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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

207. THE CLAY POT AND THE RAIN
Perry 368 (Avianus 41)

Driven by the winds and a heavy build-up of clouds, a great thunderstorm erupted in a downpour of winter rain. The gale let loose its flood, drowning the land with water and drenching the work of a potter that had been placed out in the fields (exposure to warm air begins the process of fixing the softness of the clay, preparing it to be properly baked when it is set in the fire). The storm cloud asked the fragile pot by what name she was called. Heedless of what was going on around her, the pot replied, 'My name is Amphora, and my gently sloping sides were designed by the potter's skilful hand, aided by his swiftly spinning wheel.' The cloud replied, 'So far you have managed to retain that form of yours, but a deluge of rain is about to come down and wash you away.' At that very moment the flood waters violently shattered the pot and she cracked and split into pieces, plunging headlong into the watery stream. Unhappy creature: she claimed to have a lofty name and dared to address the thunderclouds who were able to launch such arrows of rain!
This illustrative fable will serve to warn poor people not to lament their fate when it rests in the hands of the high and the mighty.

Note: In Caxton (7.26), it is not the river but the wind which shatters the pot. When the pot calls herself an 'amphora,' she is claiming to be a quite superior vessel (Horace, Ars Poetica 21-2, contrasts the noble amphora with a lowly pot or pitcher).


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.