Page:An argosy of fables.djvu/73



Rh THE TRAVELLERS AND THE PLANE-TREE

OME Travellers, on a hot day in summer, oppressed with the noontide sun, perceiving a Plane-tree near at hand, made straight for it, and throwing themselves on the ground rested under its shade. Looking up, as they lay, towards the tree, they said one to another, "What a useless tree to man is this barren Plane!" But the Plane-tree answered them,—"Ungrateful creatures! at the very moment that you are enjoying benefit from me, you rail at me as being good for nothing."

Ingratitude is as blind as it is base.

(Fable 313 Halm; Thomas James' translation.)

JUPITER, NEPTUNE, MINERVA AND MOMUS

UPITER, Neptune, and Minerva (as the story goes) once contended which of them should make the most perfect thing. Jupiter made a Man; Pallas made a House; and Neptune made a Bull; and Momus—for he had not yet been turned out of Olympus—was chosen judge to decide which production had the greatest merit. He began by finding fault with the Bull, because his horns were not below his eyes, so that he might see when he butted with them. Next he found fault with the Man, because there was no window in his breast that all might see his inward thoughts and feelings. And lastly he found fault with the House, because it had no wheels to enable its inhabitants to remove from bad neighbours. But Jupiter forthwith drove the critic out of heaven, telling him that a fault-finder could never be pleased, and that it was time to criticise the works of others when he had done some good thing himself.

(Fable 155 b. Halm; Thomas James' translation.)