Not so, though all the world the lie repeat!
But that chap there, who sleeps hard by us,
Whom you and all the world call pious,
He was, for sure, a scoundrel and a cheat!”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a celebrated German dramatist and critic. His collected works fill many volumes.
We quote a few of his Fables and Epigrams.
THE RAVEN
The raven remarked that the eagle sat thirty days upon her eggs. “That, undoubtedly,” said she, “is the reason why the young of the eagle are so all-seeing and strong. Good! I will do the same.”
And, since then, the raven actually sits thirty days upon her eggs; but, as yet, she has hatched nothing but miserable ravens.—Fables.