Pagina 265 di 274

A Rogue laid a wager that he would prove the Oracle at Delphi to

be untrustworthy by procuring from it a false reply to an inquiry

by himself. So he went to the temple on the appointed day with a

small bird in his hand, which he concealed under the folds of his

cloak, and asked whether what he held in his hand were alive or

dead. If the Oracle said "dead," he meant to produce the bird

alive: if the reply was "alive," he intended to wring its neck

and show it to be dead. But the Oracle was one too many for him,

for the answer he got was this: "Stranger, whether the thing that

you hold in your hand be alive or dead is a matter that depends

entirely on your own will."

THE HORSE AND THE ASS