Aesop's Fables: Sir Roger L'Estrange (1692)
47. A TREE AND A WEDGE (Perry 303)
A Workman was cutting down a Tree to make Wedges of it. Well! says the
Tree, I cannot but be extreamly troubled at the Thought of what I am now
a doing; and I do not so much complain neither, of the Ax that does the
Execution, as of the Man that guides it; but it is Misery that I am to
be destroy’d by the Fruit of my own Body.
THE MORAL OF THE FOUR FABLES ABOVE. Nothing goes nearer a Man in his
Misfortunes, than to find himself undone by his own folly, or but any
way accessary to his own Ruin.
L'Estrange originally published his version of the fables in 1692. There is a
very nice illustrated edition in the Children's Classics series by Knopf: Sir
Roger L'Estrange. Aesop
- Fables which is available at amazon.com.
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