Aesop's Fables: Caxton (1484)
4.4. Of Iuno the goddesse and of the pecok and of the nyghtyngale
(Perry 509)
Every one oughte to be content of kynde / and of suche good as god hath
sente vnto hym / wherof he must vse Iustly / As reherceth this fable of
a pecok whiche came to Iuno the goddesse / and sayd to her I am heuy and
sorowful / by cause I can not synge as wel as the nyghtyngale For euery
one mocketh and scorneth me / by cause I can not synge / And Iuno wold
comforte hym and sayd / thy fayre forme and beaute is fayrer and more
worthy and of gretter preysynge than the songe of the nyghtyngale / For
thy fethers and thy colour ben resplendysshyng as the precoius Emerawd
And ther is no byrde lyke to thy fethers ne to thy beaulte / And the pecok
sayd thenne to Iuno / All this is nought / syth I cannot synge / And thenne
Iuno sayd ageyne thus to the pecok for to contente hym / This is in the
diposycion of the goddes / whiche haue gyuen to eyther of yow one propyrte
/ and one vertue / suche as it pleasyd them / As to the they haue gyuen
fayr fygure / to the egle haue they gyuen strengthe / and to the nyghtyngale
fayr & playsaunt songe / And so to all other byrdes / wherfore euery one
must be content of that that he hath
For the myserable auarycious / the more goodes that they haue the more
they desyre to haue
 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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