There were various editions and modifications of the work,[40] but perhaps the contrast between them cannot be better pointed out than by selecting the Fable of the Wolf and the Ass from the Gouda edition of 1480, and also from the Antwerp edition of 1584. The original edition, with the woodcut on the next page in mere outline, tells in simple Latin prose how a wolf and an ass were sawing a log of wood together. From good nature the ass worked up above, the wolf through maliciousness down below, desiring to find an opportunity for devouring the ass; therefore he complained that the ass was sending the sawdust into his eyes. The ass replied, “It is not I who am doing this,—I only guide the saw. If you wish to saw up above I am content,—I will work faithfully down below.” And so they talked on, until the wolf threatening revenge drew back, and the fissure in the beam being suddenly widened, the wedge fell upon the wolf’s head, and the wolf himself was killed. The Antwerp edition of 1584[41] changes the simple Latin prose into the elegant Latin elegiacs of John Moerman, and the outline woodcuts of an unknown artist into the copperplate engravings of Gerard de Jode, the eldest of four generations of engravers. THE WOLF and THE ASS are made to emblematize, “scelesti hominis imago et exitus,”—_the image and end of a wicked man_. Moerman’s Latin may thus be rendered, from leaf 54, ed. 1584:— “The Wolf and careless Ass a treaty made, Both studious with a saw a beam to rive;— The ready Ass above directs the blade, The Wolf doth down below deceit contrive. He seeks for cause the wretched Ass to slay, And cries,—‘With sawdust much thou troublest me,— The trouble check, or with these teeth, I say, My spoil to be devoured thou straight shalt be.’ To this the Ass,—‘Friend Wolf, be not annoyed; Guileless the saw I guide with might and main.’ But soon the long-eared brute would be destroyed, When falls the wedge;—ah! ’tis the Wolf is slain.” [Illustration: _Apologi Creaturarum_, 1584.] MORAL. “Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit.” “Who for the innocent spreads snares, Himself shall perish unawares.” “_The wicked man his nets doth spread The innocent to take the while; But who would harm his brother’s head Doth perish from his selfish guile. God will not deem him innocent, Nor raise him to the stars above, Who on unrighteous thoughts is bent, Or neighbours serves with feigned love. But after death to the fiery marsh Of Phlegethon shall he be hurled, Where Tartaræan Pluto harsh With hated sceptres rules a world_.”