Читать книгу Bewick's Select Fables of Æsop and others - Aesop - Страница 25

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There would be little chance of detecting hypocrisy, were it not always addicted to over-act its part.

Designing hypocrites frequently lay themselves open to discovery by over-acting their parts.

A Wolf, who by frequent visits to a flock of sheep in his neighbourhood, began to be extremely well known to them, thought it expedient, for the more successfully carrying on his depredations, to appear in a new character. To this end he disguised himself in a shepherd’s habit; and resting his fore-feet upon a stick, which served him by way of crook, he softly made his approaches towards the fold. It happened that the shepherd and his dog were both of them extended on the grass fast asleep; so that he would certainly have succeeded in his project, if he had not imprudently attempted to imitate the shepherd’s voice. The horrid noise awakened them both: when the Wolf, encumbered with his disguise, and finding it impossible either to resist or to flee, yielded up his life an easy prey to the shepherd’s dog.