Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CCLXXIII
Fab. CCLXXIII.
The Fishes and the Frying-pan.
A Cook was Frying a Dish of Live Fish, and so soon as ever they felt the Heat of the Pan. There's no Enduring of This, cry’d one, and so they all Leapt into the Fire; and instead of Mending the Matter, they were Worse now then Before.
The MORAL.
The Remedy is many times Worse then the Disease.
REFLEXION.
LET a Man's Present State be never so Uneasy, he should do well however to Bethink himself before he Changes, for fear his Next Remove should be Worse. Thus is according to the Common Understanding of the Allusion, though not so Agreeable perhaps to the True Reason of the Case: For it was not either Levity, or Impatience; but intolerable Pain, and Absolute Necessity, that made the Fish shift their Condition: So that the Moral would have born This Doctrine rather: That where we have Certain Death before us, and only This Choice, whether it shall be a Speedy or a Lingring Death, That which puts us soonest out of our Pain (though never so Sharp) is the more Eligible of the Two. But to take it according to the Old Proverb now; we Understand by [Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire] That things go from Bad to Worse.