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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

143. THE KITE AND THE SNAKE
Perry 128 (Chambry 135 *)

A kite seized a snake and flew up high in the sky carrying the snake along with him. The snake then twisted around and struck the kite, so that they both fell down to the ground. As the kite was about to die from the force of the impact, the snake remarked, 'You have no right to get angry, you scoundrel, since you plotted destruction for someone who had done you no wrong! You deserve to suffer, and this is a fitting punishment for what you planned to do.'

Note: For a very similar fable but with a different moral interpretation, see Fable 460.

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.