'The Fox with a cropped Tail', an illustration by John Vernon Lord
in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 149.
The Text:
The Fox with a cropped Tail
A CUNNING old fox, of plundering
habits,
Great crauncher of fowls, great
catcher of rabbits,
Whom none of his sort had caught
in a nap,
Was finally caught in somebody’s
trap.
By luck he escaped, not wholly and
hale,
For the price of his luck was the
loss of his tail.
Escaped in this way, to save his
disgrace,
He thought to get others in
similar case.
One day that the foxes in council
were met,
‘Why wear we,’ said he, ‘this
cumbering weight,
Which sweeps in the dirt wherever
it goes?
Pray tell me its use, if anyone
knows.
If the
council will take my advice,
We
shall dock off our tails in a trice.’
‘Your advice may be good,’ said
one on the ground;
‘But ere I reply, pray turn
yourself round.’
Whereat such a shout from the
council was heard,
Poor bob-tail, confounded, could
say not a word.
To urge the reform would have
wasted his breath.
Long tails were the mode till the
day of his death.
Moral: Distrust those who give
advice out of self-interest,
particularly when they try to turn a defect into a fashion.
Text: Elizur Wright (La Fontaine 5/5, 1841).
Selected Parallels: La Fontaine 5/5. L’Estrange 101. Chambry 41.
Perry 17. Daly 17. TMI J758.1.
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