Aesop's Fables: Caxton (1484)
Avyan 24. Of the goos and of her lord
(Perry 87)
He that ouer ladeth hym self / is euylle strayned / As this fable sayth
/ of a man / whiche had a goos / that leyd euery day an egge of gold /
The man of auaryce or couetousnes commaunded and bad to her / that euery
daye she shold leye two egges / And she sayd to hym / Certaynly / my mayster
I maye not / wherfore the man was wrothe with her / and slewe her / wherfore
he lost that same grete good / of the whiche dede he was moche sorowful
and wrothe / how be it that it was not tyme to shette the stable whan
the horses ben loste / & gone /
And he is not wyse / whiche dothe suche a thynge / wherof he shalle
repente hym afterward / ne he also / whiche doth his owne dommage for
to auenge hym self on somme other / For by cause that he supposeth to
wynne al / he leseth al that he hath
 Caxton
published his edition of Aesop's fables in 1484. There are modern reprints by
Joseph Jacobs (D. Nutt: London, 1889) and more recently by Robert Lenaghan (Harvard
University Press: Cambridge, 1967). Lenaghan's edition is available at amazon.com.
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