Page:An argosy of fables.djvu/77

 Rh sorrow rather than joy. "For if," said he, "the Sun of himself now parches up the marshes so that we can hardly bear it, what will become of us if he should have a dozen little Suns in addition?"

(Fable 77 b. Halm; Thomas James' translation.)

THE GNAT AND THE BULL

GNAT that had been buzzing about the head of a Bull, at length settling himself down upon his horn, begged his pardon for incommoding him; "but if," says he, "my weight at all inconveniences you, pray say so and I will be off in a moment." "Oh, never trouble your head about that," says the Bull, "for 'tis all one to me whether you go or stay; and, to say the truth, I did not know you were there."

The smaller the Mind the greater the Conceit.

(Fable 235 Halm; Thomas James' translation.)

THE EAGLE AND THE ARROW

BOWMAN took aim at an Eagle and hit him in the heart. As the Eagle turned his head in the agonies of death, he saw that the Arrow was winged with his own feathers. "How much sharper," said he, "are the wounds made by weapons which we ourselves have supplied!"

(Fable 4 b. Halm; Thomas James' translation.)