Sunday 9 November 2014

The Cock and the Jewel


'The Cock and the Jewel', an illustration by John Vernon Lord 
in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 123.

Two versions of the text:


first version

The Cock and the Jewel

As a Cock was scratching up the straw in a farm-yard, in search of food for the hens, he hit upon a Jewel that  by some chance had found its way there. “Ho!’ said he, “you are a very fine thing, no doubt, to those who prize you; but give me a barley-corn before all the pearls in the world.”

Moral: Necessity before ornament.

Text: Thomas James (11, 1848).



second version

The Cock Who Discovered a Precious Stone in a Dung Hill

A Cock in search of Food the Dunghill tries,
A sparkling Jewel glistens in his Eyes;
Cry’d he - A Barley-corn wou’d please me more
Than all the Treasures of the Eastern Shore.

Morall
Gay Nonsense does the noisy Fopling please;
Beyond the noblest Arts and Sciences.

Text: Aphra Behn (1, 1687).


Selected Parallels: Phaedrus 3/12. Caxton, Romulus 1/1. La Fontaine 1/20. L’Estrange 1/1. Perry 503 . TMI J1061.1.

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