Fable XLIX The Fox and the Grapes
A Fox, very hungry, chanced to come into a Vineyard, where there hung many bunches of charming ripe grapes; but nailed up to a trellis so high, that he leaped till he quite tired himself without being able to reach one of them. At last, Let who will take them! says he; they are but green and sour; so I’ll even let them alone.
Morals
When a man finds it impossible to obtain the things he longs for, it is a mark of sound wisdom and discretion to make a virtue of necessity.
Old maids who loathe the matrimonial state,
Poor rogues who laugh to scorn the rich and great,
Patriots who rail at placemen and at pow’r,
All, like sly Reynard, say “The Grapes are sour.”
Reflection
This Fable is a good reprimand to a parcel of vain coxcombs in the world, who, because they would never be thought to be disappointed in any of their pursuits, pretend a dislike to everything which they cannot obtain. There is a strange propensity in mankind to this temper, and there are numbers of grumbling malcontents in every different faculty and sect in life. The discarded statesman, considering the corruption of the times, would not have any hand in the administration of affairs for all the world. The country squire damns a court life, and would not go cringing and creeping to a drawing-room for the best place the King has in his disposal. A young fellow, being asked how he liked a celebrated beauty, by whom all the world knew he was despised, answered, She had a stinking breath. How insufferable is the pride of this poor creature man! who would stoop to the basest, vilest actions, rather than be thought not able to do anything. For what is more base and vile than lying? And when do we lie more notoriously, than when we disparage and find fault with a thing for no other reason but because it is out of our power.