Æsop's Fables, Embellished with One Hundred and Eleven Emblematical Devices.

FABLE XC

THE FALCONER AND THE PARTRIDGE

A falconer having taken a Partridge in his net, the bird begged hard for a reprieve, and promised the man, if he would let him go, to decoy other Partridges into his net. – 'No,' replies the Falconer, 'I was before determined not to spare you, but now you have condemned yourself by your own words: for he who is such a scoundrel as to offer to betray his friends to save himself, deserves, if possible, worse than death.'

APPLICATION

However it may be convenient for us to like the treason, yet we must be very destitute of honour not to hate and abominate the traitor. And accordingly history furnishes us with many instances of kings and great men who have punished the actors of treachery with death, though the part they acted had been so conducive to their interests as to give them a victory, or perhaps the quiet possession of a throne. Nor can princes pursue a more just maxim than this; for a traitor is a villain of no principles, that sticks at nothing to promote his own selfish ends; he that betrays one cause for a great sum of money, will betray another upon the same account; and therefore it must be very impolitic in a state to suffer such wretches to live in it. Since then this maxim is so good, and so likely at all times to be practised, what stupid rogues must they be who undertake such precarious dirty work! If they miscarry, it generally proves fatal to them from one side or other; if they succeed, perhaps they may have the promised reward, but are sure to be detested, if suffered to live, by the very person that employs them.

FABLE XCI

THE EAGLE AND THE CROW

An Eagle flew down from the top of a high rock, and settled upon the back of a Lamb; and then instantly flying up into the air again, bore his bleating prize aloft in his pounces. A Crow, who sat upon an elm, and beheld this exploit, resolved to imitate it; so flying down upon the back of a Ram, and entangling his claws in the wool, he fell a chattering and attempting to fly; by which means he drew the observation of the Shepherd upon him, who finding his feet hampered in the fleece of the Ram, easily took him, and gave him to his boys for their sport and diversion.

APPLICATION

Every quality which is excellent and commendable, is not, however, always a proper object for our imitation. We ought to state our own account honestly and fairly, that we may see what our abilities are, and how our circumstances stand; otherwise we may not only become ridiculous to others, but prejudicial to ourselves, by some awkward and ill-judged emulation, though it happen to be in a qualification truly laudable and great. It behoves every man to exert a good share of industry towards the advancement of his interest, or, if he pleases, of his reputation. But then it is highly necessary that he does this with a true regard to his own capacity, and without any danger of exposing or embarrassing himself in the operation.

FABLE XCII

THE LION, THE ASS, AND THE FOX

The Lion, the Ass, and the Fox went a hunting together in the forest; and it was agreed, that whatever was taken should be divided amongst them. They happened to have very good sport, and caught a large fat Stag, which the Lion ordered the Ass to divide. The Ass, according to the best of his capacity, did so, and made three pretty equal shares. But such levelling doings not suiting at all with the craving temper of the greedy Lion, without farther delay he flew upon the Ass, and tore him in pieces; and then bid the Fox divide it into two parts. Reynard, who seldom wanted a prompter, however, had his cue given him sufficiently upon this occasion; and so nibbling off one little bit for himself, he laid forth all the rest for the Lion's portion. The royal brute was so delighted at this dutiful and handsome proof of his respect, that he could not forbear expressing the satisfaction it gave him; and asked him withal, where he could possibly have learned so proper and so courtly a behaviour? – 'Why,' replies Reynard, 'to tell your majesty the truth, I was taught it by the Ass that lies dead there.'

APPLICATION

We may learn a great deal of useful experience from the examples of other people, if we will but take the pains to observe them. And, besides the profit of the instructions, there is no small pleasure in being taught any proper science at the expense of somebody else. To this purpose, the history of former times, as well as the transactions of the present, are very well adapted; and so copious, as to be able to furnish us with precedents upon almost every occasion. The rock upon which another has split is a kind of light-house or beacon to warn us from the like calamity; and by taking such an advantage, how easily may we steer a safe course! He that, in any negociation with his betters, does not well and wisely consider how to behave himself, so as not to give offence, may very likely come off as the Ass did: but a cool thinking man, though he should despair of ever making friends of the people in power, will be cautious and prudent enough to do nothing which may provoke them to be his enemies.

FABLE XCIII

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

A Fox, very hungry, chanced to come into a vineyard, where there hung branches of charming ripe grapes; but nailed up to a trellis so high, that he leaped till he quite tired himself, without being able to reach one of them. At last – 'Let who will take them!' says he, 'they are but green and sour; so I will even let them alone.'

APPLICATION

This fable is a good reprimand to a parcel of vain coxcombs in the world, who, because they would never be thought to be disappointed in any of their pursuits, pretend a dislike to every thing which they cannot obtain. There is a strange propensity in mankind to this temper, and there are numbers of grumbling malcontents in every different faculty and sect in life. The discarded statesman, considering the corruption of the times, would not have any hand in the administration of affairs for all the world. The country squire damns a court life, and would not go cringing and creeping to a drawing-room for the best place the king has at his disposal. A young fellow, being asked how he liked a celebrated beauty, by whom all the world knew he was despised, answered, she had a stinking breath. How insufferable is the pride of this poor creature man! who would stoop to the basest vilest actions, rather than be thought not able to do any thing. For what is more base and vile than lying? And when do we lie more notoriously than when we disparage and find fault with a thing, for no other reason but because it is out of our power?

FABLE XCIV

THE HORSE AND THE STAG

The Stag with his sharp horns, got the better of the Horse, and drove him clear out of the pasture where they used to feed together. So the latter craved the assistance of man; and, in order to receive the benefit of it, suffered him to put a bridle into his mouth and a saddle upon his back. By this way of proceeding he entirely defeated his enemy; but was mightily disappointed when, upon returning thanks, and desiring to be dismissed, he received this answer: – 'No, I never knew before how useful a drudge you were; now I have found what you are good for, you may depend upon it I will keep you to it.'

APPLICATION

As the foregoing fable was intended to caution us against consenting to any thing that might prejudice public liberty, this may serve to keep us upon our guard in the preservation of that which is of a private nature. This is the use and interpretation given of it by Horace, the best and most polite philosopher that ever wrote. After reciting the fable, he applies it thus: – 'This,' says he, 'is the case of him, who dreading poverty, parts with that invaluable jewel, liberty; like a wretch as he is, he will always be subject to a tyrant of some sort or other, and be a slave for ever; because his avaricious spirit knew not how to be contented with that moderate competency, which he might have possessed independent of all the world.'

FABLE XCV

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SWALLOW

A prodigal Young Spendthrift, who had wasted his whole patrimony in taverns and gaming-houses, among lewd idle company, was taking a melancholy walk near a brook. It was in the month of January; and happened to be one of those warm sunshiny days which sometimes smile upon us even in that winterly season of the year; and, to make it the more flattering, a Swallow, which had made his appearance, by mistake, too soon, flew skimming along upon the surface of the water. The giddy Youth observing this, without any further consideration, concluded that summer was now come, and that he should have little or no occasion for clothes, so went and pawned them at the broker's, and ventured the money for one stake more, among his sharping companions. When this too was gone the same way with the rest, he took another solitary walk in the same place as before. But the weather being severe and frosty, had made every thing look with an aspect very different from what it did before; the brook was quite frozen over, and the poor Swallow lay dead upon the bank of it: the very sight of which cooled the young Spark's brains; and coming to a kind of sense of his misery, he reproached the deceased bird as the author of all his misfortunes: – 'Ah, wretch that thou wert!' says he, 'thou hast undone both thyself and me, who was so credulous as to depend upon thee.'

APPLICATION

They who frequent taverns and gaming-houses, and keep bad company, should not wonder if they are reduced, in a very small time, to penury and want. The wretched young fellows, who once addict themselves to such a scandalous kind of life, scarce think of, or attend to, any one thing besides. They seem to have nothing else in their heads, but how they may squander what they have got, and where they may get more when that is gone. They do not make the same use of their reason that other people do; but, like the jaundiced eye, view every thing in that false light in which their distemper and debauchery represent it. The Young Man in the fable gives us a pretty example of this; he sees a Swallow in the midst of winter, and instead of being surprised at it, as a very irregular and extraordinary thing, concludes from thence that it is summer, as if he had never thought before about the season. Well, the result of this wise conclusion is of a piece with the conclusion itself; if it is summer, he shall not want so many clothes, therefore he sells them: for what? – More money to squander away; as if (had his observation been just) summer would have lasted all the year round. But the true result and conclusion of all this is – when both his money and clothes are irrecoverably gone, he comes to his right senses; is ready to perish with hunger, to starve with cold, and to tear his own flesh with remorse and vexation at his former stupidity.

FABLE XCVI

THE MAN AND HIS GOOSE

A certain Man had a Goose, which laid him a golden egg every day. But, not contented with this, which rather increased than abated his avarice, he was resolved to kill the Goose, and cut up her belly, that so he might come at the inexhaustible treasure which he fancied she had within her. He did so; and, to his great sorrow and disappointment, found nothing.

APPLICATION

They who are of such craving impatient tempers, that they cannot live contented when fortune has blessed them with a constant and continued sufficiency, deserve even to be deprived of what they have. And this has been the case of many ambitious and covetous men, who, by making an essay to grow very rich at once, have missed what they aimed at, and lost what they had before. But this comes so near the sense of the forty-seventh fable, that the same application may very well serve for both. If any thing further can be couched in this, it may possibly be intended to show us the unreasonableness and inconvenience of being solicitous about what may happen hereafter, and wanting to pry into the womb of futurity: which if we could do, all we should get for our pains would be, to spoil our pleasures by anticipation, and double our misfortunes by a previous sense and apprehension of them. There are some things that entertain and delight us very agreeably while we view them at a proper distance; which, perhaps, would not stand the test of a too near inspection. Beauty, being only the external form of a thing which strikes the eye in a pleasing manner, is a very thin glossy being, and, like some nice paintings of a peculiar composition, will not well bear even to be breathed on: to preserve our good opinion of it, we must not approach too close; for if, like the man in the fable, we have a mind to search for a treasure within, we may not only fail of our expectations there, but even lose the constant relish we enjoyed from a remoter contemplation.

FABLE XCVII

THE DOG AND THE WOLF

A lean, hungry, half-starved Wolf, happened, one moonshiny night, to meet with a jolly, plump, well-fed mastiff; and, after the first compliments were passed, says the Wolf – 'You look extremely well; I protest, I think, I never saw a more graceful comely person. But how comes it about, I beseech you, that you should live so much better than I? I may say, without vanity, that I venture fifty times more than you do; and yet I am almost ready to perish with hunger.' – The Dog answered very bluntly – 'Why you may live as well, if you will do the same for it that I do.' – 'Indeed! What is that?' says he. – 'Why,' says the Dog, 'only to guard the house a nights, and keep it from thieves.' – 'With all my heart,' replies the Wolf, 'for at present I have but a sorry time of it; and, I think, to change my hard lodging in the woods, where I endure rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head, and a belly full of good victuals, will be no bad bargain.' – 'True,' says the Dog; 'therefore you have nothing more to do but to follow me.' Now, as they were jogging on together, the Wolf spied a crease in the Dog's neck, and, having a strange curiosity, could not forbear asking him what it meant. – 'Pugh! nothing,' says the Dog. 'Nay, but pray,' – says the Wolf. 'Why,' says the Dog, 'if you must know, I am tied up in the day-time, because I am a little fierce, for fear I should bite people, and am only let loose a nights. But this is done with design to make me sleep a days, more than any thing else, and that I may watch the better in the night-time; for, as soon as ever the twilight appears, out I am turned, and may go where I please. Then my master brings me plates of bones from the table with his own hands, and whatever scraps are left by any of the family, all fall to my share; for you must know I am a favourite with every body. So you see how you are to live. – Come, come along; what is the matter with you?' – 'No,' replied the Wolf, 'I beg your pardon; keep your happiness all to yourself. Liberty is the word with me; and I would not be a king upon the terms you mention.'

APPLICATION

The lowest condition of life, with freedom attending it, is better than the most exalted station under a restraint. Æsop and Phædrus, who had both felt the bitter effects of slavery, though the latter of them had the good fortune to have the mildest prince that ever was for his master, cannot forbear taking all opportunities to express their great abhorrence of servitude, and their passion for liberty, upon any terms whatsoever. Indeed, a state of slavery, with whatever seeming grandeur and happiness it may be attended, is yet so precarious a thing, that he must want sense, honour, courage, and all manner of virtue, who can endure to prefer it in his choice. A man who has so little honour as to bear to be a slave, when it is in his power to prevent or redress it, would make no scruple to cut the throats of his fellow creatures, or to do any wickedness that the wanton unbridled will of his tyrannical master could suggest.

FABLE XCVIII

THE WOOD AND THE CLOWN

A country Fellow came one day into the Wood, and looked about him with some concern; upon which the Trees, with a curiosity natural to some other creatures, asked him what he wanted. – He replied – 'That he only wanted a piece of wood to make a handle to his hatchet.' Since that was all, it was voted unanimously, that he should have a piece of good, sound, tough ash. But he had no sooner received and fitted it for his purpose, than he began to lay about him unmercifully, and to hack and hew without distinction, felling the noblest trees in all the forest. Then the Oak is said to have spoke thus to the Beech in a low whisper, – 'Brother, we must take it for our pains.'

APPLICATION

No people are more justly liable to suffer than they who furnish their enemies with any kind of assistance. It is generous to forgive; it is enjoined us by religion to love our enemies; but he that trusts an enemy, much more contributes to the strengthening and arming of him, may almost depend upon repenting him for his inadvertent benevolence; and has, moreover, this to add to his distress, that, when he might have prevented it, he brought his misfortune upon himself by his own credulity.

Any person in a community, by what name or title soever distinguished, who affects a power which may possibly hurt the people, is an enemy to that people, and therefore they ought not to trust him: for though he were ever so fully determined not to abuse such a power, yet he is so far a bad man, as he disturbs the people's quiet, and makes them jealous and uneasy by desiring to have it, or even retaining it, when it may prove mischievous. If we consult history, we shall find that the thing called Prerogative has been claimed and contended for chiefly by those who never intended to make a good use of it; and as readily resigned and thrown up by just and wise princes, who had the true interest of their people at heart. How like senseless stocks do they act, who, by complimenting some capricious mortal, from time to time, with parcels of prerogative, at last put it out of their power to defend and maintain themselves in their just and natural liberty!

FABLE XCIX

THE OLD LION

A Lion, worn out with old age, lay fetching his last gasp, and agonizing in the convulsive struggles of death. Upon which occasion several of the beasts, who had formerly been sufferers by him, came and revenged themselves upon him. The Boar, with his mighty tusks, drove at him in a stroke that glanced like lightning. And the Bull gored him with his violent horns. Which, when the Ass saw they might do without any danger, he too came up, and threw his heels into the Lion's face. Upon which, the poor old expiring tyrant uttered these words with his last dying groan: – 'Alas! how grievous is it to suffer insults, even from the brave and the valiant; but to be spurned by so base a creature as this is, who is the disgrace of Nature, is worse than dying ten thousand deaths.'

APPLICATION

He that would be reverenced and respected by the rest of mankind, must lay in a foundation for it of some kind or other; for people cannot be persuaded to pay deference and esteem for nothing. So that, though we have lived in good repute in the world, if ever we should happen to outlive our stock, we must not be surprised to find ourselves slighted and affronted, even by the vilest scum of the people. If therefore we would raise to ourselves a dignity that will continue not only to the end of our lives, but extend itself far down among the ages of posterity, we should take care to establish it upon a foundation of virtue and good-nature: this will not only preserve us from the insults of enemies, but, upon occasion, surround us with a trusty guard of faithful and sincere friends.

FABLE C

THE HORSE AND THE LOADED ASS

An idle Horse, and an Ass labouring under a heavy burden, were travelling the road together; they both belonged to a country fellow, who trudged it on foot by them. The Ass, ready to faint under his heavy load, entreated the Horse to assist him, and lighten his burden, by taking some of it upon his back. The Horse was ill-natured, and refused to do it; upon which the poor Ass tumbled down in the midst of the highway, and expired in an instant. The countryman ungirted his pack-saddle, and tried several ways to relieve him, but all to no purpose: which, when he perceived, he took the whole burden and laid it upon the Horse, together with the skin of the dead Ass: so that the Horse, by his moroseness in refusing to do a small kindness, justly brought upon himself a great inconvenience.

APPLICATION

Self-love is no such ill principle, if it were but well and truly directed; for it is impossible that any man should love himself to any purpose, who withdraws his assistance from his friends or the public. Every government is to be considered as a body politic; and every man who lives in it as a member of that body. Now, to carry on the allegory, no member can thrive better than when they all jointly unite in their endeavours to assist and improve the whole. If the hand was to refuse its assistance in procuring food for the mouth, they must both starve and perish together. And when those, who are parties concerned in the same community, deny such assistance to each other, as the preservation of that community necessarily requires, their self-interestedness, in that case, is ill-directed, and will have a quite contrary effect from what they intended. How many people are so senseless as to think it hard that there should be any taxes in the nation; whereas, were there to be none indeed, those very people would be undone immediately. That little property they have would be presently plundered by foreign or domestic enemies; and then they would be glad to contribute their quota, even without an act of parliament. The charges of supporting a government are necessary things, and easily supplied by a due and well proportioned contribution. But, in a narrower and more confined view, to be ready to assist our friends upon all occasions, is not only good, as it is an act of humanity, but highly discreet, as it strengthens our interest, and gives us an opportunity of lightening the burden of life.