'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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