Krilof and His Fables/The Falcon and the Caterpillar
The Falcon and the Caterpillar.
A Caterpillar was swinging to and fro on a twig to which it had attached itself on the top of a tree. A Falcon floating in the air above it thus mocked and flouted it from on high:
"What toils, poor thing, must thou not have endured! And what profits it that thou hast climbed so high? What freedom hast thou, and what kind of independence? Thou must always bend with the twig whichever way the wind orders."
"It is easy for thee to scoff," answers the Caterpillar. "Thou flyest high because thou art stoutly built and strong in the wings. But it is not such merits as those that Fate has given me. Here on this height I hold my own simply because I am, fortunately, tenacious."
