Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives - Harriott Ely Fansler - Страница 55

The Fox and the Crab lived together like brothers; together they sowed their land, reaped the harvest, thrashed the grain and garnered it.

The Fox said one day: "Let us go to the hill-top, and whoever reaches it first shall carry off the grain for his own."

While they were (starting) to mount the steep, the Crab said:

"Do me a favor; before we set off running, touch me with your tail, so that I shall know it and be able to follow you."

The Crab opened his claws, and when the Fox touched him with his tail, he leaped forward and seized it, so that when the Fox reached the goal and turned around to see where the Crab was, the Crab fell upon the heap of grain and said: "These three bushels and a half are all mine." The Fox was thunderstruck and exclaimed:

"How did you get here, you rascal?"

This fable shows that deceitful men devise many methods and actions for getting things their own way, but that they are often defeated by the feeble.

—Turkish Fable. Translated by Epiphanius Wilson.