up at the stars, falls backward into a pond. The Neo-Latin poet Gabriele Faerno also included the story of the stumbling astrologer in his collection Centum Fabulae (1554), but concluded with the more philosophical point, 'How can you understand the world without knowing yourself first?' As with several others, it was from this source that Jean de la Fontaine included the plot among his Fables (II.13). His poem is remarkable in confining the story to a mere four-line allusion before launching into a 45-line denunciation of astrology (with a side-swipe at alchemy too). But the battle against superstition had been won by the time that Charles Denis included a mere digest of La Fontaine's poem in his Select Fables (1754). His conclusion is that speculation about the future is idle; how many folk, he asks, Samuel Croxall is even more curt in his Fables of Aesop (1732). The moral of the tale, he concludes, is "mind your own business". References External links Aesop's Fables La Fontaine's Fables Emblem books Cases of people who fell into a well in fiction