An Eagle was once captured by a man, who immediately clipped his wings and put him into his poultry-yard with the other birds, at which treatment the Eagle was weighed down with grief. Later, another neighbor purchased him and allowed his feathers to grow again. The Eagle took flight, and pouncing upon a hare, brought it at once as an offering to his benefactor. A Fox, seeing this, exclaimed, “Do not cultivate the favor of this man, but of your former owner, lest he should again hunt for you and deprive you a second time of your wings.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around the 6th century BCE, whose fables have shaped moral literature across the world for over two millennia. "The Eagle and His Captor" reflects Aesop's recurring theme of caution in the face of apparent kindness — a fox's shrewd voice delivering the tale's pointed moral. Though Aesop himself may be partly legendary, the sharp wisdom in his fables has endured through countless translations and retellings.
