L'Estrange: A Nightingale and a Bat

As a Nightingale was Singing in a Cage at a Window, up comes a Bat to her, and Asks her why she did not Sing in the Day, as well as in the Night. Why (says the Nightingale) I was catch'd Singing in the Day, and so I took it for a Warning: You should have thought of this then, says T'other, before you was Taken; for as the Case stands now, Y'are in no Danger to be Snapt Singing again.

A Wrong Reason for the Doing of a Thing, is worse than no Reason at all.

Source: L'Estrange162.

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Click here for a SLIDESHOW of all the Medici Aesop images. On the left you see the first part of the story, where the nightingale is caught; then on the right, you can see the bat and the bird (I sure wish there were some higher-resolution images of the Medici Aesop online!).

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