Three hundred Aesop’s fables: Translated by George Fyler TownsendAesop
General
Three hundred Aesop’s fables: Translated by George Fyler Townsend
Aesop
Aesop's fables -- Translations into English; Fables, Greek -- Translations into English
A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise,
who replied, laughing: “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat
you in a race.” The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply
impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox
should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the
race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped,
but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the
course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last
waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had
reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue.
Slow but steady wins the race.
The Charcoal-Burner And The Fuller
A CHARCOAL-BURNER carried on his trade in his own house. One day he met
a friend, a Fuller, and entreated him to come and live with him, saying
that they should be far better neighbors and that their housekeeping
expenses would be lessened. The Fuller replied, “The arrangement is
impossible as far as I am concerned, for whatever I should whiten, you
would immediately blacken again with your charcoal.”
Like will draw like.
The Boy Hunting Locusts
A BOY was hunting for locusts. He had caught a goodly number, when he
saw a Scorpion, and mistaking him for a locust, reached out his hand to
take him. The Scorpion, showing his sting, said: “If you had but
touched me, my friend, you would have lost me, and all your locusts
too!”
The Fisherman Piping
A FISHERMAN skilled in music took his flute and his nets to the
seashore. Standing on a projecting rock, he played several tunes in the
hope that the fish, attracted by his melody, would of their own accord
dance into his net, which he had placed below. At last, having long
waited in vain, he laid aside his flute, and casting his net into the
sea, made an excellent haul of fish. When he saw them leaping about in
the net upon the rock he said: “O you most perverse creatures, when I
piped you would not dance, but now that I have ceased you do so
merrily.”
The Dog and the Shadow
A DOG, crossing a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his
mouth, saw his own shadow in the water and took it for that of another
Dog, with a piece of meat double his own in size. He immediately let go
of his own, and fiercely attacked the other Dog to get his larger piece
from him. He thus lost both: that which he grasped at in the water,
because it was a shadow; and his own, because the stream swept it away.
Hercules and the Wagoner
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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