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A nut, having been carried by a crow to the top of a tall campanile
and released by falling into a chink from the mortal grip of its
beak, it prayed the wall by the grace bestowed on it by God in
allowing it to be so high and thick, and to own such fine bells and
of so noble a tone, that it would succour it, and that, as it had
not been able to fall under the verdurous boughs of its venerable
father and lie in the fat earth covered up by his fallen leaves it
would not abandon it; because, finding itself in the beak of the
cruel crow, it had there made a vow that if it escaped from her it
would end its life in a little hole. At these words the wall, moved
to compassion, was content to shelter it in the spot where it had
fallen; and after a short time the nut began to split open and put
forth roots between the rifts of the stones and push them apart, and
to throw out shoots from its hollow shell; and, to be brief, these
rose above the building and the twisted roots, growing thicker,
began to thrust the walls apart, and tear out the ancient stones
from their old places. Then the wall too late and in vain bewailed
the cause of its destruction and in a short time, it wrought the
ruin of a great part of it.
1
278.
A FABLE.
The privet feeling its tender boughs loaded with young fruit,
pricked by the sharp claws and beak of the insolent blackbird,
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