Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs

"There was once a farmer who possessed the most wonderful kind of Goose, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.

The farmer took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich.

But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open.

But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead."

Aesop

1 comment:

The Arthurian said...

A story of greed, some may say. The chronic nature of greed, maybe.

To me the story is important because it implicitly offers definitions of important terms:

"Riches" is having lots of golden eggs.

"Wealth" is having a golden goose.