Category Archives: AESOP TALES
71.The Crab and His Mother
An old crab said to her son, “Why do you walk sideways like that, my son? You ought to walk straight.” The young crab replied, “Show me how, dear mother, and I’ll follow your example.” The old crab tried, but tried in vain, and then saw how foolish she had been to find fault with her child.
# Example is better than precept.
70.The Cock and the Pearl
A COCK was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shining amid the straw. “Ho! Ho!” he said, “that’s for me,” and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? “You may be a treasure,” Master Cock said, “to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.”
“PRECIOUS THINGS ARE FOR THOSE THAT CAN PRIZE THEM.”
69.The Cock and the Jewel
A COCK, scratching for food for himself and his hens, found a precious stone and exclaimed:
“If your owner had found you, and not I, he would have taken you up and set you where you were placed before; but I have found you for no good reason. Someone like me would rather have one barleycorn than all the jewels in the world.”
âť– Any isolated country cook might also exclaim these and similar things.
68.The Cobbler Turned Doctor
A COBBLER, unable to make a living by his trade and made desperate by poverty, began to practice medicine in a town where he was not known. He sold a drug, pretending that it was an antidote to all poisons, and obtained a great name for him by long-winded puffs and advertisements.
When the cobbler happened to fall sick himself of a serious illness, the governor of the town determined to test his skill. For this purpose he called for a cup, and while filling it with water, pretended to mix poison with the cobbler’s antidote, commanding him to drink it on the promise of a reward. The cobbler, under the fear of death, confessed that he had no knowledge of medicine, and was only made famous by the stupid clamors of the crowd.
The governor then called a public assembly and addressed the citizens:
“Of what folly have you been guilty? You have not hesitated to entrust your heads to a man, whom no one could employ to make even the shoes for their feet.”
âť– Plan your work in advance, and thus let it become a fair investment in the course of time.
