Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
456. THE HALCYON AND THE SEA
Perry 25 (Chambry
28)
The halcyon is a bird who is fond of deserted places and who always lives
on the sea. They say that she makes her nest on the rocky cliffs of the
coast in order to protect herself from human hunters. So when a certain
halcyon was about to lay her eggs, she went to a promontory and found
a rock jutting out towards the sea and decided to make her nest there.
But when she went to look for food, it happened that the sea swelled under
the blustering wind and reached as high as the halcyon's home and flooded
the nest, killing her chicks. When the halcyon returned and saw what had
happened, she said, 'What a fool I was to have protected myself against
a plot hatched on the land by taking refuge here on the sea, when it is
the sea that has utterly betrayed me!'
There are people who do the same thing: while defending themselves
against their enemies, they unwittingly fall prey to friends who turn
out to be far more dangerous.
Source:
Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura
Gibbs.
Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New
cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.
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