Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CLIV

by Roger L'Estrange

Fab. CLIV.

A Snake and a Crab.

THere was a Familiarity Contracted betwixt a Snake and a Crab. The Crab was a Plain Dealing Creature that Advis’d his Companion to give over Shuffling and Doubling, and to Pratice Good Faith. The Snake went on in his Old Way: So that the Crab finding that he would not Mend his Manners, set upon him in his Sleep, and Strangled him; and then looking upon him as he lay Dead at his Length: This had never befall'n ye says he, if You had but Liv'd as Straight as You Dy’d.

The Moral.

There’s Nothing more Agreeable in Conversation, then a Franke Open way of Dealing, and a Simplicity of Manners.

REFLEXION.

Good Councell is lost upon a Habitual Hardness of Ill Nature: And in That Case it must be a Diamond that Cutts a Diamond; for One Fraud is best Undermin'd and Disppointed by Another. This Fable is a Figure upon a Figure, in Opposing the Straitness of the Body of the Snake after he was Dead, to the Crookedness of his Manuers when he was Living. But the License of Mythology will bear out the Hardness of the Allusion.