Xanthus invited a large company to dinner, and Aesop was ordered to
furnish the choicest dainties that money could procure. The first course
consisted of tongues, cooked in different ways and served with
appropriate sauces. This gave rise to much mirth and many witty remarks
by the guests. The second course was also nothing but tongues, and so
with the third and fourth. This seemed to go beyond a joke, and Xanthus
demanded in an angry manner of Aesop, "Did I not tell you to provide the
choicest dainties that money could procure?" "And what excels the
tongue?" replied Aesop, "It is the channel of learning and philosophy.
By it addresses and eulogies are made, and commerce carried on,
contracts executed, and marriages consummated. Nothing is equal to the
tongue." The company applauded Aesop's wit, and good feeling was
restored.
"Well," said Xanthus to the guests, "pray do me the favor of dining with
me again to-morrow. I have a mind to change the feast; to-morrow," said
he, turning to Aesop, "provide us with the worst meat you can find." The
next day the guests assembled as before, and to their astonishment and
the anger of Xanthus nothing but tongues was provided. "How, sir," said
Xanthus, "should tongues be the best of meat one day and the worst
another?" "What," replied Aesop, "can be worse than the tongue? What
wickedness is there under the sun that it has not a part in? Treasons,
violence, injustice, fraud, are debated and resolved upon, and
communicated by the tongue. It is the ruin of empires, cities, and of
private friendships." The company were more than ever struck by Aesop's
ingenuity, and they interceded for him with his master.
_From "Aesop's Fables."_
* * * * *
XANTHUS, a Greek poet and historian, who lived in the sixth century
before Christ.
Write the plurals of the following words, and tell how they are formed
in each case:
dainty, sauce, eulogy, feast, city, chief, calf, day, lily, copy, loaf,
roof, half, valley, donkey.
What words are made emphatic by contrast in the following sentence: "How
should tongues be the best of meat one day and the worst another?"
Memorize what Aesop said in praise of the tongue, and what he said in
dispraise of it.
Memory Gem:
"If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. The tongue is
a fire, a world of iniquity. By it we bless God and the Father; and by
it we curse men who are made after the likeness of God."
_From "Epistle of St. James."_
* * * * *
_48_
ap' pe tite
ha rangued'
sus pend' ed
min' strel sy