Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CCX
Fab. CCX.
A Lyon and a Goat.
A Lyon spy’d a Goat upon the Crag of a High Rock, and so call'd out to him after this Manner: Hadst not thou better come Down now, says the Lyon, into This Delicate Fine Meadow? Well, says the Goat, and so perhaps I would, if it were not for the Lyon that's there Before me: But I'm for a Life of Safety, rather then for a Life of Pleasure. Your Pretence is the Filling of My Belly with Good Grass; but your Bus'ness is the Cramming of your Own Guts with Good Goats-Flesh: So that ‘tis for your Own Sake, not Mine, that you'd have me come down.
The MORAL.
REFLEXION.
HE that Advises Another to his Own Advantage, may be very Reasonably Suspected to give Councel for his Own Ends. It may so fall Out, 'tis True, as to be Profitable for Both: But all Circumstances would be Well Examin'd in such a Case before we Trust. This is the Song of your Men of Prey, as well as of your Beasts of Prey, when they Set up for the Good of the Goats and the Common People. How many Fine Things have we had told us in the Memory of Man, upon the Subject of our Liberties, Properties, and Religion, and the Delivering of us from the Fears and Jealousies of Idolatry, and Arbitrary Power! And what was the Fruit of All This in the End, but Vision and Romance on the Promising Hand, and an Exchange of Imaginary Chains, for Real Locks and Bolts, on the Other: But Æsop's Beasts saw further into a Mill-stone then our Mobile: And that the Lyon's Invitation of the Goat from the Rocks into the Fool's Paradise of a Delicate Sweet Meadow, signify'd no more in Plain English, then Come down that I may Eat ye.