The Fox and the Bramble
A fox tries to save herself from a fall, but finds she would have been better off taking the tumble.
A fox tries to save herself from a fall, but finds she would have been better off taking the tumble.
A VIXEN* who was clambering over a fence found herself slipping, so to avoid a fall she reached out and grabbed at a nearby bush. But the bush was a bramble, and it cut her paws and made them bleed.
So the vixen cried out, ‘I turned to you for help, and you’ve made everything worse!’ But the bramble snapped back, ‘Well really, what did you expect? You grab onto me, who habitually grabs onto everything.’
This myth goes to show something true of people too, that it is useless to run for help to those who are by nature unkind.
A vixen is a female fox. The Greek text of the fable uses the feminine throughout.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did the fox grab at the bush?