you promised me." The Kite, soaring aloft into the air, brought back the shabbiest possible mouse, foul-smelling from the length of time it had lain about the fields. "Is this," said the Eagle, "the faithful fulfilment of your promise to me?" The Kite replied, "That I might attain to your royal hand, there is nothing that I would not have promised, however much I knew that I must fail in the performance."
(Phædrus, Fables, Appendix I, No. 34.)
THE SWALLOW AND THE OTHER BIRDS
ONCE when the Birds had all gathered together in a certain spot, they saw a man sowing his field with flax. When the Swallow saw that the other Birds paid no attention to this, she called them all to her and gave them this advice:
"A great danger threatens us if we let this seed grow and ripen!" The other Birds all laughed at her. When the flax had begun to sprout, the Swallow again warned them: "Destruction is approaching," she cried. "Fall to work and uproot these fatal seeds; for if we let them grow, nets will be made from the flax, and we shall fall victims to man's cleverness!" But the other Birds still laughed at the Swallow's words, and foolishly spurned her wise counsels. Soon afterwards the cautious Swallow went and made her home among men, building her nest in safety among the rafters of a barn. But the other Birds, who had scorned her sage advice, were caught and perished in the nets woven from the flax.
The foolish turn a deaf ear to wise counsel.
(Phædrus, Fables, Appendix II, No. 12.)
