A snake, being in malice with a stith, laboured to bite off a piece of it. But the more fiercely he bit, the more he hurt himself. For whilst that being blinded with the witchery of presumption, he considered not that the hardness and substantialness of the steel could not be overcome by the tenderness and brittleness of his teeth, and that his contending was against an enemy whose revenge he might not hope to scape, and whose strength he was not able to impair. He unawares bereft himself of his teeth, and received of the stithy such answer as this: ‘O too, too mad and worse than mad! Although thy teeth were of brass, and as fast riveted in thy head as could be, yet could they nothing avail against the hardness and substantialness of my nature.’

The Morals: This fable reproveth the fondness of such as, being of no strength at all or having very little, contend with those that are of such force and power as is able to despise and subdue even the stoutest that be.

MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations (Volume 12) edited by Liza Blake and Kathryn Vomero Santos, Modern Humanities Research Association.