The Stag Looking Into The Water / The Stag at the Pool / The Hart and the Hunter
The Stag Looking Into The Water (Alfred Caldecott's Version)
A Stag parched with thirst came to a spring of water. As he was drinking he saw his own reflection on the water, and was in raptures with his horns when he observed their splendid size and shape, but was troubled about his legs, they seemed so thin and weak. As he was still musing, some huntsmen with a pack of hounds appeared and disturbed him, whereupon the Stag took to flight, and keeping a good distance ahead so long as the plain was free from trees, he was being saved; but when he came to a woody place he got his horns entangled in the branches, and being unable to move was seized by the hounds. When he was at the point of death he said to himself: "What a fool am I, who was on the way to be saved by the very things which I thought would fail me; while by those in which I so much trusted I am brought to ruin."
(From the book Some of Æsop's Fables with Modern Instances Shewn in Designs by Randolph Caldecott, from New Translations by Alfred Caldecott, M.A., with the Engravings by J. D. Cooper — Public Domain)
The Hart and the Hunter (Joseph Jacobs's Version)
The Hart was once drinking from a pool and admiring the noble figure he made there. “Ah,” said he, “where can you see such noble horns as these, with such antlers! I wish I had legs more worthy to bear such a noble crown; it is a pity they are so slim and slight.” At that moment a Hunter approached and sent an arrow whistling after him. Away bounded the Hart, and soon, by the aid of his nimble legs, was nearly out of sight of the Hunter; but not noticing where he was going, he passed under some trees with branches growing low down in which his antlers were caught, so that the Hunter had time to come up. “Alas! alas!” cried the Hart:
“We often despise what is most useful to us.”
(From the book The Fables of Aesop: Selected, Told Anew, and Their History Traced by Joseph Jacobs, done into pictures by Richard Heighway — Public Domain)
The Stag at the Pool (George Fyler Townsend's Version)
A Stag overpowered by heat came to a spring to drink. Seeing his own shadow reflected in the water, he greatly admired the size and variety of his horns, but felt angry with himself for having such slender and weak feet. While he was thus contemplating himself, a Lion appeared at the pool and crouched to spring upon him. The Stag immediately took to flight, and exerting his utmost speed, as long as the plain was smooth and open kept himself easily at a safe distance from the Lion. But entering a wood he became entangled by his horns, and the Lion quickly came up to him and caught him. When too late, he thus reproached himself: “Woe is me! How I have deceived myself! These feet which would have saved me I despised, and I gloried in these antlers which have proved my destruction.”
What is most truly valuable is often underrated.
(From the book Three Hundred Æsop’s Fables Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. — Public Domain)
Title Here (V. S. Vernon Jones's Version)
(From the book Aesop's Fables: A New Translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, with an introduction by G. K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham — Public Domain)
Title Here (Milo Winter's Version)
(From the book The Æsop for Children, with pictures by Milo Winter — Public Domain)
Title Here (J. H. Stickney's Version)
(From the book Æsop’s Fables: A Version for Young Readers by J. H. Stickney, illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull — Public Domain)
Title Here (Samuel Croxall's Version)
(From the book Æsop's Fables, Embellished with One Hundred and Eleven Emblematical Devices. Translator: Samuel Croxall — Public Domain)
Title Here (Thomas Bewick's Version)
(From the book The Fables of Æsop, and Others, with designs on wood by Thomas Bewick — Public Domain)
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