Aesop's Fables (11 page)

But one day he was unwise enough to start chattering, when they at once saw through his disguise and pecked him so unmercifully that he was glad to escape and join his own kind again. But the other jackdaws did not recognize him in his white dress, and would not let him feed with them, but drove him away. And so he became a homeless wanderer for his pains.

J
upiter was about to marry a wife and determined to celebrate the event by inviting all the animals to a banquet. They all came except the tortoise, who did not put in an appearance, much to Jupiter’s surprise. So when he next saw the tortoise he asked him why he had not been at the banquet. “I don’t care for going out,” said the tortoise. “There’s no place like home.” Jupiter was so much annoyed by this reply that he decreed that from that time forth the tortoise should carry his house upon his back, and never be able to get away from home even if he wished to.

A
dog was lying in a manger on the hay which had been put there for the cattle, and when they came and tried to eat, . he growled and snapped at them and wouldn’t let them get at their food. “What a selfish beast,” said one of them to his companions. “He can’t eat himself and yet he won’t let those eat who ” can.

E
very man carries two bags about with him, one in front and one behind, and both are packed full of faults. The bag in front contains his neighbors’ faults, the one behind his own. Hence it is that men do not see their own faults, but never fail to see those of others.

A
pair of oxen were drawing a heavily loaded wagon along the highway, and as they tugged and strained at the yoke the . axletrees creaked and groaned terribly. This was too much for the oxen, who turned round indignantly and said, “Hullo, you there! Why do you make such a noise when we do all the work?”

 

They complain most who suffer least.

A
boy put his hand into a jar of filberts and grasped as many as his fist could possibly hold. But when he tried to pull it out again he found he couldn’t do so, for the neck of the jar was too small to allow the passage of so large a handful. Unwilling to lose his nuts but unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears. A bystander, who saw where the trouble lay, said to him, “Come, my boy, don’t be so greedy. Be content with half the amount, and you’ll be able to get your hand out without difficulty.”

 

Do not attempt too much at once.

T
ime was when the frogs were discontented because they had no one to rule over them, so they sent a deputation to Jupiter to ask him to give them a king. Jupiter, despising the folly of their request, cast a log into the pool where they lived, and said that that should be their king. The frogs were terrified at first by the splash and scuttled away into the deepest parts of the pool.

But by and by, when they saw that the log remained motionless, one by one they ventured to the surface again, and before long, growing bolder, they began to feel such contempt for it that they even took to sitting upon it. Thinking that a king of that sort was an insult to their dignity, they sent to Jupiter a second time and begged him to take away the sluggish king he had given them and to give them another and a better one. Jupiter, annoyed at being pestered in this way, sent a stork to rule over them, who no sooner arrived among them than he began to catch and eat the frogs as fast as he could.

A
n olive tree taunted a fig tree with the loss of her leaves at a certain season of the year. “You,” she said, “lose your leaves every autumn and are bare till the spring; whereas I, as you see, remain green and flourishing all the year round.” Soon afterwards there came a heavy fall of snow, which settled on the leaves of the olive so that she bent and broke under the weight. But the flakes fell harmlessly through the bare branches of the fig, which survived to bear many another crop.

O
ne hot and thirsty day in the height of summer a lion and a boar came down to a little spring at the same moment to drink. In a trice they were quarreling as to who should drink first. The quarrel soon became a fight, and they attacked one another with utmost fury. Presently, stopping for a moment to take breath, they saw some vultures seated on a rock above, evidently waiting for one of them to be killed, when they would fly down and feed upon the carcass. The sight sobered them at once, and they made up their quarrel, saying, “We had much better be friends than fight and be eaten by vultures.”

A
walnut tree which grew by the roadside bore every year a plentiful crop of nuts. Everyone who passed by pelted its A branches with sticks and stones in order to bring down the fruit, and the tree suffered severely. “It is hard,” it cried, “that the very persons who enjoy my fruit should thus reward me with insults and blows.”

A
man and a lion were companions on a journey, and in the course of conversation they began to boast about their prowess, and each claimed to be superior to the other in strength and courage. They were still arguing with some heat when they came to a crossroad where there was a statue of a man strangling a lion. “There!” said the man triumphantly. “Look at that! Doesn’t that prove to you that we are stronger than you?” “Not so fast, my friend,” said the lion. “That is only your view of the case. If we lions could make statues, you may be sure that in most of them you would see the man underneath.”

 

There are two sides to every question.

A
tortoise, discontented with his lowly life and envious of the birds he saw disporting themselves in the air, begged an eagle to teach him to fly. The eagle protested that it was idle for him to try, as nature had not provided him with wings. But the tortoise pressed him with entreaties and promises of treasure, insisting that it could only be a question of learning the craft of the air. So at length the eagle consented to do the best he could for him and picked him up in his talons. Soaring with him to a great height in the sky, he then let him go, and the wretched tortoise fell headlong and was dashed to pieces on a rock.

A
kid climbed up onto the roof of an outhouse, attracted by the grass and other things that grew in the thatch. And as . he stood there browsing away he caught sight of a wolf passing below and jeered at him because he couldn’t reach him. The wolf only looked up and said, “I hear you, my young friend. But it is not you who mock me, but the roof on which you are standing.”

A
fox once fell into a trap and after a struggle managed to get free, but with the loss of his brush. He was then so much ashamed of his appearance that he thought life was not worth living unless he could persuade the other foxes to part with their tails also, and thus divert attention from his own loss. So he called a meeting of all the foxes and advised them to cut off their tails. “They’re ugly things anyhow,” he said, “and besides they’re heavy, and it’s tiresome to be always carrying them about with you.” But one of the other foxes said, “My friend, if you hadn’t lost your own tail you wouldn’t be so keen on getting us to cut off ours.”

J
upiter announced that he intended to appoint a king over the birds and named a day on which they were to appear before his throne, when he would select the most beautiful of them all to be their ruler. Wishing to look their best on the occasion they repaired to the banks of a stream, where they busied themselves in washing and preening their feathers.

The jackdaw was there along with the rest, and realized that with his ugly plumage he would have no chance of being chosen as he was. So he waited till they were all gone, and then picked up the most gaudy of the feathers they had dropped and fastened them about his own body, with the result that he looked gayer than any of them.

When the appointed day came, the birds assembled before Jupiter’s throne; and, after passing them in review, he was about to make the jackdaw king, when all the rest set upon the king-elect, stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and exposed him for the jackdaw that he was.

A
traveler was about to start on a journey and said to his dog, who was stretching himself by the door, “Come, what are . you yawning for? Hurry up and get ready. I mean you to go with me.” But the dog merely wagged his tail and said quietly, “I’m ready, master. It’s you I’m waiting for.”

A
shipwrecked man cast up on the beach fell asleep after his struggle with the waves. When he woke up, he bitterly reproached the sea for its treachery in enticing men with its smooth and smiling surface, and then, when they were well embarked, turning in fury upon them and sending both ship and sailors to destruction. The sea arose in the form of a woman, and replied, “Lay not the blame on me, 0 sailor, but on the winds. By nature I am as calm and safe as the land itself, but the winds fall upon me with their gusts and gales, and lash me into a fury that is not natural to me.”

A
wild boar was engaged in whetting his tusks upon the trunk of a tree in the forest when a fox came by and, seeing what he was at, said to him, “Why are you doing that, pray? The huntsmen are not out today, and there are no other dangers at hand that I can see.” “True, my friend,” replied the boar, “but the instant my life is in danger I shall need to use my tusks. There’ll be no time to sharpen them then.”