This weeks featured Aesop's Fables
Jupiter and the Monkey
JUPITER ISSUED a proclamation
to all the beasts of the forest and
promised a royal reward to the one whose offspring should be
deemed the handsomest. The Monkey came with the rest and
presented, with all a mother's tenderness, a flat-nosed,
hairless, ill-featured young Monkey as a candidate for the
promised reward. A general laugh saluted her on the presentation
of her son. She resolutely said, ""I know not whether Jupiter
will allot the prize to my son, but this I do know, that he is at
least in the eyes of me his mother, the dearest, handsomest, and
most beautiful of all.
The Ass and the Grasshopper
AN ASS having heard some
Grasshoppers chirping, was highly
enchanted; and, desiring to possess the same charms of melody,
demanded what sort of food they lived on to give them such
beautiful voices. They replied, "The dew." The Ass resolved that
he would live only upon dew, and in a short time died of hunger.
Even a fool is wise-when it is too late!"
The Fox and the Crow
A CROW having stolen a bit
of meat, perched in a tree and held it
in her beak. A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat
himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded. "How handsome is the
Crow," he exclaimed, in the beauty of her shape and in the
fairness of her complexion! Oh, if her voice were only equal to
her beauty, she would deservedly be considered the Queen of
Birds!" This he said deceitfully; but the Crow, anxious to refute
the reflection cast upon her voice, set up a loud caw and dropped
the flesh. The Fox quickly picked it up, and thus addressed the
Crow: "My good Crow, your voice is right enough, but your wit is
wanting."
The Old Lion
A LION, worn out with years
and powerless from disease, lay on
the ground at the point of death. A Boar rushed upon him, and
avenged with a stroke of his tusks a long-remembered injury.
Shortly afterwards the Bull with his horns gored him as if he
were an enemy. When the Ass saw that the huge beast could be
assailed with impunity, he let drive at his forehead with his
heels. The expiring Lion said, "I have reluctantly brooked the
insults of the brave, but to be compelled to endure such
treatment from thee, a disgrace to Nature, is indeed to die a
double death."
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Aesop's
Fables :
n
Ancient Greece. Aesop's Fables have become a blanket term for collections of
short fables, especially those involving anthropomorphic animals. His fables
are some of the most well known in the world. The fables remain a popular
choice for moral education of children today. Many stories included in
Aesop's Fables, such as "The Fox and the Grapes" (from which the idiom "sour
grapes" was derived), "The Tortoise and the Hare", "The North Wind and the
Sun", "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and The Ant and the Grasshopper are
well-known throughout the world.