'The Fox and the Crow'

'The Fox and the Crow' an illustration by John Vernon Lord 

in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 102.

The background view for this fable represents our back garden.

The text:

The Fox and the Crow with some Cheese

A CROW had snatched a goodly piece of cheese out of a window, and flew with it into a high tree, intent on enjoying her prize. A Fox spied the dainty morsel, and thus planned his approaches. “O Crow,” said he, “how beautiful are thy wings, how bright thine eye! How graceful thy neck thy breast is the breast of an eagle! thy claws - I beg pardon - thy talons, are a match for all the beasts of the field. O! that such a bird should be dumb, and want only a voice!” The Crow, pleased with the flattery, and chuckling to think how she would surprise the Fox with her Caw, opened her mouth: - down dropped the cheese! which the Fox snapping up, observed, as he walked away, “that whatever he had remarked of her beauty, he had said nothing yet of her brains,”

Moral:  People seldom flatter without having some private scheme in mind.

Text: Thomas James (193, 1848).

Selected parallels: Babrius 77. Phaedrus 1/13. Caxton, Romulus 1/15. La Fontaine 1/2. Chambry 165. Perry 124. Daly 124. TMI K334.1.