Aesop's Fables: Townsend (1867)
62. The Man and His Two Sweethearts (Perry
31)
A MIDDLE-AGED MAN, whose hair had begun to turn gray, courted two women
at the same time. One of them was young, and the other well advanced in
years. The elder woman, ashamed to be courted by a man younger than herself,
made a point, whenever her admirer visited her, to pull out some portion
of his black hairs. The younger, on the contrary, not wishing to become
the wife of an old man, was equally zealous in removing every gray hair
she could find. Thus it came to pass that between them both he very soon
found that he had not a hair left on his head.
Those who seek to please everybody please nobody.
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. |