Читать книгу Bewick's Select Fables of Æsop and others - Aesop - Страница 13

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Curiosity often excites those people to hazardous undertakings, whom vanity and indiscretion render totally unfit for them.

Vanity and idle curiosity are qualities which generally prove destructive to those who suffer themselves to be governed by them.

A Tortoise, weary of passing her days in the same obscure corner, conceived a wonderful inclination to visit foreign countries. Two Crows, whom the simple Tortoise acquainted with her intention, undertook to oblige her upon the occasion. Accordingly, they told her, that if she would fasten her mouth to the middle of a pole, they would take the two ends, and transport her whithersoever she chose to be conveyed. The Tortoise approved of the expedient; and everything being prepared, the Crows began their flight with her. They had not travelled long in the air, when they were met by a Magpie, who inquiring what they were bearing along, they replied the queen of the Tortoises. The Tortoise, vain of the new and unmerited appellation, was going to confirm the title, when, opening her mouth for that purpose, she let go her hold, and was dashed to pieces by her fall.