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 426 The Archer was delighted. "Ah! my dear Bow," he said, "you well deserve these embellishments!" Wishing again to try its powers, he spans the Bow and it breaks.

(Lessing, Fables, Book III, No. 1. Translated by G. Moir Bussey.)

SOLOMON'S GHOST

VENERABLE old man, despite his years and the heat of the day, was ploughing his field with his own hand, and sowing the grain in the willing earth, in anticipation of the harvest it would produce.

Suddenly beneath the deep shadow of a spreading oak, a divine apparition stood before him! The old man was seized with affright.

"I am Solomon," said the phantom encouragingly. "What dost thou here, old friend?"

"If thou art Solomon," said the owner of the field, "how canst thou ask? In my youth I learnt from the ant to be industrious and to accumulate wealth. That which I then learnt I now practise."

"Thou hast learnt but the half of thy lesson," pursued the spirit. "Go once more to the ant, and she will teach thee to rest in the winter of thy existence, and enjoy what thou hast earned."

(Leasing, Fables, Book III, No. 3. Translated by G. Moir Bussey.)

THE SHEEP AND THE SWALLOW

SWALLOW alighted on the back of a Sheep, to pluck a little wool for her nest. The Sheep, unwilling to lose any of his coat, tried to shake off the intruder.

"What makes you so unfriendly towards me?" asked the Swallow. "You allow the Shepherd to shear you of your wool from head to foot;