'"Is it possible to find any geese more unfortunate than we are? This moujik[65] harasses us so terribly, and chases us about just as if we were common geese. The ignoramus does not know that he ought to pay us reverence, seeing that we are the noble descendants of those geese to whom Rome was once indebted for her salvation, and in whose honour even feast-days were specially appointed there." '"And do you want to have honour paid you on that account?" a passer-by asked them. '"Why, our ancestors----" '"I know that--I have read all about it; but I want to know this: of what use have you been yourselves?" '"Why, our ancestors saved Rome!" '"Quite so; but what have you done?" '"We? Nothing." '"Then, what merit is there in you? Let your ancestors rest in peace--they justly received honourable reward; but you, my friends, are only fit to be roasted!"' Krilof concludes: 'It would be easy to make this fable still more intelligible; but I am afraid of irritating the geese.' A story, rather than a fable, is _The Man with Three Wives_, and the moral underlying it is in the author's peculiar vein. This is translated from the original by Mr. J. H. Harrison: 'A certain vanquisher of women's hearts, While still his first wife was alive and well, Married a second, and a third. They tell The king the scandal of such shameless arts, And, as his majesty abhorred all vice, Given himself to self-denial, He gave the order in a trice To bring the bigamist to trial, And such a punishment invent, that none Should evermore dare do what he had done. "And if the punishment to me should seem too small, Around their table will I hang the judges all." This to the judges seemed no joke: The cold sweat ran along each spine. Three days and nights they sit, but can't divine What punishment will best such lawless license choke. Thousands of punishments there are; but then, As all men of experience know, They cannot keep from evil evil men. This time kind Providence did help them though, And when the culprit came before the court, This was his sentence short: To give him back his three wives all together. The people wondered much at this decision, And thought the judges' lives hung by a feather; But three days had not passed before The bigamist, behind his door, Himself hung to a peg with great precision: And then the sentence wrought on all great fear, And much the morals of the kingdom steadied, For from that time its annalists are clear That no man in it more has three wives wedded.' FOOTNOTES: [62] Bouterwick's 'History of Spanish Literature,' book iii., chap. iii. [63] London: Remington and Co., 1883. [64] London: Strahan and Co., 1868. A second edition appeared the year following. [65] Peasant. CHAPTER XV. OTHER AND OCCASIONAL FABULISTS.