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Abstemius's Fables (Sir Roger L'Estrange)

261. (Abstemius 7) A Cuckow and a Hawk.

By the Beak and the Claws of a Cuckow, one would take her for a kind of Hawk, only One lives upon Worms, and the other upon Flesh: Insomuch that a Hawk twitted a Cuckow one Day with her coarse way of Feeding. If you'll look like a Hawk, why don't you live like Hawk? The Cuckow took this a little in dudgeon; but passing by a Pigeon-House some short time after, what should she see but the Skin of this very Hawk upon a Pole on the Top of the Dove-House: Well! says the Cuckow (Abstemius in conceit) to the Hawk, and had not you as good have been eating Worms now, as Pigeons?
Pride is an Abomination in the Sight of God, and the Judgment is Just upon us, when the Subject of our Vanity becomes the Occasion of our Ruin.

 


Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists: Abstemius's Fables by Sir Roger L'Estrange. Available online at Google Books.