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Character Index
| Proverb Index
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A Dog was carrying a piece of meat in his mouth to eat it in peace at home. On his way he had to cross a bridge across a brook. As he crossed, he looked down and saw his own reflection in the water. Thinking it was another dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that also. So he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water and was lost.
Townsend version
A Dog, crossing a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shadow in the water and took it for that of another Dog, with a piece of meat double his own in size. He immediately let go of his own, and fiercely attacked the other Dog to get his larger piece from him. He thus lost both: that which he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the stream swept it away.
Moral
All covet, all lose.
L'Estrange version
As a dog was crossing a river, with a morsel of good flesh in his mouth, he saw (as he thought) another dog under the water, upon the very same adventure. He never consider'd that the one was only the image of the other; but out of a greediness to get both, he chops at the shadow, and loses the substance.
Moral
All covet, all lose; which may serve for a reproof to those that govern their lives by fancy and appetite, without consulting the honor, and the justice of the case.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved