Aesop's Fables: Caxton (1484)
2.9. Of the wulf and of the kydde
(Perry 572)
Good children ought to obserue and kepe euer the commaundements of theyr
good parentes and frendes / wherof Esope reciteth to vs suche a fable
/ Of a gote whiche had made her yonge kydde / and honger toke her soo
that she wold haue gone to the feldes for to ete some grasse / wherfore
she sayd to her kyd / My child / beware wel / that yf the wulf come hyder
to ete the / that thow opene not the dore to hym / And whanne the gote
was gone to the feldes / came the wulf to the dore / And faynynge the
gotes voyce sayd to the kydde / My child opene to me the dore / And thenne
the kydde ansuerd to hym / goo hens euylle and fals beste / For well I
see the thurgh that hole / but for to haue me thow faynest the voyce of
my moder / And therfore I shalle kepe me well fro openynge of ony dore
of this hows /
And thus the good children ought euer to kepe wel / and put in theyr
hert & memory the doctryne and the techyng of theyr parentes / For many
one is vndone and lost for faulte of obedyence
 Caxton
published his edition of Aesop's fables in 1484. There are modern reprints by
Joseph Jacobs (D. Nutt: London, 1889) and more recently by Robert Lenaghan (Harvard
University Press: Cambridge, 1967). Lenaghan's edition is available at amazon.com.
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