Fable XXXIX The Satyr and the Traveller
A Satyr, as he was ranging the Forest in an exceeding cold, snowy season, met with a Traveller half-starved with the extremity of the weather. He took compassion on him, and kindly invited him home, to a warm comfortable cave he had in the hollow of a rock. As soon as they had entered and sat down, notwithstanding there was a good fire in the place, the chilly Traveller could not forbear blowing his finger ends. Upon the Satyr’s asking him why he did so, he answered: That he did it to warm his hands. The honest silvan having seen little of the world, admired a man who was master of so valuable a quality as that of blowing heat, and therefore was resolved to entertain him in the best manner he could. He spread the table before him with dried fruits of several sorts; and produced a remnant of old cordial wine, which, as the rigour of the season made very proper, he mulled with some warm spices, infused over the fire, and presented to his shivering guest. But this the Traveller thought fit to blow likewise; and upon the Satyr’s demanding a reason why he blowed again, he replied: To cool his dish. This second answer provoked the Satyr’s indignation, as much as the first had kindled his surprise. So, taking the man by the shoulder, he thrust him out of doors, saying: He would have nothing to do with a wretch who had so vile a quality as to blow hot and cold with the same mouth.
Morals
There is no conversing with any man that carries two faces under one hood.
With such an inmate who would be perplext,
One hour all coldness, and all heat the next!
Who would his fev’rish shiv’ring fits endure?
That ague of the heart, no drug can cure.
Reflection
Though the poor Traveller in the Fable was not guilty of any real crime in what he did, yet one cannot help approving the honest simplicity of the Satyr, who could not be reconciled to such double dealing. In the moral sense of the Fable, nothing can be more offensive to one of a sincere heart, than he that blows with a different breath from the same mouth; who flatters a man to his face, and reviles him behind his back. Some again, just like this man, to serve a present view, will blow nothing but what is warm, benevolent, and cherishing; and when they have raised the expectations of a dependant to a degree which they think may prove troublesome, can, with putting on a cold air, easily chill and blast all his blooming hopes. But such a temper, whether it proceeds from a designed or natural levity, is detestable, and has been the cause of much trouble and mortification to many a brave deserving man. Unless the tenor of a man’s life be always true and consistent with itself, the less one has to do with him the better.