Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
Townsend version
Some travelers, journeying along the seashore, climbed to the summit of a tall cliff, and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbor, but as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could at the most be a small boat, and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks, and one of them said to his companions, "We have waited for no purpose, for after all there is nothing to see but a load of wood."
Moral
Our mere anticipations of life outrun its realities.
L'Estrange version
A company of people that were walking upon the shore, saw somewhat come hulling toward them a great way off at sea. They took it at first for a ship, and as it came nearer, for a boat only; but it prov'd at last to be no more then a float of weeds and rushes: whereupon they made this reflexion within themselves, We have been waiting here for a mighty bus'ness, that comes at last to just nothing.
Moral
We fancy things to be greater or less at a distance, according to our interest or inclination to have them either the one or the other.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved