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

264. THE FOX, THE MOON AND THE RIVER
Perry 669 (Romulus Ang. 48)

A fox was out walking one night next to a river. She saw the light of the moon reflected in the water and mistook it for a piece of cheese. The fox started to lap at the water, thinking that if she could drink up all the water, she would find the cheese in the dry riverbed. The fox lapped and lapped at the water until finally she choked and died.
So every greedy man goes chasing after profit with such an intensity that he destroys himself without achieving anything.

Note: For the motif of 'drinking the river,' see Fable 442. Compare the English proverbial fool: 'hee thinkes the Moone is made of greene cheese' (Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, c. 1611).


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.