Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
Townsend version
A man had two Gamecocks in his poultry-yard. One day by chance he found a tame Partridge for sale. He purchased it and brought it home to be reared with his Gamecocks. When the Partridge was put into the poultry-yard, they struck at it and followed it about, so that the Partridge became grievously troubled and supposed that he was thus evilly treated because he was a stranger. Not long afterwards he saw the Cocks fighting together and not separating before one had well beaten the other. He then said to himself, "I shall no longer distress myself at being struck at by these Gamecocks, when I see that they cannot even refrain from quarreling with each other."
L'Estrange version
A cock-master bought a partridge, and turn'd it among his fighting cocks, for them to feed together. The cocks beat the partridge away from their meat, which she lay'd the more to heart, because it look'd like an aversion to her purely as a stranger. But the partridge finding these very cocks afterwards, cutting one another to pieces, she comforted her self with this thought, that she had no reason to expect they should be kinder to her, than they were to one another.
Moral
'Tis no wonder to find those people troublesome to strangers, that cannot agree among themselves. They quarrel for the love of quarreling; and provided the peace be broken, no matter upon what ground, or with whom.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved