Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
Townsend version
An eagle and a Fox formed an intimate friendship and decided to live near each other. The Eagle built her nest in the branches of a tall tree, while the Fox crept into the underwood and there produced her young. Not long after they had agreed upon this plan, the Eagle, being in want of provision for her young ones, swooped down while the Fox was out, seized upon one of the little cubs, and feasted herself and her brood. The Fox on her return, discovered what had happened, but was less grieved for the death of her young than for her inability to avenge them. A just retribution, however, quickly fell upon the Eagle. While hovering near an altar, on which some villagers were sacrificing a goat, she suddenly seized a piece of the flesh, and carried it, along with a burning cinder, to her nest. A strong breeze soon fanned the spark into a flame, and the eaglets, as yet unfledged and helpless, were roasted in their nest and dropped down dead at the bottom of the tree. There, in the sight of the Eagle, the Fox gobbled them up.
L'Estrange version
There was a bargain struck up betwixt an eagle and a fox, to be wonderful good neighbours and friends. The one took-up in a thicket of brushwood, and the other timber'd upon a tree hard by. The eagle, one day when the fox was abroad a forraging, fell into his quarters and carry'd away a whole litter of cubbs at a swoop. The fox came time enough back to see the eagle upon wing, with her prey in the foot, and to send many a heavy curse after her; but there was no overtaking her. It happen'd in a very short time after this, upon the sacrificing of a goat, that the same eagle made a stoop at a piece of flesh upon the altar, and she took it away to her young: but some live coales it seems, that stuck to't, set the nest a fire. The birds were not as yet fledge enough to shift for themselves, but upon sprawling and struggling to get clear of the flame, down they tumbled, half roasted, into the very mouth of the fox, that stood gaping under the tree to see the end on't: So that the fox had the satisfaction, at last, of devouring the children of her enemy in the very sight of the damm.
Moral
God reserves to himself the punishment of faithless, and oppressing governours, and the vindication of his own worship and altars.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved