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

156. THE FOX AND THE STORK
Perry 426 (Phaedrus 1.26)

Do no harm - if someone does get hurt, then turn-about is fair play, as this fable cautions.
The fox is said to have started it by inviting the stork to dinner and serving a liquid broth on a marble slab which the hungry stork could not so much as taste. The stork, in turn, invited the fox to dinner and served a narrow-mouthed jug filled with crumbled food. The stork was able to thrust her beak inside and eat as much as she wanted, while her guest was tormented with hunger. As the fox was licking the neck of the jug in vain, the stork is supposed to have said, 'When others follow your example, you have to grin and bear it.'

Note: Caxton (2.13) supplies the English proverb 'with the staf which he had made he was bete.' The story of the fox and the stork is also found in Plutarch, Symposiastic Questions 1.1.


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.