THE LIFE OF AESOP
Translated by Sir Roger L'Estrange
CHAPTER VI
AEsop's Answer to the Gardiner
SOME two or three days after the Encounter above-mention'd,
Xanthus took AEsop along with him to a Garden to buy some
Herbs, and the Gardiner seeing him in the Habit of a Philosopher,
told him the Admiration he was in to find how much faster those
Plants shot up that grow of their own accord, than those that he
set himself, though he took never so much care about them. Now
you that are a Philosopher, pray will you tell me the Meaning of
this? Xanthus had no better Answer at hand, than to tell him,
That Providence will have it so: Whereupon AEsop brake out into
a loud Laughter. Why how now ye Slave you, says Xanthus, what
do you laugh at? AEsop took him aside and told him, Sir, I laugh
at your Master, that taught you no better; for what signifies a
general Answer to a particular Question? And 'tis no News neither
that Providence orders all things; but if you'll turn him over to
me, you shall see I'll give him another sort of Resolve. Xanthus
told the Gardiner that it was below a Philosopher to busy his Head
about such Trifles; but, says he, If you have a Curiosity to be
better inform'd, you shall do well to ask my Slave here, and see
what he'll say to you. Upon this the Gardiner put the Question
to AEsop, who gave him this Answer. The Earth is in the Nature
of a Mother to what she brings forth of her self out of her own
Bowels; whereas she is only a kind of Step-Dame in the Production
of Plants that are cultivated and assisted by the Help and Industry
of another: So that it's natural for her to withdraw her Nourish-
ment from the one, towards the Relief of the other. The Gardiner,
upon this, was so well satisfy'd, that he would take no Money for
his Herbs, and desired AEsop to make use of his Garden for the
future, as if it were his own.
There are several Stories in Planudes, that I shall pass over in
this Place (says Camerarius) as not worth the while; particularly
the Fables of the Lentills, the Bath, the Sow's Feet, and several
little Tales and Jests that I take to be neither well laid, nor well
put together: Neither is it any matter, in Relations of this Nature,
whether they be true or false; but if they be proper and ingenious,
and so contriv'd that the Reader or the Hearer may be the better
for them, that's as much as is requir'd: Wherefore I shall now com-
mit to Writing two Fables or Stories, one about the bringing his
Mistress home again, when she had left her Husband; which is
drawn from the Model of a Greek History set out by Pausanias in
his Description of Boeotia; the other upon the Subject of a Treat
of Neats Tongues, which was taken from Bias, as we have it from
Plutarch in his Convivium Septem Sapientum.