Fable XXIII.
The Bear and the Bees.
It were more prudent to acquiesce under an injury from a single person, than by an act of vengeance to bring upon us the resentment of a whole community.
A Bear happened to be stung by a Bee, and the pain was so acute, that in the madness of revenge he ran into the garden and overturned the hive. This outrage provoked their anger to a high degree, and brought the fury of the whole swarm upon him. They attacked him with such violence, that his life was in danger, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he made his escape, wounded from head to tail. In this desperate condition, lamenting his misfortunes, and licking his sores, he could not forbear reflecting how much more advisable it had been to have patiently acquiesced under one injury, than thus by an unprofitable resentment to have provoked a thousand.
Fable XXIV.
The Oak and the Willow.
The courage of meeting death in an honourable cause is more commendable, than any address or artifice we can make use of to evade it.
A conceited Willow had once the vanity to challenge his mighty neighbour the Oak to a trial of strength. It was to be determined by the next storm; and Æolus was addressed by both parties to exert his most powerful efforts. This was no sooner asked than granted; and a violent hurricane arose, when the pliant Willow, bending from the blast, or shrinking under her, evaded all its force, while the generous Oak, disdaining to give way, opposed its fury, and was torn up by the roots. Immediately the Willow began to exult, and to claim the victory, when thus the fallen Oak interrupted his exultation: Callest thou this a trial of strength? Poor wretch! not to thy strength, but weakness; not to thy boldly facing danger, but meanly skulking from it, thou owest thy present safety. I am an Oak, though fallen; thou still a Willow, though unhurt: but who, except so mean a wretch as thyself, would prefer an ignominious life, preserved by craft or cowardice, to the glory of meeting death in an honourable cause?