Aesop's Fables (Joseph Jacobs)
Jacobs 3. The Dog and the Shadow (Perry
133)
It happened that a Dog had got a piece of meat and was carrying it home
in his mouth to eat it in peace. Now on his way home he had to cross a
plank lying across a running brook. As he crossed, he looked down and
saw his own shadow reflected in the water beneath. Thinking it was another
dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that also.
So he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth
the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water and was never seen
more.
Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
The
Fables of Aesop, by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by
Richard Heighway (1894). The page images come from Google
Books. The digitized text comes from Project
Gutenberg. You can purchase this inexpensive Dover edition, The
Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs from amazon.com.
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