Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/102

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48
Æſop's FABLES.
48

ſmall that the Requeſt was Eaſily Granted; but when the Timber-Trees came to find that the Whole Wood was to be Cut down by the Help of This Handle; There's No Remedy, they cry'd, but Patience, when People are undone by their own Folly.


Fab. XLVII.

A Tree and a Wedge.

A Workman was Cutting down a Tree to make Wedges of it. Well! ſays the Tree, I cannot but be extremely Troubled at the Thought of what I'm now a doing; And I do not ſo much Complain neither, of the Axe that does the Execution, as of the Man that Guides it; but it is My Miſery that I am to be Deſtroy'd by the Fruit of my own Body.


Fab. XLVIII.

The Eagle and Arrow.

AN Eagle that was Watching upon a Rock once for a Hare, had the Ill Hap to be Struck with an Arrow. This Arrow, it ſeems, was Feather'd from her own Wing, Which very Conſideration went nearer her Heart, ſhe ſaid, than Death it ſelf.


Fab. XLIX.

A Thruſh taken with Birdlime.

IT was the Fortune of a Poor Thruſh, among other Birds, to be taken with a Buſh of Lime-Twigs, and the Miſerable Creature Reflecting upon it, that the Chief Ingredient in the Birdlime came out of her own Guts: I am not half ſo much Troubled, ſays the Thruſh, at the Thought of Dying, as at the Fatality of Contributing to my Own Ruine.

The Moral of the Four Fables above.

Nothing goes nearer a Man in his Misfortunes, then to find himſelf Undone by his Own Folly, or but any way Acceſſory to his own Ruine.
REFLEXION.