This apologue may serve to show:
A Stag upon a fountain's side,
Beheld his branching horns with pride;
While of his spindle-shanks asham'd,
Their disproportion'd form he blam'd.
Sudden he hears the hunter's cries,
And to the forest nimbly flies.
The woods receive their well-known guest;
His tangled horns his feet arrest;
The hounds approach, and seize their prey;
Who, dying, thus was heard to say:
"Wretch that I am! too late I learn,
How little we the truth discern!
What would have sav'd me I despis'd,
And what has been my ruin, priz'd!"
Source: Boothby - Phaedrus 1.12.
Click here for a SLIDESHOW of all the colored Steinhowel images. If you look closely, you can see the pool of water where the stag had been admiring its reflection earlier.
M0161 Perry074
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