XX REYNARD THE FOX 163

the altar and do him worship; but believe it,
there is no one good thing in him; and how-
ever you imagine, yet search him and you
shall find him rotten and deformed. There
is neither kinsman nor friend but yourself that
will assist him, and therefore your violence
draws my greater wonder. What companion
hath he that ever thrived by his society, or
whom hath he smiled on, that his tail hath not
after dashed out the eye of ?’

To this the she ape replied: ‘My Lord, I
love him, and have ever borne him a singular
reverence, and I can well recount one noble
and good action he did in your presence, for
which then you thanked him, though it be now
forgotten; yet the heaviest thing should ever
weigh the most, and men should keep a
measure in their affections, and not hate nor
love with violence, since constancy is the
greatest ornament of a princely nature. We
should not praise the day till the evening come,
nor is good counsel available but to those
which mean to pursue it.

‘I remember about some two years since
there came to this court a man and a serpent,
to have judgment in a doubtful controversy ;
for the serpent attempting to go through a