Aesop's Fables: Townsend (1867)
58. The Goatherd and the Wild Goats (Perry
6)
A GOATHERD, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found some
Wild Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own
for the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not
take the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to keep them
in the fold. He gave his own goats just sufficient food to keep them alive,
but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of enticing them to
stay with him and of making them his own. When the thaw set in, he led
them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as they
could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them for their ingratitude
in leaving him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than
of his own herd. One of them, turning about, said to him: 'That is the
very reason why we are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better
than the Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came
after us, you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves.'
Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones.
George Fyler Townsend's translation of the fables, first published in 1867, is
in the public domain and can be found at many websites, including Project
Gutenberg.
Illustrations come from: Aesop's Fables, by George Fyler Townsend, with
illustrations by Harrison Weir, 1867, at Google
Books. |