A FABLE.

The privet feeling its tender boughs loaded with young fruit,
pricked by the sharp claws and beak of the insolent blackbird,
complained to the blackbird with pitious remonstrance entreating her
that since she stole its delicious fruits she should not deprive it
of the leaves with which it preserved them from the burning rays of
the sun, and that she should not divest it of its tender bark by
scratching it with her sharp claws. To which the blackbird replied
with angry upbraiding: "O, be silent, uncultured shrub! Do you not
know that Nature made you produce these fruits for my nourishment;
do you not see that you are in the world [only] to serve me as food;
do you not know, base creature, that next winter you will be food
and prey for the Fire?" To which words the tree listened patiently,
and not without tears. After a short time the blackbird was taken in
a net and boughs were cut to make a cage, in which to imprison her.
Branches were cut, among others from the pliant privet, to serve for
the small rods of the cage; and seeing herself to be the cause of
the Blackbird's loss of liberty it rejoiced and spoke as follows: "O
Blackbird, I am here, and not yet burnt by fire as you said. I shall
see you in prison before you see me burnt."

A FABLE.

The laurel and the myrtle seeing the pear tree cut down cried out
with a loud voice: "O pear-tree! whither are you going? Where is the
pride you had when you were covered with ripe fruits? Now you will
no longer shade us with your mass of leaves." Then the pear-tree
replied: "I am going with the husbandman who has cut me down and who
will take me to the workshop of a good sculptor who by his art will
make me take the form of Jove the god; and I shall be dedicated in a
temple and adored by men in the place of Jove, while you are bound
always to remain maimed and stripped of your boughs, which will be
placed round me to do me honour.

A FABLE.

The chesnut, seeing a man upon the fig-tree, bending its boughs down
and pulling off the ripe fruits, which he put into his open mouth
destroying and crushing them with his hard teeth, it tossed its long
boughs and with a noisy rustle exclaimed: "O fig! how much less are
you protected by nature than I. See how in me my sweet offspring are
set in close array; first clothed in soft wrappers over which is the
hard but softly lined husk; and not content with taking this care of
me, and having given them so strong a shelter, on this she has
placed sharp and close-set spines so that the hand of man cannot
hurt me." Then the fig-tree and her offspring began to laugh and
having laughed she said: "I know man to be of such ingenuity that
with rods and stones and stakes flung up among your branches he will
bereave you of your fruits; and when they are fallen, he will
trample them with his feet or with stones, so that your offspring
will come out of their armour, crushed and maimed; while I am
touched carefully by their hands, and not like you with sticks and
stones."