Could find nothing but a file to endanger.
Kindly, with anything but an injured air,
The file said, "Poor worm, aren't you courting despair?
A great fool, little snake, although small.
By the time my filings could yield
The fourth of an obol in all,
You would break your two teeth in.
Only Time's tooth wears me thin."
Now this is meant for you, vapid second-rate minds,
Good-for-nothings who try to harm worth of all kinds.
Your gnashed teeth imply nothing profound.
Do you think that you could leave a tooth-mark
On any master-work?
Bite steel or burnished brass or dent the diamond?
THE FARMER AND THE ADDER (Book Six, XIII)
Aesop tells how a countryman
As imprudent as he was benevolent–
With an estate he'd gone out to scan
One winter day-observed as he went,
A snake on the snow
in
a plight that was serious,
Mummied from head to tail till no longer venomous.
He dared not delay; it would die if left there;
So the man picked it up, took it home, gave it care,
And failed to foresee the result of an action
In which compassion had been complete;
He stirred circulation by friction
And laid the maimed form near heat,
Which no sooner had tempered its torpid blood
Than animus stirred and grew livelier.
The adder hissed, raised its head as best it could,
Coiled, and made a long lunge toward where the farmer stood–
Its foster father who had been its rescuer.
The farmer said: "Ingrate! You'd be my murderer?
