A Grasshopper was making a chirping that was disagreeable to an Owl, who was wont to seek her living in the dark, and in the day-time to take her rest in a hollow tree. She was asked to cease her noise, but she began much more loudly to send forth her note; entreaties urged again only set her on still more. The Owl, when she saw she had no remedy, and that her words were slighted, attacked the chatterer with this stratagem: “As your song, which one might take for the tones of Apollo’s lyre, will not allow me to go to sleep, I have a mind to drink some nectar which Pallas lately gave me;[37] if you do not object, come, let us drink together.” The other, who was parched with thirst, as soon as she found her voice complimented, eagerly flew up. The Owl, coming forth from her hollow, seized the trembling thing, and put her to death. Thus what she had refused when alive, she gave when dead. [Footnote III.37: _Pallas lately gave me_)--Ver. 13. The Owl was sacred to Pallas.] FABLE XVII. THE TREES UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE GODS. The Gods in days of yore made choice of such Trees as they wished to be under their protection. The Oak pleased Jupiter, the Myrtle Venus, the Laurel Phœbus, the Pine Cybele, the lofty Poplar Hercules. Minerva, wondering why they had chosen the barren ones, enquired the reason. Jupiter answered: “That we may not seem to sell the honor for the fruit.” “Now, so heaven help me,”[38] said she, “let any one say what he likes, but the Olive is more pleasing to me on account of its fruit.” Then said the Father of the Gods and the Creator of men: “O daughter, it is with justice that you are called wise by all; unless what we do is useful, vain is our glory.”[39] This little Fable admonishes us to do nothing that is not profitable. [Footnote III.38: _So heaven help me_)--Ver. 8. “Mehercule,” literally “By Hercules.” This was a form of oath used generally by men, and Phædrus has been censured for here putting it in the mouth of Minerva. Some Commentators also think that he is guilty of a slight anachronism in using the name of Hercules here to give emphasis to an asseveration; but there does not appear to be any ground for so thinking, as the choice must, of course, be supposed to have been made after his death and deification. In the Amphitryon of Plautus, Mercury is represented as swearing by Hercules before that God was born.] [Footnote III.39: _Vain is our glory_)--Ver. 12. “Nisi utile est quod facimus, stulta est gloria.” This line is said to have been found copied on a marble stone, as part of a sepulchral inscription, at Alba Julia or Weissenburg, in Transylvania.] FABLE XVIII. THE PEACOCK TO JUNO.