Category Archives: GREECE

266.The Oxen and the Axle-Trees

A HEAVY WAGON was being dragged along a country lane by a team of oxen. The axle-trees groaned and creaked terribly; whereupon the oxen, turning round, thus addressed the wheels:

“Hullo there! why do you make so much noise? We bear all the labour, and we, not you, ought to cry out.”

Maybe those who suffer most cry out the least.

265.The Ox and the Frog

AN OX that was drinking at a pool, trod on a brood of young frogs and crushed one of them to death. The Mother came up, and missing one of her sons, asked his brothers what had become of him.

“He’s all dead, Mom. Right now an awful, huge beast with four great feet came to the pool and crushed him to death with a cloven heel.”

The frog, puffing herself out, wanted to know, “if the beast was as big as this?”

“Mom, stop puffing yourself out,” said her son, “and don’t be angry with me for telling you: You’d sooner burst than manage to imitate a monster’s size.”

264.The Owl and the Birds

AN OWL, in her wisdom, counselled the birds that when the acorn first began to sprout, to pull it all up out of the ground and not allow it to grow. She said acorns would produce mistletoe, from which an irremediable poison, the bird-lime, would be extracted and by which they would be captured. The owl next advised them to pluck up the seed of the flax, which men had sown, as it was a plant which boded no good to them. And, lastly, the owl, seeing an archer approach, predicted that this man, being on foot, would contrive darts armed with feathers which would fly faster than the wings of the birds themselves. The birds gave no credence to these warning words, but considered the owl to be beside herself and said that she was mad. But afterwards, finding her words were true, they wondered at her knowledge and deemed her to be the wisest of birds. Hence it is that when she appears they look to her as knowing all things, while she no longer gives them advice, but in solitude laments their past folly.

Those who are much ahead of others risk being called insane.

263.The One-Eyed Doe

A DOE had had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and could not see any one approaching her on that side. So to avoid any danger she always used to feed on a high cliff near the sea, with her sound eye looking towards the land. By this means she could see whenever the hunters approached her on land, and often escaped by this means. But the hunters found out that she was blind of one eye, and hiring a boat rowed under the cliff where she used to feed and shot her from the sea. “Ah,” cried she with her dying voice,

“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR FATE.”