title: Aesop's Fables
author:  Aesop 
description: SOMETIME between the years 620 and 560 B.C. there came to the court of Croesus, last of the kings of Lydia ib Asiainor, a freedman known ass Aesop.
  While still a slave of Landmon on the island of Samos he had gained some local fame for himself and considerale prestige for his master as narrator of tales about animals...
zlib_text: Aesop's Fables
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  Aesop's Fables
  
  Aesop's Fables
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  The Cock and the Pearl
   A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens
  when suddenly he espied something shinning amid the straw. "Ho! ho!"
  quoth he, "that's for me," and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw.
  What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in
  the yard?  "You may be a treasure," quoth Master Cock, "to men that
  prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck
  of pearls."
  Precious things are for those that can prize them.
  
  Aesop's Fables
  3
  The Wolf and the Lamb
   Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when,
  looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little
  lower down.  "There's my supper," thought he, "if only I can find some
  excuse to seize it."  Then he called out to the Lamb, "How dare you
  muddle the water from which I am drinking?"
  "Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin; "if the water be muddy up there,