Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916.
Vol. I. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century
The Daw and Borrowed Plumes
Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704)
From Æsop’s Fables translated
A
DAW that had a mind to be sparkish, tricked himself up with all the gay feathers he could muster together: and upon the credit of these stolen, or borrowed ornaments, he valued himself above all the birds in the air beside. The pride of this vanity got him the envy of all his companions, who upon a discovery of the truth of the case, fell to pluming of him by consent; and when every bird had taken his own feather, the silly daw had nothing left him to cover his nakedness.
THE MORAL
We steal from one another all manner of ways, and to all manner of purposes; wit, as well as feathers; but where pride and beggary meet, people are sure to be made ridiculous in the conclusion.
