A Boy was given permission to put his hand into a pitcher to get some filberts. But he took such a great fistful that he could not draw his hand out again. There he stood, unwilling to give up a single filbert and yet unable to get them all out at once. Vexed and disappointed he began to cry.
“My boy,” said his mother, “be satisfied with half the nuts you have taken and you will easily get your hand out. Then perhaps you may have some more filberts some other time.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around 620–564 BCE, whose fables have been retold across cultures for over two thousand years. "The Boy And The Filberts" is one of his briefest moral tales, using a single stuck hand to illustrate the folly of greed — a technique Aesop mastered: reducing a universal human failing to one vivid, everyday moment.
