The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical: A Cabinet for the Curious

by Frank H. Stauffer

Adding Insult to Injury.

This expression has reached us from a fable by Phædrus, a Roman author who lived in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and whose writings were first discovered to modern literature in 1596, at Rheims, in France. The fable is called "The Bald Man and the Fly," and reads as follows:—

"A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who, endeavoring to crush it, gave himself a heavy blow. Then said the fly, jeeringly, 'You wanted to avenge the sting of a tiny insect with death. What will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?'"