'The Crow and the Snake'

'The Crow and the Snake', an illustration by John Vernon Lord

 in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 3.

The text:

The Crow and the Snake

A CROW in great want of food saw a Serpent asleep in a sunny nook, and flying down, greedily seized him.  The Serpent, turning about, bit the Crow with a mortal wound;  the Crow in the agony of death exclaimed:  “O unhappy me! who have found in that which I deemed a happy windfall the source of my destruction.”

Moral: The covetous who grasp at everything without considering the outcome are liable to a nasty surprise.

Text: George Fyler Townsend (p219, 1868).

Selected parallels: L’Estrange 1/180. Chambry 167 (cf 135). Perry 128.