A Stag drinking, saw himself in the water, and pleased with the sight,
stood contemplating his shape. Ah, says he, what a glorious pair of
branching horns are here, how gracefully do these antlers project
over my forehead, and give an agreeable turn to my whole face; but I
have such legs as really make me ashamed; they look so very long and
unsightly, that I had rather have none at all. In the midst of this
soliloquy, he was alarmed with the cry of a pack of hounds. Away he
flies in some consternation, and bounding nimbly over the plain, threw
dogs and men at a vast distance behind him. After which, taking a
very thick copse, he had the ill fortune to be entangled by his horns
in the branches, where he was held fast till the hounds came up and
seized him. In the pangs of death, he is said to have uttered these
words: Unhappy creature that I am, I am too late convinced that what I
prided myself in, has been the cause of my undoing; and what I so much
disliked, was the only thing that could have saved me.