The Vain Jackdaw

The Vain Jackdaw, an illustration by JVL, in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989

Here is a version of the fable written by Christopher Smart in 1760, 

a verse translation of Phaedrus's fable

The Vain Jackdaw

Lest any one himself should plume,

And on his neighbour’s worth presume;

But still let Nature’s garb prevail -

Esop has left this little tale:

A Daw, ambitious and absurd,

Pick’d up the quills of Juno’s bird;

And, with the gorgeous spoil adorn’d,

All his own sable brethren scorn’d,

And join’d the peacocks - who in scoff

Stripp’d the bold thief, and drove him off.

The Daw, thus roughly handled, went

To his own kind in discontent:

but they in turn contemn the spark,

And brand with many a shameful mark.

Then one he formerly disdain’d,

“Had you,” said he, “at home remain’d -

Content with Nature’s ways and will,

You had not felt the peacock’s bill;

Nor ’mongst the birds of your own dress

Had been deserted in distress.”

Moral: Fine feathers do not make a fine bird.

Text: Christopher Smart (Phaedrus 1/3, 1760).

Selected Parallels: Babrius 72. Phaedrus 1/3. Avianus 15. Caxton, Romulus 2/15.  La Fontaine 4/9. L’Estrange 1/33. Perry 472 and cf 129. cf TMI J951.2.