Fable of the Fox and the Pitcher Lore Books

Description

How the vixen found a pitcher and how resentment and anger led her to her death.

Text

The Fox and the Pitcher
A wise fable

Once a fox was searching around,
For any food that could be found.
To an empty farmhouse she did roam,
Wherein a beetle had made his home.
She asked him, “Beetle, kindly tell me
whose abandoned farmyard can this be?”
To which the beetle did confess,
“That I cannot even guess.
I came here just a while ago
Little I’ve seen, and less I know

The fox began to look around,
To find anything she could hunt down;
She sniffed around a bit and then
To an iron stove she went;
And as she turned and looked above
She spied a pitcher on the stove.
“Good day, jug!” she greeted it
“I trust, sir, that you’re well and fit?”
No reply came from the pitcher,
So the fox picked it up and took it with her.
She carried it outside panting hard
Where she met the beetle in the yard.
“Fox, what are you carrying?” asked he,
“You can barely walk, I see.”

“It’s a pitcher that I found,” she answered,
Which will surely please my master.
At the top of a hill the jug weighed her down,
So she dropped it on the ground.
She said, “Good sir, now if you will,
I’d like you to roll down the hill.
Don’t take it ill, dear man of clay,
But you’re too heavy to carry all day.”

Down the hill the pitcher charged,
The fox ran after, panting hard:
“Pitcher, must you run so fast?
My heart will burst inside my chest!
The jug reached the bottom and came to a halt.
No more could he roll; it wasn’t his fault.
“Come now, sir!” the fox did scold,
Only halfway have you rolled!

It seems you don’t want to go with me,
Well, like it or not, you will, you’ll see!
Jug, you’ll stick with me forever;
From now on we will not be severed!“
So saying, she tied it to her tail:
“Now, pitcher, come with me you shall!
In your own juice you soon will stew,
You’ll drown in sorrow, I promise you!”
The devious fox ran with a yell
And dragged the pitcher to a well.

She’d teach that jug a lesson cruel;
Instead, she made herself the fool!
“Pitcher, for your sins you’ll pray,
No more you’ll wickedly delay!”
And then forgetting in her pride
That the pitcher to her tail was tied,
The vixen scrambled up on the ledge,
And dropped the pitcher over the edge.
“If you still refuse to pray,”
She said, “You’ll drown this very day!”

But the jug floated safe on the water,
At which the fox angrily uttered:
“Pitcher, you’ll learn soon enough,
I’ll stop your wicked bluff!
But I’ll forgive you nevertheless,
If you’ll admit your wickedness.”
But the pitcher he had nought to say,
For no tongue had that man of clay.
This made the vixen angrier still
At the pitcher floating in the well:
“I’ll humour you not one more whit,
You’ve made your bed, now lie in it!”
And at that she pushed the jug below;
The water into it did flow
And started to drag the vixen down.
She pulled away in fear she’d drown.
“Come now, jug,” she said, “Good sir,
Stop this game, I do implore!”

But the water poured inside the jug,
And slowly down the well it sunk.
As she saw the surface draw near,
The fox began to cry in fear:
“Oh woe, what will become of me?!
Oh, jug, forgive me please, kind sir,
And in return I’ll give my word
That I’ll not harm you anymore,
If you’ll let me live, a sinner poor!”

These words she said with her last breath,
And down she sank into the depths.
Till the pitcher sat on the bottom at last,
To the fox’s tail tied good and fast.
With no chance to get out, thus bound,
That was how the vixen drowned.
Thus ends the tale of the fox so sly,
Who for her slyness had to die,
Outsmarted by an earthen jug,
It was her own grave that she dug.