­self safe, ex­ult­ed over my calami­ty, have now rea­son to de­plore a sim­ilar mis­for­tune.”

The Flea and the Ox A FLEA thus ques­tioned an Ox: “What ails you, that be­ing so huge and strong, you sub­mit to the wrongs you re­ceive from men and slave for them day by day, while I, be­ing so small a crea­ture, mer­ci­less­ly feed on their flesh and drink their blood with­out stint?’ The Ox replied: “I do not wish to be un­grate­ful, for I am loved and well cared for by men, and they of­ten pat my head and shoul­ders.” “Woe’s me!” said the flea; “this very pat­ting which you like, when­ev­er it hap­pens to me, brings with it my in­evitable de­struc­tion.”

The Goods and the Ills ALL the Goods were once driv­en out by the Ills from that com­mon share which they each had in the af­fairs of mankind; for the Ills by rea­son of their num­bers had pre­vailed to pos­sess the earth. The Goods waft­ed them­selves to heav­en and asked for a righ­teous vengeance on their per­se­cu­tors. They en­treat­ed Jupiter that they might no longer be as­so­ci­at­ed with the Ills, as they had noth­ing in com­mon and could not live to­geth­er, but were en­gaged in un­ceas­ing war­fare; and that an in­dis­sol­uble law might be laid down for their fu­ture pro­tec­tion. Jupiter grant­ed their re­quest and de­creed that hence­forth the Ills should vis­it the earth in com­pa­ny with each oth­er, but that the Goods should one by one en­ter the habi­ta­tions of men. Hence it aris­es that Ills abound, for they come not one by one, but in troops, and by no means singly: while the Goods pro­ceed from Jupiter, and are giv­en, not alike to all, but singly, and sep­arate­ly; and one by one to those who are able to dis­cern them.

The Dove and the Crow A DOVE shut up in a cage was boast­ing of the large num­ber of young ones which she had hatched. A Crow hear­ing her, said: “My good friend, cease from this un­sea­son­able boast­ing. The larg­er the num­ber of your fam­ily, the greater your cause of sor­row, in see­ing them shut up in this prison-​house.”

Mer­cury and the Work­men A WORK­MAN, felling wood by the side of a riv­er, let his axe drop - by ac­ci­dent in­to a deep pool. Be­ing thus de­prived of the means of his liveli­hood, he sat down on the bank and lament­ed his hard fate. Mer­cury ap­peared and de­mand­ed the cause of his tears. Af­ter he told him his mis­for­tune, Mer­cury plunged in­to the stream, and, bring­ing up a gold­en axe, in­quired if that were the one he had lost. On his say­ing that it was not his, Mer­cury dis­ap­peared be­neath the wa­ter a sec­ond time, re­turned with a sil­ver axe in his hand, and again asked the Work­man if it were his. When the Work­man said it was not, he dived in­to the pool for the third time and brought up the axe that had been lost. The Work­man claimed it and ex­pressed his joy at its re­cov­ery. Mer­cury, pleased with his hon­esty, gave him the gold­en and sil­ver ax­es in ad­di­tion to his own. The Work­man, on his re­turn to his house, re­lat­ed to his com­pan­ions all that had hap­pened. One of them at once re­solved to try and se­cure the same good for­tune for him­self. He ran to the riv­er and threw his axe on pur­pose in­to the pool at the same place, and sat down on the bank to weep. Mer­cury ap­peared to him just as he hoped he would; and hav­ing learned the cause of his grief, plunged in­to the stream and brought up a gold­en axe, in­quir­ing if he had lost it. The Work­man seized it greed­ily, and de­clared that tru­ly it was the very same axe that he had lost. Mer­cury, dis­pleased at his knav­ery, not on­ly took away the gold­en axe, but re­fused to re­cov­er for him the axe he had thrown in­to the pool.

The Ea­gle and the Jack­daw AN EA­GLE, fly­ing down from his perch on a lofty rock, seized up­on a lamb and car­ried him aloft in his talons. A Jack­daw, who wit­nessed the cap­ture of the lamb, was stirred with en­vy and de­ter­mined to em­ulate the strength and flight of the Ea­gle. He flew around with a great whir of his wings and set­tled up­on a large ram, with the in­ten­tion of car­ry­ing him off, but his claws be­came en­tan­gled in the ram’s fleece and he was not able to re­lease him­self, al­though he flut­tered with his feath­ers as much as he could. The shep­herd, see­ing what had hap­pened, ran up and caught him. He at once clipped the Jack­daw’s wings, and tak­ing him home at night, gave him to his chil­dren. On their say­ing, “Fa­ther, what kind of bird is it?’ he replied, “To my cer­tain knowl­edge he is a Daw; but he would like you to think an Ea­gle.”

The Fox and the Crane A FOX in­vit­ed a Crane to sup­per and pro­vid­ed noth­ing for his en­ter­tain­ment but some soup made of pulse, which was poured out in­to a broad flat stone dish. The soup fell out of the long bill of the Crane at ev­ery mouth­ful, and his vex­ation at not be­ing able to eat af­ford­ed the Fox much amuse­ment. The Crane, in his turn, asked the Fox to sup with him, and set be­fore her a flagon with a long nar­row mouth, so that he could eas­ily in­sert his neck and en­joy its con­tents at his leisure. The Fox, un­able even to taste it, met with a fit­ting re­quital, af­ter the fash­ion of her own hos­pi­tal­ity.

Jupiter, Nep­tune, Min­er­va, and Mo­mus AC­CORD­ING to an an­cient leg­end, the first man was made by Jupiter, the first bull by Nep­tune, and the first house by Min­er­va. On the com­ple­tion of their labors, a dis­pute arose as to which had made the most per­fect work. They agreed to ap­point Mo­mus as judge, and to abide by his de­ci­sion. Mo­mus, how­ev­er, be­ing very en­vi­ous of the hand­icraft of each, found fault with all. He first blamed the work of Nep­tune be­cause he had not made the horns of the bull be­low his eyes, so he might bet­ter see where to strike. He then con­demned the work of Jupiter, be­cause he had not placed the heart of man on the out­side, that ev­ery­one might read the thoughts of the evil dis­posed and take pre­cau­tions against the in­tend­ed mis­chief. And, last­ly, he in­veighed against Min­er­va be­cause she had not con­trived iron wheels in the foun­da­tion of her house, so its in­hab­itants might more eas­ily re­move if a neigh­bor proved un­pleas­ant. Jupiter, in­dig­nant at such in­vet­er­ate fault­find­ing, drove him from his of­fice of judge, and ex­pelled him from the man­sions of Olym­pus.

The Ea­gle and the Fox AN EA­GLE and a Fox formed an in­ti­mate friend­ship and de­cid­ed to live near each oth­er. The Ea­gle built her nest in the branch­es of a tall tree, while the Fox crept in­to the un­der­wood and there pro­duced her young. Not long af­ter they had agreed up­on this plan, the Ea­gle, be­ing in want of pro­vi­sion for her young ones, swooped down while the Fox was out, seized up­on one of the lit­tle cubs, and feast­ed her­self and her brood. The Fox on her re­turn, dis­cov­ered what had hap­pened, but was less grieved for the death of her young than for her in­abil­ity to avenge them. A just ret­ri­bu­tion, how­ev­er, quick­ly fell up­on the Ea­gle. While hov­er­ing near an al­tar, on which some vil­lagers were sac­ri­fic­ing a goat, she sud­den­ly seized a piece of the flesh, and car­ried it, along with a burn­ing cin­der, to her nest. A strong breeze soon fanned the spark in­to a flame, and the ea­glets, as yet un­fledged and help­less, were roast­ed in their nest and dropped down dead at the bot­tom of the tree. There, in the sight of the Ea­gle, the Fox gob­bled them up.

The Man and the Satyr A MAN and a Satyr once drank to­geth­er in to­ken of a bond of al­liance be­ing formed be­tween them. One very cold win­try day, as they talked, the Man put his fin­gers to his mouth and blew on them. When the Satyr asked the rea­son for this, he told him that he did it to warm his hands be­cause they were so cold. Lat­er on in the day they sat down to eat, and the food pre­pared was quite scald­ing. The Man raised one of the dish­es a lit­tle to­wards his mouth and blew in it. When the Satyr again in­quired the rea­son, he said that he did it to cool the meat, which was too hot. “I can no longer con­sid­er you as a friend,” said the Satyr, “a fel­low who with the same breath blows hot and cold.”

The Ass and His Pur­chas­er A MAN wished to pur­chase an Ass, and agreed with its own­er that he should try out the an­imal be­fore he bought him. He took the Ass home and put him in the straw-​yard with his oth­er Ass­es, up­on which the new an­imal left all the oth­ers and at once joined the one that was most idle and the great­est eater of them all. See­ing this, the man put a hal­ter on him and led him back to his own­er. On be­ing asked how, in so short a time, he could have made a tri­al of him, he an­swered, “I do not need a tri­al; I know that he will be just the same as the one he chose for his com­pan­ion.” A man is known by the com­pa­ny he keeps.

The Two Bags EV­ERY MAN, ac­cord­ing to an an­cient leg­end, is born in­to the world with two bags sus­pend­ed from his neck all bag in front full of his neigh­bors’ faults, and a large bag be­hind filled with his own faults. Hence it is that men are quick to see the faults of oth­ers, and yet are of­ten blind to their own fail­ings.

The Stag at the Pool A STAG over­pow­ered by heat came to a spring to drink. See­ing his own shad­ow re­flect­ed in the wa­ter, he great­ly ad­mired the size and va­ri­ety of his horns, but felt an­gry with him­self for hav­ing such slen­der and weak feet. While he was thus con­tem­plat­ing him­self, a Li­on ap­peared at the pool and crouched to spring up­on him. The Stag im­me­di­ate­ly took to flight, and ex­ert­ing his ut­most speed, as long as the plain was smooth and open kept him­self eas­ily at a safe dis­tance from the Li­on. But en­ter­ing a wood he be­came en­tan­gled by his horns, and the Li­on quick­ly came up to him and caught him. When too late, he thus re­proached him­self: “Woe is me! How I have de­ceived my­self! These feet which would have saved me I de­spised, and I glo­ried in these antlers which have proved my de­struc­tion.” What is most tru­ly valu­able is of­ten un­der­rat­ed.

The Jack­daw and the Fox A HALF-​FAM­ISHED JACK­DAW seat­ed him­self on a fig-​tree, which had pro­duced some fruit en­tire­ly out of sea­son, and wait­ed in the hope that the figs would ripen. A Fox see­ing him sit­ting so long and learn­ing the rea­son of his do­ing so, said to him, “You are in­deed, sir, sad­ly de­ceiv­ing your­self; you are in­dulging a hope strong enough to cheat you, but which will nev­er re­ward you with en­joy­ment.”

The Lark Bury­ing Her Fa­ther THE LARK (ac­cord­ing to an an­cient leg­end) was cre­at­ed be­fore the earth it­self, and when her fa­ther died, as there was no earth, she could find no place of buri­al for him. She let him lie un­in­terred for five days, and on the sixth day, not know­ing what else to do, she buried him in her own head. Hence she ob­tained her crest, which is pop­ular­ly said to be her fa­ther’s grave-​hillock. Youth’s first du­ty is rev­er­ence to par­ents.

The Gnat and the Bull A GNAT set­tled on the horn of a Bull, and sat there a long time. Just as he was about to fly off, he made a buzzing noise, and in­quired of the Bull if he would like him to go. The Bull replied, “I did not know you had come, and I shall not miss you when you go away.” Some men are of more con­se­quence in their own eyes than in the eyes of their neigh­bors.

The Bitch and Her Whelps A BITCH, ready to whelp, earnest­ly begged a shep­herd for a place where she might lit­ter. When her re­quest was grant­ed, she be­sought per­mis­sion to rear her pup­pies in the same spot. The shep­herd again con­sent­ed. But at last the Bitch, pro­tect­ed by the body­guard of her Whelps, who had now grown up and were able to de­fend them­selves, as­sert­ed her ex­clu­sive right to the place and would not per­mit the shep­herd to ap­proach.

The Dogs and the Hides SOME DOGS fam­ished with hunger saw a num­ber of cowhides steep­ing in a riv­er. Not be­ing able to reach them, they agreed to drink up the riv­er, but it hap­pened that they burst them­selves with drink­ing long be­fore they reached the hides. At­tempt not im­pos­si­bil­ities.

The Shep­herd and the Sheep A SHEP­HERD driv­ing his Sheep to a wood, saw an oak of un­usu­al size full of acorns, and spread­ing his cloak un­der the branch­es, he climbed up in­to the tree and shook them down. The Sheep eat­ing the acorns in­ad­ver­tent­ly frayed and tore the cloak. When the Shep­herd came down and saw what was done, he said, “O you most un­grate­ful crea­tures! You pro­vide wool to make gar­ments for all oth­er men, but you de­stroy the clothes of him who feeds you.”

The Grasshop­per and the Owl AN OWL, ac­cus­tomed to feed at night and to sleep dur­ing the day, was great­ly dis­turbed by the noise of a Grasshop­per and earnest­ly be­sought her to stop chirp­ing. The Grasshop­per re­fused to de­sist, and chirped loud­er and loud­er the more the Owl en­treat­ed. When she saw that she could get no re­dress and that her words were de­spised, the Owl at­tacked the chat­ter­er by a stratagem. “Since I can­not sleep,” she said, “on ac­count of your song which, be­lieve me, is sweet as the lyre of Apol­lo, I shall in­dulge my­self in drink­ing some nec­tar which Pal­las late­ly gave me. If you do not dis­like it, come to me and we will drink it to­geth­er.” The Grasshop­per, who was thirsty, and pleased with the praise of her voice, ea­ger­ly flew up. The Owl came forth from her hol­low, seized her, and put her to death.

The Mon­key and the Camel THE BEASTS of the for­est gave a splen­did en­ter­tain­ment at which the Mon­key stood up and danced. Hav­ing vast­ly de­light­ed the as­sem­bly, he sat down amidst uni­ver­sal ap­plause. The Camel, en­vi­ous of the prais­es be­stowed on the Mon­key and de­sir­ing to di­vert to him­self the fa­vor of the guests, pro­posed to stand up in his turn and dance for their amuse­ment. He moved about in so ut­ter­ly ridicu­lous a man­ner that the Beasts, in a fit of in­dig­na­tion, set up­on him with clubs and drove him out of the as­sem­bly. It is ab­surd to ape our bet­ters.

The Peas­ant and the Ap­ple-​Tree A PEAS­ANT had in his gar­den an Ap­ple-​Tree which bore no fruit but on­ly served as a har­bor for the spar­rows and grasshop­pers. He re­solved to cut it down, and tak­ing his axe in his hand, made a bold stroke at its roots. The grasshop­pers and spar­rows en­treat­ed him not to cut down the tree that shel­tered them, but to spare it, and they would sing to him and light­en his labors. He paid no at­ten­tion to their re­quest, but gave the tree a sec­ond and a third blow with his axe. When he reached the hol­low of the tree, he found a hive full of hon­ey. Hav­ing tast­ed the hon­ey­comb, he threw down his axe, and look­ing on the tree as sa­cred, took great care of it. Self-​in­ter­est alone moves some men.

The Two Sol­diers and the Rob­ber TWO SOL­DIERS trav­el­ing to­geth­er were set up­on by a Rob­ber. The one fled away; the oth­er stood his ground and de­fend­ed him­self with his stout right hand. The Rob­ber be­ing slain, the timid com­pan­ion ran up and drew his sword, and then, throw­ing back his trav­el­ing cloak said, “I’ll at him, and I’ll take care he shall learn whom he has at­tacked.” On this, he who had fought with the Rob­ber made an­swer, “I on­ly wish that you had helped me just now, even if it had been on­ly with those words, for I should have been the more en­cour­aged, be­liev­ing them to be true; but now put up your sword in its sheath and hold your equal­ly use­less tongue, till you can de­ceive oth­ers who do not know you. I, in­deed, who have ex­pe­ri­enced with what speed you run away, know right well that no de­pen­dence can be placed on your val­or.”

The Trees Un­der the Pro­tec­tion of the Gods THE GODS, ac­cord­ing to an an­cient leg­end, made choice of cer­tain trees to be un­der their spe­cial pro­tec­tion. Jupiter chose the oak, Venus the myr­tle, Apol­lo the lau­rel, Cy­bele the pine, and Her­cules the poplar. Min­er­va, won­der­ing why they had pre­ferred trees not yield­ing fruit, in­quired the rea­son for their choice. Jupiter replied, “It is lest we should seem to cov­et the hon­or for the fruit.” But said Min­er­va, “Let any­one say what he will the olive is more dear to me on ac­count of its fruit.” Then said Jupiter, “My daugh­ter, you are right­ly called wise; for un­less what we do is use­ful, the glo­ry of it is vain.”

The Moth­er and the Wolf A FAM­ISHED WOLF was prowl­ing about in the morn­ing in search of food. As he passed the door of a cot­tage built in the for­est, he heard a Moth­er say to her child, “Be qui­et, or I will throw you out of the win­dow, and the Wolf shall eat you.” The Wolf sat all day wait­ing at the door. In the evening he heard the same wom­an fondling her child and say­ing: “You are qui­et now, and if the Wolf should come, we will kill him.” The Wolf, hear­ing these words, went home, gasp­ing with cold and hunger. When he reached his den, Mis­tress Wolf in­quired of him why he re­turned wea­ried and sup­per­less, so con­trary to his wont. He replied: “Why, for­sooth! use I gave cre­dence to the words of a wom­an!”

The Ass and the Horse AN ASS be­sought a Horse to spare him a small por­tion of his feed. “Yes,” said the Horse; “if any re­mains out of what I am now eat­ing I will give it you for the sake of my own su­pe­ri­or dig­ni­ty, and if you will come when I reach my own stall in the evening, I will give you a lit­tle sack full of bar­ley.” The Ass replied, “Thank you. But I can’t think that you, who refuse me a lit­tle mat­ter now. will by and by con­fer on me a greater ben­efit.”

Truth and the Trav­el­er A WAY­FAR­ING MAN, trav­el­ing in the desert, met a wom­an stand­ing alone and ter­ri­bly de­ject­ed. He in­quired of her, “Who art thou?” “My name is Truth,” she replied. “And for what cause,” he asked, “have you left the city to dwell alone here in the wilder­ness?” She made an­swer, “Be­cause in for­mer times, false­hood was with few, but is now with all men.” The Manslay­er A MAN com­mit­ted a mur­der, and was pur­sued by the re­la­tions of the man whom he mur­dered. On his reach­ing the riv­er Nile he saw a Li­on on its bank and be­ing fear­ful­ly afraid, climbed up a tree. He found a ser­pent in the up­per branch­es of the tree, and again be­ing great­ly alarmed, he threw him­self in­to the riv­er, where a crocodile caught him and ate him. Thus the earth, the air, and the wa­ter alike re­fused shel­ter to a mur­der­er. The Li­on and the Fox A FOX en­tered in­to part­ner­ship with a Li­on on the pre­tense of be­com­ing his ser­vant. Each un­der­took his prop­er du­ty in ac­cor­dance with his own na­ture and pow­ers. The Fox dis­cov­ered and point­ed out the prey; the Li­on sprang on it and seized it. The Fox soon be­came jeal­ous of the Li­on car­ry­ing off the Li­on’s share, and said that he would no longer find out the prey, but would cap­ture it on his own ac­count. The next day he at­tempt­ed to snatch a lamb from the fold, but he him­self fell prey to the hunts­men and hounds. The Li­on and the Ea­gle AN EA­GLE stayed his flight and en­treat­ed a Li­on to make an al­liance with him to their mu­tu­al ad­van­tage. The Li­on replied, “I have no ob­jec­tion, but you must ex­cuse me for re­quir­ing you to find sure­ty for your good faith, for how can I trust any­one as a friend who is able to fly away from his bar­gain when­ev­er he pleas­es?’ Try be­fore you trust. The Hen and the Swal­low A HEN find­ing the eggs of a viper and care­ful­ly keep­ing them warm, nour­ished them in­to life. A Swal­low, ob­serv­ing what she had done, said, “You sil­ly crea­ture! why have you hatched these vipers which, when they shall have grown, will in­flict in­jury on all, be­gin­ning with your­self?’ The Buf­foon and the Coun­try­man A RICH NO­BLE­MAN once opened the the­aters with­out charge to the peo­ple, and gave a pub­lic no­tice that he would hand­some­ly re­ward any per­son who in­vent­ed a new amuse­ment for the oc­ca­sion. Var­ious pub­lic per­form­ers con­tend­ed for the prize. Among them came a Buf­foon well known among the pop­ulace for his jokes, and said that he had a kind of en­ter­tain­ment which had nev­er been brought out on any stage be­fore. This re­port be­ing spread about made a great stir, and the the­ater was crowd­ed in ev­ery part. The Buf­foon ap­peared alone up­on the plat­form, with­out any ap­pa­ra­tus or con­fed­er­ates, and the very sense of ex­pec­ta­tion caused an in­tense si­lence. He sud­den­ly bent his head to­wards his bo­som and im­itat­ed the squeak­ing of a lit­tle pig so ad­mirably with his voice that the au­di­ence de­clared he had a pork­er un­der his cloak, and de­mand­ed that it should be shak­en out. When that was done and noth­ing was found, they cheered the ac­tor, and load­ed him with the loud­est ap­plause. A Coun­try­man in the crowd, ob­serv­ing all that has passed, said, “So help me, Her­cules, he shall not beat me at that trick!” and at once pro­claimed that he would do the same thing on the next day, though in a much more nat­ural way. On the mor­row a still larg­er crowd as­sem­bled in the the­ater, but now par­tial­ity for their fa­vorite ac­tor very gen­er­al­ly pre­vailed, and the au­di­ence came rather to ridicule the Coun­try­man than to see the spec­ta­cle. Both of the per­form­ers ap­peared on the stage. The Buf­foon grunt­ed and squeaked away first, and ob­tained, as on the pre­ced­ing day, the ap­plause and cheers of the spec­ta­tors. Next the Coun­try­man com­menced, and pre­tend­ing that he con­cealed a lit­tle pig be­neath his clothes (which in truth he did, but not sus­pect­ed by the au­di­ence ) con­trived to take hold of and to pull his ear caus­ing the pig to squeak. The Crowd, how­ev­er, cried out with one con­sent that the Buf­foon had giv­en a far more ex­act im­ita­tion, and clam­ored for the Coun­try­man to be kicked out of the the­ater. On this the rus­tic pro­duced the lit­tle pig from his cloak and showed by the most pos­itive proof the great­ness of their mis­take. “Look here,” he said, “this shows what sort of judges you are.” The Crow and the Ser­pent A CROW in great want of food saw a Ser­pent asleep in a sun­ny nook, and fly­ing down, greed­ily seized him. The Ser­pent, turn­ing about, bit the Crow with a mor­tal wound. In the agony of death, the bird ex­claimed: “O un­hap­py me! who have found in that which I deemed a hap­py wind­fall the source of my de­struc­tion.” The Hunter and the Horse­man A CER­TAIN HUNTER, hav­ing snared a hare, placed it up­on his shoul­ders and set out home­wards. On his way he met a man on horse­back who begged the hare of him, un­der the pre­tense of pur­chas­ing it. How­ev­er, when the Horse­man got the hare, he rode off as fast as he could. The Hunter ran af­ter him, as if he was sure of over­tak­ing him, but the Horse­man in­creased more and more the dis­tance be­tween them. The Hunter, sore­ly against his will, called out to him and said, “Get along with you! for I will now make you a present of the hare.” The King’s Son and the Paint­ed Li­on A KING, whose on­ly son was fond of mar­tial ex­er­cis­es, had a dream in which he was warned that his son would be killed by a li­on. Afraid the dream should prove true, he built for his son a pleas­ant palace and adorned its walls for his amuse­ment with all kinds of life-​sized an­imals, among which was the pic­ture of a li­on. When the young Prince saw this, his grief at be­ing thus con­fined burst out afresh, and, stand­ing near the li­on, he said: “O you most de­testable of an­imals! through a ly­ing dream of my fa­ther’s, which he saw in his sleep, I am shut up on your ac­count in this palace as if I had been a girl: what shall I now do to you?’ With these words he stretched out his hands to­ward a thorn-​tree, mean­ing to cut a stick from its branch­es so that he might beat the li­on. But one of the tree’s prick­les pierced his fin­ger and caused great pain and in­flam­ma­tion, so that the young Prince fell down in a faint­ing fit. A vi­olent fever sud­den­ly set in, from which he died not many days lat­er. We had bet­ter bear our trou­bles brave­ly than try to es­cape them.

The Cat and Venus A CAT fell in love with a hand­some young man, and en­treat­ed Venus to change her in­to the form of a wom­an. Venus con­sent­ed to her re­quest and trans­formed her in­to a beau­ti­ful damsel, so that the youth saw her and loved her, and took her home as his bride. While the two were re­clin­ing in their cham­ber, Venus wish­ing to dis­cov­er if the Cat in her change of shape had al­so al­tered her habits of life, let down a mouse in the mid­dle of the room. The Cat, quite for­get­ting her present con­di­tion, start­ed up from the couch and pur­sued the mouse, wish­ing to eat it. Venus was much dis­ap­point­ed and again caused her to re­turn to her for­mer shape.

Na­ture ex­ceeds nur­ture.

The She-​Goats and Their Beards THE SHE-​GOATS hav­ing ob­tained a beard by re­quest to Jupiter, the He-​Goats were sore­ly dis­pleased and made com­plaint that the fe­males equaled them in dig­ni­ty. “Al­low them,” said Jupiter, “to en­joy an emp­ty hon­or and to as­sume the badge of your no­bler sex, so long as they are not your equals in strength or courage.” It mat­ters lit­tle if those who are in­fe­ri­or to us in mer­it should be like us in out­side ap­pear­ances. The Camel and the Arab AN ARAB CAMEL-​DRIV­ER, af­ter com­plet­ing the load­ing of his Camel, asked him which he would like best, to go up hill or down. The poor beast replied, not with­out a touch of rea­son: “Why do you ask me? Is it that the lev­el way through the desert is closed?”

The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass A MILLER and his son were driv­ing their Ass to a neigh­bor­ing fair to sell him. They had not gone far when they met with a troop of wom­en col­lect­ed round a well, talk­ing and laugh­ing. “Look there,” cried one of them, “did you ev­er see such fel­lows, to be trudg­ing along the road on foot when they might ride?’ The old man hear­ing this, quick­ly made his son mount the Ass, and con­tin­ued to walk along mer­ri­ly by his side. Present­ly they came up to a group of old men in earnest de­bate. “There,” said one of them, “it proves what I was a-​say­ing. What re­spect is shown to old age in these days? Do you see that idle lad rid­ing while his old fa­ther has to walk? Get down, you young scape­grace, and let the old man rest his weary limbs.” Up­on this the old man made his son dis­mount, and got up him­self. In this man­ner they had not pro­ceed­ed far when they met a com­pa­ny of wom­en and chil­dren: “Why, you lazy old fel­low,” cried sev­er­al tongues at once, “how can you ride up­on the beast, while that poor lit­tle lad there can hard­ly keep pace by the side of you?’ The good-​na­tured Miller im­me­di­ate­ly took up his son be­hind him. They had now al­most reached the town. “Pray, hon­est friend,” said a cit­izen, “is that Ass your own?’ “Yes,” replied the old man. “O, one would not have thought so,” said the oth­er, “by the way you load him. Why, you two fel­lows are bet­ter able to car­ry the poor beast than he you.” “Any­thing to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.” So, alight­ing with his son, they tied the legs of the Ass to­geth­er and with the help of a pole en­deav­ored to car­ry him on their shoul­ders over a bridge near the en­trance to the town. This en­ter­tain­ing sight brought the peo­ple in crowds to laugh at it, till the Ass, not lik­ing the noise nor the strange han­dling that he was sub­ject to, broke the cords that bound him and, tum­bling off the pole, fell in­to the riv­er. Up­on this, the old man, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, con­vinced that by en­deav­or­ing to please ev­ery­body he had pleased no­body, and lost his Ass in the bar­gain. The Crow and the Sheep A TROU­BLE­SOME CROW seat­ed her­self on the back of a Sheep. The Sheep, much against his will, car­ried her back­ward and for­ward for a long time, and at last said, “If you had treat­ed a dog in this way, you would have had your deserts from his sharp teeth.” To this the Crow replied, “I de­spise the weak and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bul­ly and whom I must flat­ter; and I thus pro­long my life to a good old age.” The Fox and the Bram­ble A FOX was mount­ing a hedge when he lost his foot­ing and caught hold of a Bram­ble to save him­self. Hav­ing pricked and grievous­ly tom the soles of his feet, he ac­cused the Bram­ble be­cause, when he had fled to her for as­sis­tance, she had used him worse than the hedge it­self. The Bram­ble, in­ter­rupt­ing him, said, “But you re­al­ly must have been out of your sens­es to fas­ten your­self on me, who am my­self al­ways ac­cus­tomed to fas­ten up­on oth­ers.” The Wolf and the Li­on A WOLF, hav­ing stolen a lamb from a fold, was car­ry­ing him off to his lair. A Li­on met him in the path, and seiz­ing the lamb, took it from him. Stand­ing at a safe dis­tance, the Wolf ex­claimed, “You have un­righ­teous­ly tak­en that which was mine from me!” To which the Li­on jeer­ing­ly replied, “It was righ­teous­ly yours, eh? The gift of a friend?’ The Dog and the Oys­ter A DOG, used to eat­ing eggs, saw an Oys­ter and, open­ing his mouth to its widest ex­tent, swal­lowed it down with the ut­most rel­ish, sup­pos­ing it to be an egg. Soon af­ter­wards suf­fer­ing great pain in his stom­ach, he said, “I de­serve all this tor­ment, for my fol­ly in think­ing that ev­ery­thing round must be an egg.” They who act with­out suf­fi­cient thought, will of­ten fall in­to un­sus­pect­ed dan­ger. The Ant and the Dove AN ANT went to the bank of a riv­er to quench its thirst, and be­ing car­ried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point of drown­ing. A Dove sit­ting on a tree over­hang­ing the wa­ter plucked a leaf and let it fall in­to the stream close to her. The Ant climbed on­to it and float­ed in safe­ty to the bank. Short­ly af­ter­wards a bird­catch­er came and stood un­der the tree, and laid his lime-​twigs for the Dove, which sat in the branch­es. The Ant, per­ceiv­ing his de­sign, stung him in the foot. In pain the bird­catch­er threw down the twigs, and the noise made the Dove take wing. The Par­tridge and the Fowler A FOWLER caught a Par­tridge and was about to kill it. The Par­tridge earnest­ly begged him to spare his life, say­ing, “Pray, mas­ter, per­mit me to live and I will en­tice many Par­tridges to you in rec­om­pense for your mer­cy to me.” The Fowler replied, “I shall now with less scru­ple take your life, be­cause you are will­ing to save it at the cost of be­tray­ing your friends and re­la­tions.” The Flea and the Man A MAN, very much an­noyed with a Flea, caught him at last, and said, “Who are you who dare to feed on my limbs, and to cost me so much trou­ble in catch­ing you?’ The Flea replied, “O my dear sir, pray spare my life, and de­stroy me not, for I can­not pos­si­bly do you much harm.” The Man, laugh­ing, replied, “Now you shall cer­tain­ly die by mine own hands, for no evil, whether it be small or large, ought to be tol­er­at­ed.” The Thieves and the Cock SOME THIEVES broke in­to a house and found noth­ing but a Cock, whom they stole, and got off as fast as they could. Up­on ar­riv­ing at home they pre­pared to kill the Cock, who thus plead­ed for his life: “Pray spare me; I am very ser­vice­able to men. I wake them up in the night to their work.” “That is the very rea­son why we must the more kill you,” they replied; “for when you wake your neigh­bors, you en­tire­ly put an end to our busi­ness.” The safe­guards of virtue are hate­ful to those with evil in­ten­tions. The Dog and the Cook A RICH MAN gave a great feast, to which he in­vit­ed many friends and ac­quain­tances. His Dog availed him­self of the oc­ca­sion to in­vite a stranger Dog, a friend of his, say­ing, “My mas­ter gives a feast, and there is al­ways much food re­main­ing; come and sup with me tonight.” The Dog thus in­vit­ed went at the hour ap­point­ed, and see­ing the prepa­ra­tions for so grand an en­ter­tain­ment, said in the joy of his heart, “How glad I am that I came! I do not of­ten get such a chance as this. I will take care and eat enough to last me both to­day and to­mor­row.” While he was con­grat­ulat­ing him­self and wag­ging his tail to con­vey his plea­sure to his friend, the Cook saw him mov­ing about among his dish­es and, seiz­ing him by his fore and hind paws, bun­dled him with­out cer­emo­ny out of the win­dow. He fell with force up­on the ground and limped away, howl­ing dread­ful­ly. His yelling soon at­tract­ed oth­er street dogs, who came up to him and in­quired how he had en­joyed his sup­per. He replied, “Why, to tell you the truth, I drank so much wine that I re­mem­ber noth­ing. I do not know how I got out of the house.” The Trav­el­ers and the Plane-​Tree TWO TRAV­EL­ERS, worn out by the heat of the sum­mer’s sun, laid them­selves down at noon un­der the widespread­ing branch­es of a Plane-​Tree. As they rest­ed un­der its shade, one of the Trav­el­ers said to the oth­er, “What a sin­gu­lar­ly use­less tree is the Plane! It bears no fruit, and is not of the least ser­vice to man.” The Plane-​Tree, in­ter­rupt­ing him, said, “You un­grate­ful fel­lows! Do you, while re­ceiv­ing ben­efits from me and rest­ing un­der my shade, dare to de­scribe me as use­less, and un­prof­itable?’ Some men un­der­rate their best bless­ings.

The Hares and the Frogs THE HARES, op­pressed by their own ex­ceed­ing timid­ity and weary of the per­pet­ual alarm to which they were ex­posed, with one ac­cord de­ter­mined to put an end to them­selves and their trou­bles by jump­ing from a lofty precipice in­to a deep lake be­low. As they scam­pered off in large num­bers to car­ry out their re­solve, the Frogs ly­ing on the banks of the lake heard the noise of their feet and rushed hel­ter-​skel­ter to the deep wa­ter for safe­ty. On see­ing the rapid dis­ap­pear­ance of the Frogs, one of the Hares cried out to his com­pan­ions: “Stay, my friends, do not do as you in­tend­ed; for you now see that there are crea­tures who are still more timid than our­selves.”

The Li­on, Jupiter, and the Ele­phant THE LI­ON wea­ried Jupiter with his fre­quent com­plaints. “It is true, O Jupiter!” he said, “that I am gi­gan­tic in strength, hand­some in shape, and pow­er­ful in at­tack. I have jaws well pro­vid­ed with teeth, and feet fur­nished with claws, and I lord it over all the beasts of the for­est, and what a dis­grace it is, that be­ing such as I am, I should be fright­ened by the crow­ing of a cock.” Jupiter replied, “Why do you blame me with­out a cause? I have giv­en you all the at­tributes which I pos­sess my­self, and your courage nev­er fails you ex­cept in this one in­stance.” On hear­ing this the Li­on groaned and lament­ed very much and, re­proach­ing him­self with his cow­ardice, wished that he might die. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he met an Ele­phant and came close to hold a con­ver­sa­tion with him. Af­ter a time he ob­served that the Ele­phant shook his ears very of­ten, and he in­quired what was the mat­ter and why his ears moved with such a tremor ev­ery now and then. Just at that mo­ment a Gnat set­tled on the head of the Ele­phant, and he replied, “Do you see that lit­tle buzzing in­sect? If it en­ters my ear, my fate is sealed. I should die present­ly.” The Li­on said, “Well, since so huge a beast is afraid of a tiny gnat, I will no more com­plain, nor wish my­self dead. I find my­self, even as I am, bet­ter off than the Ele­phant.” The Lamb and the Wolf A WOLF pur­sued a Lamb, which fled for refuge to a cer­tain Tem­ple. The Wolf called out to him and said, “The Priest will slay you in sac­ri­fice, if he should catch you.” On which the Lamb replied, “It would be bet­ter for me to be sac­ri­ficed in the Tem­ple than to be eat­en by you.”

The Rich Man and the Tan­ner A RICH MAN lived near a Tan­ner, and not be­ing able to bear the un­pleas­ant smell of the tan-​yard, he pressed his neigh­bor to go away. The Tan­ner put off his de­par­ture from time to time, say­ing that he would leave soon. But as he still con­tin­ued to stay, as time went on, the rich man be­came ac­cus­tomed to the smell, and feel­ing no man­ner of in­con­ve­nience, made no fur­ther com­plaints.

The Ship­wrecked Man and the Sea A SHIP­WRECKED MAN, hav­ing been cast up­on a cer­tain shore, slept af­ter his buf­fet­ings with the deep. Af­ter a while he awoke, and look­ing up­on the Sea, load­ed it with re­proach­es. He ar­gued that it en­ticed men with the calm­ness of its looks, but when it had in­duced them to plow its wa­ters, it grew rough and de­stroyed them. The Sea, as­sum­ing the form of a wom­an, replied to him: “Blame not me, my good sir, but the winds, for I am by my own na­ture as calm and firm even as this earth; but the winds sud­den­ly falling on me cre­ate these waves, and lash me in­to fury.”

The Mules and the Rob­bers TWO MULES well-​laden with packs were trudg­ing along. One car­ried pan­niers filled with mon­ey, the oth­er sacks weight­ed with grain. The Mule car­ry­ing the trea­sure walked with head erect, as if con­scious of the val­ue of his bur­den, and tossed up and down the clear-​toned bells fas­tened to his neck. His com­pan­ion fol­lowed with qui­et and easy step. All of a sud­den Rob­bers rushed up­on them from their hid­ing-​places, and in the scuf­fle with their own­ers, wound­ed with a sword the Mule car­ry­ing the trea­sure, which they greed­ily seized while tak­ing no no­tice of the grain. The Mule which had been robbed and wound­ed be­wailed his mis­for­tunes. The oth­er replied, “I am in­deed glad that I was thought so lit­tle of, for I have lost noth­ing, nor am I hurt with any wound.”

The Viper and the File A LI­ON, en­ter­ing the work­shop of a smith, sought from the tools the means of sat­is­fy­ing his hunger. He more par­tic­ular­ly ad­dressed him­self to a File, and asked of him the fa­vor of a meal. The File replied, “You must in­deed be a sim­ple-​mind­ed fel­low if you ex­pect to get any­thing from me, who am ac­cus­tomed to take from ev­ery­one, and nev­er to give any­thing in re­turn.”

The Li­on and the Shep­herd A LI­ON, roam­ing through a for­est, trod up­on a thorn. Soon af­ter­ward he came up to a Shep­herd and fawned up­on him, wag­ging his tail as if to say, “I am a sup­pli­ant, and seek your aid.” The Shep­herd bold­ly ex­am­ined the beast, dis­cov­ered the thorn, and plac­ing his paw up­on his lap, pulled it out; thus re­lieved of his pain, the Li­on re­turned in­to the for­est. Some time af­ter, the Shep­herd, be­ing im­pris­oned on a false ac­cu­sa­tion, was con­demned “to be cast to the Li­ons” as the pun­ish­ment for his im­put­ed crime. But when the Li­on was re­leased from his cage, he rec­og­nized the Shep­herd as the man who healed him, and in­stead of at­tack­ing him, ap­proached and placed his foot up­on his lap. The King, as soon as he heard the tale, or­dered the Li­on to be set free again in the for­est, and the Shep­herd to be par­doned and re­stored to his friends.

The Camel and Jupiter THE CAMEL, when he saw the Bull adorned with horns, en­vied him and wished that he him­self could ob­tain the same hon­ors. He went to Jupiter, and be­sought him to give him horns. Jupiter, vexed at his re­quest be­cause he was not sat­is­fied with his size and strength of body, and de­sired yet more, not on­ly re­fused to give him horns, but even de­prived him of a por­tion of his ears.

The Pan­ther and the Shep­herds A PAN­THER, by some mis­chance, fell in­to a pit. The Shep­herds dis­cov­ered him, and some threw sticks at him and pelt­ed him with stones, while oth­ers, moved with com­pas­sion to­wards one about to die even though no one should hurt him, threw in some food to pro­long his life. At night they re­turned home, not dream­ing of any dan­ger, but sup­pos­ing that on the mor­row they would find him dead. The Pan­ther, how­ev­er, when he had re­cruit­ed his fee­ble strength, freed him­self with a sud­den bound from the pit, and has­tened to his den with rapid steps. Af­ter a few days he came forth and slaugh­tered the cat­tle, and, killing the Shep­herds who had at­tacked him, raged with an­gry fury. Then they who had spared his life, fear­ing for their safe­ty, sur­ren­dered to him their flocks and begged on­ly for their lives. To them the Pan­ther made this re­ply: “I re­mem­ber alike those who sought my life with stones, and those who gave me food aside, there­fore, your fears. I re­turn as an en­emy on­ly to those who in­jured me.”

The Ass and the Charg­er AN ASS con­grat­ulat­ed a Horse on be­ing so un­grudg­ing­ly and care­ful­ly pro­vid­ed for, while he him­self had scarce­ly enough to eat and not even that with­out hard work. But when war broke out, a heav­ily armed sol­dier mount­ed the Horse, and rid­ing him to the charge, rushed in­to the very midst of the en­emy. The Horse was wound­ed and fell dead on the bat­tle­field. Then the Ass, see­ing all these things, changed his mind, and com­mis­er­at­ed the Horse.

The Ea­gle and His Cap­tor AN EA­GLE was once cap­tured by a man, who im­me­di­ate­ly clipped his wings and put him in­to his poul­try-​yard with the oth­er birds, at which treat­ment the Ea­gle was weighed down with grief. Lat­er, an­oth­er neigh­bor pur­chased him and al­lowed his feath­ers to grow again. The Ea­gle took flight, and pounc­ing up­on a hare, brought it at once as an of­fer­ing to his bene­fac­tor. A Fox, see­ing this, ex­claimed, “Do not cul­ti­vate the fa­vor of this man, but of your for­mer own­er, lest he should again hunt for you and de­prive you a sec­ond time of your wings.”

The Bald Man and the Fly A FLY bit the bare head of a Bald Man who, en­deav­or­ing to de­stroy it, gave him­self a heavy slap. Es­cap­ing, the Fly said mock­ing­ly, “You who have wished to re­venge, even with death, the Prick of a tiny in­sect, see what you have done to your­self to add in­sult to in­jury?’ The Bald Man replied, “I can eas­ily make peace with my­self, be­cause I know there was no in­ten­tion to hurt. But you, an ill-​fa­vored and con­temptible in­sect who de­lights in suck­ing hu­man blood, I wish that I could have killed you even if I had in­curred a heav­ier penal­ty.”

The Olive-​Tree and the Fig-​Tree THE OLIVE-​TREE ridiculed the Fig-​Tree be­cause, while she was green all the year round, the Fig-​Tree changed its leaves with the sea­sons. A show­er of snow fell up­on them, and, find­ing the Olive full of fo­liage, it set­tled up­on its branch­es and broke them down with its weight, at once de­spoil­ing it of its beau­ty and killing the tree. But find­ing the Fig-​Tree de­nud­ed of leaves, the snow fell through to the ground, and did not in­jure it at all.

The Ea­gle and the Kite AN EA­GLE, over­whelmed with sor­row, sat up­on the branch­es of a tree in com­pa­ny with a Kite. “Why,” said the Kite, “do I see you with such a rue­ful look?’ “I seek,” she replied, “a mate suit­able for me, and am not able to find one.” “Take me,” re­turned the Kite, “I am much stronger than you are.” “Why, are you able to se­cure the means of liv­ing by your plun­der?’ “Well, I have of­ten caught and car­ried away an os­trich in my talons.” The Ea­gle, per­suad­ed by these words, ac­cept­ed him as her mate. Short­ly af­ter the nup­tials, the Ea­gle said, “Fly off and bring me back the os­trich you promised me.” The Kite, soar­ing aloft in­to the air, brought back the shab­bi­est pos­si­ble mouse, stink­ing from the length of time it had lain about the fields. “Is this,” said the Ea­gle, “the faith­ful ful­fill­ment of your promise to me?’ The Kite replied, “That I might at­tain your roy­al hand, there is noth­ing that I would not have promised, how­ev­er much I knew that I must fail in the per­for­mance.”

The Ass and His Driv­er AN ASS, be­ing driv­en along a high road, sud­den­ly start­ed off and bolt­ed to the brink of a deep precipice. While he was in the act of throw­ing him­self over, his own­er seized him by the tail, en­deav­or­ing to pull him back. When the Ass per­sist­ed in his ef­fort, the man let him go and said, “Con­quer, but con­quer to your cost.”

The Thrush and the Fowler A THRUSH was feed­ing on a myr­tle-​tree and did not move from it be­cause its berries were so de­li­cious. A Fowler ob­served her stay­ing so long in one spot, and hav­ing well bird-​limed his reeds, caught her. The Thrush, be­ing at the point of death, ex­claimed, “O fool­ish crea­ture that I am! For the sake of a lit­tle pleas­ant food I have de­prived my­self of my life.”

The Rose and the Ama­ranth AN AMA­RANTH plant­ed in a gar­den near a Rose-​Tree, thus ad­dressed it: “What a love­ly flow­er is the Rose, a fa­vorite alike with Gods and with men. I en­vy you your beau­ty and your per­fume.” The Rose replied, “I in­deed, dear Ama­ranth, flour­ish but for a brief sea­son! If no cru­el hand pluck me from my stem, yet I must per­ish by an ear­ly doom. But thou art im­mor­tal and dost nev­er fade, but bloomest for ev­er in re­newed youth.”

The Frogs’ Com­plaint Against the Sun ONCE UP­ON A TIME, when the Sun an­nounced his in­ten­tion to take a wife, the Frogs lift­ed up their voic­es in clam­or to the sky. Jupiter, dis­turbed by the noise of their croak­ing, in­quired the cause of their com­plaint. One of them said, “The Sun, now while he is sin­gle, parch­es up the marsh, and com­pels us to die mis­er­ably in our arid homes. What will be our fu­ture con­di­tion if he should beget oth­er suns?’

LIFE OF AE­SOP THE LIFE and His­to­ry of Ae­sop is in­volved, like that of Homer, the most fa­mous of Greek po­ets, in much ob­scu­ri­ty. Sardis, the cap­ital of Ly­dia; Samos, a Greek is­land; Mesem­bria, an an­cient colony in Thrace; and Co­ti­aeum, the chief city of a province of Phry­gia, con­tend for the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the birth­place of Ae­sop. Al­though the hon­or thus claimed can­not be def­inite­ly as­signed to any one of these places, yet there are a few in­ci­dents now gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed by schol­ars as es­tab­lished facts, re­lat­ing to the birth, life, and death of Ae­sop. He is, by an al­most uni­ver­sal con­sent, al­lowed to have been born about the year 620 B.C., and to have been by birth a slave. He was owned by two mas­ters in suc­ces­sion, both in­hab­itants of Samos, Xan­thus and Jad­mon, the lat­ter of whom gave him his lib­er­ty as a re­ward for his learn­ing and wit. One of the priv­ileges of a freed­man in the an­cient re­publics of Greece, was the per­mis­sion to take an ac­tive in­ter­est in pub­lic af­fairs; and Ae­sop, like the philoso­phers Phae­do, Menip­pus, and Epicte­tus, in lat­er times, raised him­self from the in­dig­ni­ty of a servile con­di­tion to a po­si­tion of high renown. In his de­sire alike to in­struct and to be in­struct­ed, he trav­elled through many coun­tries, and among oth­ers came to Sardis, the cap­ital of the fa­mous king of Ly­dia, the great pa­tron, in that day, of learn­ing and of learned men. He met at the court of Croe­sus with Solon, Thales, and oth­er sages, and is re­lat­ed so to have pleased his roy­al mas­ter, by the part he took in the con­ver­sa­tions held with these philoso­phers, that he ap­plied to him an ex­pres­sion which has since passed in­to a proverb, “The Phry­gian has spo­ken bet­ter than all.” On the in­vi­ta­tion of Croe­sus he fixed his res­idence at Sardis, and was em­ployed by that monarch in var­ious dif­fi­cult and del­icate af­fairs of State. In his dis­charge of these com­mis­sions he vis­it­ed the dif­fer­ent pet­ty re­publics of Greece. At one time he is found in Corinth, and at an­oth­er in Athens, en­deav­our­ing, by the nar­ra­tion of some of his wise fa­bles, to rec­on­cile the in­hab­itants of those cities to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of their re­spec­tive rulers Pe­rian­der and Pi­si­stra­tus. One of these am­bas­sado­ri­al mis­sions, un­der­tak­en at the com­mand of Croe­sus, was the oc­ca­sion of his death. Hav­ing been sent to Del­phi with a large sum of gold for dis­tri­bu­tion among the cit­izens, he was so pro­voked at their cov­etous­ness that he re­fused to di­vide the mon­ey, and sent it back to his mas­ter. The Del­phi­ans, en­raged at this treat­ment, ac­cused him of impi­ety, and, in spite of his sa­cred char­ac­ter as am­bas­sador, ex­ecut­ed him as a pub­lic crim­inal. This cru­el death of Ae­sop was not un­avenged. The cit­izens of Del­phi were vis­it­ed with a se­ries of calami­ties, un­til they made a pub­lic repa­ra­tion of their crime; and, “The blood of Ae­sop” be­came a well- known adage, bear­ing wit­ness to the truth that deeds of wrong would not pass un­pun­ished. Nei­ther did the great fab­ulist lack posthu­mous hon­ors; for a stat­ue was erect­ed to his mem­ory at Athens, the work of Lysip­pus, one of the most fa­mous of Greek sculp­tors. Phae­drus thus im­mor­tal­izes the event: