The Dove And The Crow
A Dove shut up in a cage was boasting of the large number of young
ones which she had hatched. A Crow hearing her, said: "My good friend,
cease from this unseasonable boasting. The larger the number of your
family, the greater your cause of sorrow, in seeing them shut up in
this prison-house." Mercury and the Workmen
A Workman, felling wood by the side of a river, let his axe drop -
by accident into a deep pool. Being thus deprived of the means of
his livelihood, he sat down on the bank and lamented his hard fate.
Mercury appeared and demanded the cause of his tears. After he told
him his misfortune, Mercury plunged into the stream, and, bringing
up a golden axe, inquired if that were the one he had lost. On his
saying that it was not his, Mercury disappeared beneath the water
a second time, returned with a silver axe in his hand, and again asked
the Workman if it were his. When the Workman said it was not, he dived
into the pool for the third time and brought up the axe that had been
lost. The Workman claimed it and expressed his joy at its recovery.
Mercury, pleased with his honesty, gave him the golden and silver
axes in addition to his own. The Workman, on his return to his house,
related to his companions all that had happened. One of them at once
resolved to try and secure the same good fortune for himself. He ran
to the river and threw his axe on purpose into the pool at the same
place, and sat down on the bank to weep. Mercury appeared to him just
as he hoped he would; and having learned the cause of his grief, plunged
into the stream and brought up a golden axe, inquiring if he had lost
it. The Workman seized it greedily, and declared that truly it was
the very same axe that he had lost. Mercury, displeased at his knavery,
not only took away the golden axe, but refused to recover for him
the axe he had thrown into the pool.
|
|
