1 A Case for Patience
2 Friend or Foe?
3 Sour Grapes
4 Actions Speak Louder than Words
5 Fools Die for Want of Wisdom
6 Dead Men Tell No Tales
7 Look Before You Leap
8 Cut Off Your Tails to Save My Face!
9 The Fox and the Mask
10 A Lesson for Fools
11 One-Way Traffic
12 Reaping Without Sowing
13 Taught by Experience
14 The Fox Out-Foxed
15 Blood-Suckers
16 Men and Lions
17 It Is Quality Not Quantity that Counts
18 Disarmed
19 Third-Party Profit
20 A Bird in the Hand
21 The Lion’s Share
22 A Companion in Fear
23 The Mighty Fallen
24 A Respecter of Persons
25 Negotiating from Weakness
26 A Plotter Out-Plotted
27 The Wages of Treachery
28 Always in the Wrong
29 Kindness Ill Requited
30 The Pot Calls the Kettle Black
31 A Communist Dictator
32 Misplaced Confidence
33 Born Plunderers
34 Trying to Make a Silk Purse Out of a Sow’s Ear
35 Delusion
36 A Case of Mistaken Identity
37 Second Thoughts
38 Ready for Action
39 As Good as His Word
40 Pride Will Have a Fall
41 Town Mouse and Country Mouse
42 We Get the Rulers We Deserve
43 One Is Enough
44 A Voice and Nothing More
45 Making the Punishment Fit the Crime
46 Too Big for Her Skin
47 A Lesson Learnt Too Late
48 Doubly Disabled
49 The Imitative Instinct
50 A Clumsy Liar
51 Killed by Kindness
52 A Blood Feud
53 Evil for Good
54 Cursed Above All Cattle
55 United Against the Common Foe
56 The Best Method of Defence
57 Vengeance at any Price
58 A Biter Bit
59 Ill-Judged Rivalry
60 Caught on the Blind Side
61 Bitten but Not Shy
62 A Breed of Faint-Hearts
63 The Irony of Fate
64 How the Tortoise Got Its Shell
65 A Waste of Good Counsel
66 Slow but Sure
67 The Reward of the Wicked
68 Repayment in Kind
69 The Jackdaw Who Would be an Eagle
70 Hope Deferred
71 Getting the Worst of Both Worlds
72 Borrowed Plumes
73 A Bird in the Hand
74 Breach of Promise
75 Right of Asylum
76 Fireside Sketch
77 Tit for Tat
78 Nature’s Punishment of Discontent
79 When a Man Means Business
80 Swan Song
81 The Victor Vanquished
82 Discretion Is the Better Part of Valour
83 A Different Point of View
84 Misplaced Confidence
85 The Law of Self-Preservation
86 Look Before You Leap
87 Born to Trouble
88 Traitor’s Death
89 Cherishing a Viper
90 The Punishment of Selfishness
91 Save Us in the Time of Trouble
92 A Bad Bargain
93 Feline Sophistry
94 Once Bitten, Twice Shy
95 Villainy Unmasked
96 Metamorphosis
97 The Patience of Fear
98 Nothing to Lose
99 Hoist with Her Own Petard
100 Friends Old and New
101 One Thing at a Time
102 A Bad Workman
103 Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing
104 Birds of a Feather
105 Counting the Cost
106 Too Clever by Half
107 Asinine Pride
108 An Ass in a Lion’s Skin (1)
109 An Ass in a Lion’s Skin (2)
110 Know Your Limitations
111 Every Man to His Own Trade
112 One Master as Good as Another
113 Forewarned Is Forearmed
114 Eating the Bread of Idleness
115 Reckoning Without His Host
116 Things Are Not Always What They Seem
117 Profiting by Experience
118 Substance and Shadow
119 Lost to Shame
120 Turning the Tables on a Pursuer
121 Not Interested
122 False-Hearted Fawning
123 Asleep With One Eye Open
124 Incorruptible
125 Dog in the Manger
126 All the Difference
127 Something to Squeal About
128 Scamped Work
129 A Person of No Importance
130 Despise Not a Feeble Folk
131 Example Is Better than Precept
132 Proof Positive
133 Bearding the Lion
134 Beneath Notice
135 The Wages of Malice
136 Why the Ant Is a Thief
137 Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard (1)
138 Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard (2)
139 One Good Turn Deserves Another
140 The Axe Is Laid Unto the Root of the Trees
141 Bowing Before the Storm
142 A Fabled Flower that Fades Not
143 The Gentle Art of Persuasion
144 Springtime and Winter
145 Easily Remedied
146 Marching on the Stomach
147 The Impious Huckster
148 Who Art Thou that Judgest?
149 What a Piece of Work Is Man!
150 A Rash Prayer Answered
151 Dirt Cheap
152 A Cartload of Mischief
153 Why Giants Are Boobies
154 All Lost Save Hope
155 Room for Improvement
156 Honesty Is the Best Policy
157 The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in Our Stars, but in Ourselves
158 No Respite
159 Why Some Men Are Loutish Brutes
160 A City of Lies
161 The Eye-Doctor
162 Incurable
163 A Common Cheat
164 A Warning Against Calumny
165 A Prophet Without Knowledge
166 Truth Turned Liar
167 The Swindler
168 Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child
169 The Charlatan
170 God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
171 The Burner Burnt
172 Treasure Trove
173 Unity Is Strength
174 A Mountain Out of a Molehill
175 Mote and Beam
176 A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed
177 Share and Share Alike
178 Much Wants More
179 Memento Mori
180 Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also
181 Seeing Is Believing
182 Plucked Clean
183 Blind Man’s Touch
184 Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
185 Brave Talk
186 Business First
187 Hating Unto Death
188 The Ungodly Increase in Riches
189 Falsely Accused
190 One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer
191 Favourable Omens
192 La Forza del Destino
193 An Unseasonable Reproof
194 Use Is Everything
195 Learning by Bitter Experience
196 Crying Wolf Too Often
197 A Philosophic Baldpate
198 Friends Indeed
199 The Riddle of a Will
200 A Craven Braggart
201 None So Deaf as Those That Won’t Hear
202 His Own Trumpeter
203 Frailty, Thy Name Is Woman!
204 Big and Little Fish
205 Fishing in Troubled Waters
206 Familiarity Breeds Contempt
207 Self-Deception
A half-starved fox, who saw in the hollow of an oak-tree some bread and meat left there by shepherds, crept in and ate it. With his stomach distended he could not get out again. Another fox, passing by and hearing his cries and lamentations, came up and asked what was the matter. On being told, he said: ‘Well, stay there till you are as thin as you were when you went in; then you’ll get out quite easily.’
This tale shows how time solves difficult problems.
A fox slipped in climbing a fence. To save himself from falling he clutched at a brier-bush. The thorns made his paws bleed, and in his pain he cried out: ‘Oh dear! I turned to you for help and you have made me worse off than I was before.’ ‘Yes, my friend!’ said the brier. ‘You made a bad mistake when you tried to lay hold of me. I lay hold of everyone myself.’
The incident illustrates the folly of those who run for aid to people whose nature it is to hurt rather than to help.
A hungry fox tried to reach some clusters of grapes which he saw hanging from a vine trained on a tree, but they were too high. So he went off and comforted himself by saying: ‘They weren’t ripe anyhow.’
In the same way some men, when they fail through their own incapacity, blame circumstances.
A fox was being chased by huntsmen and begged a wood-cutter whom he saw to hide him. The man told him to go into his hut. Soon afterwards the huntsmen arrived and asked if he had seen a fox pass that way. He answered ‘No’ – but as he spoke he jerked a thumb towards the place where the fox was hidden. However, they believed his statement and did not take the hint. When the fox saw they had gone he came out and made off without speaking. The woodman reproached him for not even saying a word of acknowledgement for his deliverance. ‘I would have thanked you,’ the fox called back, ‘if your actions and your character agreed with your words.’
This fable is aimed at men who make public profession of virtue but behave like rogues.
A monkey made a great impression by dancing before an assembly of animals, who elected him their king. The fox was jealous. Noticing a snare with a piece of meat in it, he took the monkey to it and said: ‘Here is a choice titbit that I have found. Instead of eating it myself I have kept it for you as a perquisite of your royal office. So take it.’ The monkey went at it carelessly and was caught in the snare. When he accused the fox of laying a trap for him, the fox replied: ‘Fancy a fool like you, friend monkey, being king of the animals!’
People who attempt things without due consideration suffer for it and get laughed at into the bargain.
A fox and a monkey, as they journeyed together, disputed at great length about the nobility of their lineage. When they reached a certain place on the road, the monkey fixed his gaze upon it and uttered a groan. The fox asked what was wrong with him. The monkey pointed to some tombs that stood there. ‘Don’t you expect me to mourn,’ he said, ‘when I behold the sepulchres of the slaves and freedmen of my ancestors?’ ‘Lie away to your heart’s content,’ answered the fox. ‘They won’t any of them rise up to contradict you.’
It is the same with men who are impostors. They never boast more loudly than when there is no one to expose them.
A fox tumbled into a water tank and could not get out. Along came a thirsty goat, and seeing the fox asked him if the water was good. The fox jumped at the chance. He sang the praises of the water with all the eloquence at his command and urged the goat to come down. The goat was so thirsty that he went down without stopping to think and drank his fill. Then they began to consider how they were to get up again. ‘I have a good idea,’ said the fox, ‘that is, if you are willing to do something to help us both. Be so kind as to place your forefeet against the wall and hold your horns straight up. Then I can nip up, and pull you up too.’ The goat was glad enough to comply. The fox clambered nimbly over his haunches, shoulders, and horns, reached the edge of the tank, and began to make off. The goat complained that he had broken their compact. But he only came back to say: ‘You have more hairs in your beard than brains in your head, my friend. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone down without thinking how you were going to get up.’
A sensible man never embarks on an enterprise until he can see his way clear to the end of it.
A fox who had lost his tail in a trap was so ashamed of the disfigurement that he felt life was not worth living. So he decided to persuade all the other foxes to maim themselves in the same way; then, he thought, his own loss would not be so conspicuous. He collected them all and advised them to cut off their tails. A tail, he said, was merely a superfluous appendage, ugly to look at and heavy to carry. But one of the others answered: ‘Look here! You only give us this advice because it suits your own book.’
This tale satirizes those who offer advice to their neighbours not out of benevolence but from self-interest.
A fox entered an actor’s house and rummaged through all his properties. Among other things he found a mask representing a hobgoblin’s head – the work of a talented artist. He took it up in his paws and said: ‘What a fine head! A pity it has no brain in it!’
This fable reminds us that some men of impressive physical appearance are deficient in intellect.
A crow sat in a tree holding in his beak a piece of meat that he had stolen. A fox which saw him determined to get the meat. It stood under the tree and began to tell the crow what a beautiful big bird he was. He ought to be king of all the birds, the fox said; and he would undoubtedly have been made king, if only he had a voice as well. The crow was so anxious to prove that he had a voice, that he dropped the meat and croaked for all he was worth. Up ran the fox, snapped up the meat, and said to him: ‘If you added brains to all your other qualifications, you would make an ideal king.’
An old lion, who was too weak to hunt or fight for his food, decided that he must get it by his wits. He lay down in a cave, pretending to be ill, and whenever any animals came to visit him, he seized them and ate them. When many had perished in this way, a fox who had seen through the trick came and stood at a distance from the cave, and inquired how he was. ‘Bad,’ the lion answered, and asked why he did not come in. ‘I would have come in,’ said the fox, ‘but I saw a lot of tracks going in and none coming out.’
A wise man recognizes danger signals in time to avoid injury.
A lion and a bear began fighting over a fawn which they had found, and mauled each other so badly that they lost consciousness and lay half-dead. A fox which passed by, seeing them incapable and the fawn lying between them, picked it up and threaded his way out from among them. Unable to get up, they said: ‘A grievous fate is ours – to undergo all this suffering for the benefit of a fox.’
People have good reason to be distressed when they see the fruits of their own labours borne away by chance comers.
A lion, a donkey, and a fox formed a partnership and went out hunting. When they had taken a quantity of game the lion told the donkey to share it out. The donkey divided it into three equal parts and bade the lion choose one – on which the lion leapt at him in a fury and devoured him. Then he told the fox to divide it. The fox collected nearly all of it into one pile, leaving only a few trifles for himself, and told the lion to make his choice. The lion asked who taught him to share things in that way. ‘What happened to the donkey?’ he answered.
We learn wisdom by seeing the misfortunes of others.
An ass and a fox made an alliance and went out hunting. When a lion appeared in their path, the fox realized the danger that threatened them, and going up to the lion he undertook to hand over the ass to him in exchange for a guarantee of security. On receiving the lion’s promise to let him go, he led the ass into a trap. But the lion, when he saw that the ass could not possibly escape, seized the fox first and then went after the ass at his leisure.
Those who plot against their friends often find to their surprise that they destroy themselves into the bargain.
Aesop spoke in the public assembly at Samos when a demagogue was being tried for his life. ‘A fox which was crossing a river,’ he said, ‘was carried into a deep gully, and all his efforts to get out were unavailing. Besides all the other suffering that he had to endure, he was tormented by a swarm of ticks which fastened on him. A hedgehog which came that way on its travels was sorry for him and asked if it should pick off the ticks. ‘No, please don’t,’ replied the fox. ‘Why not?’ said the hedgehog. ‘Because these have already made a good meal on me, and don’t suck much blood now. But if you take them away, another lot will come, all hungry, and drain every drop of blood I have left.’
‘It is the same with you, men of Samos,’ said Aesop. ‘This man will do you no more harm, for he is rich. But if you kill him, others will come who are still hungry, and they will go on stealing until they have emptied your treasury.’