cheese, if they can eat the points of your
ploughshares?" But the master and all the others began to cry out: "Be
silent, you fool! Be silent, you fool! the master is right!"[4]

* * * * *

The above story really belongs to the class of fables of which there are
but few of Oriental origin in the Italian collections.[5] The following
version of one of the most famous of the Eastern apologues is from
Monferrato (Comparetti, No. 67). It is called:

XXXVIII. THE INGRATES.

There was once a man who went into the forest to gather wood, and saw a
snake crushed under a large stone. He raised the stone a little with the
handle of his axe and the snake crawled out. When it was at liberty it
said to the man: "I am going to eat you." The man answered: "Softly;
first let us hear the judgment of some one, and if I am condemned, then
you shall eat me." The first one they met was a horse as thin as a
stick, tied to an oak-tree. He had eaten the leaves as far as he could
reach, for he was famished. The snake said to him: "Is it right for me
to eat this man who has saved my life?" The nag answered: "More than
right. Just look at me! I was one of the finest horses. I have carried
my master so many years, and what have I gained? Now that I am so badly
off that I can no longer work they have tied me to this oak, and after I
have eaten these few leaves I shall die of hunger. Eat the man, then;
for he who does good is ill rewarded, and he who does evil must be well
rewarded. Eat him, for you will be doing a good day's work." They
afterwards happened to find a mulberry-tree, all holes, for it was eaten
by old age; and the snake asked it if it was right to eat the man who
had saved its life. "Yes," the tree answered at once, "for I have given
my master so many leaves that he has raised from them the finest
silk-worms in the world; now that I can no longer stand upright, he has
said that he is going to throw me into the fire. Eat him, then, for you
will do well." Afterwards they met the fox. The man took her aside and
begged her to pronounce in his favor. The fox said: "The better to
render judgment I must see just how the matter has happened." They all
returned to the spot and arranged matters as they were at first; but as
soon as the man saw the snake under the stone he cried out: "Where you
are, there I will leave you." And there the snake remained. The fox
wished in payment a bag of hens, and the man promi