The Cock and the Jewel / The Cock and the Pearl
The Cock and the Jewel (Alfred Caldecott's Version)
A Barn-door Cock while scratching up his dunghill came upon a Jewel. "Oh, why," said he, "should I find this glistening thing? If some jeweller had found it he would have been beside himself with joy at the thought of its value; but to me it is of no manner of use, nor do I care one jot about it; why, I would rather have one grain of barley than all the jewels in the world."
(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 Cock and the Pearl (Joseph Jacobs's Version)
A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shinning amid the straw. “Ho! ho!” quoth he, “that’s for me,” and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. “What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? “You may be a treasure,” quoth Master Cock, “to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.”
Precious things are for those that can prize them.
(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 Cock and the Jewel (George Fyler Townsend's Version)
A Cock, scratching for food for himself and his hens, found a precious stone and exclaimed: “If your owner had found thee, and not I, he would have taken thee up, and have set thee in thy first estate; but I have found thee for no purpose. I would rather have one barleycorn than all the jewels in the world.”
(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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