THE FOX IN FABLE 165 



than a touch of satire and a caricature of well-known 

 personages. The statesman used them as Machiavelli 

 does in ' The Prince ' to point his counsels of diplomacy, 

 and the mediaeval moralists discovered edification 

 in the simplest tales. A certain ecclesiastic of the 

 thirteenth century, Odo of Cheriton in Kent, seems 

 to have put together a book of fables with morals, for 

 the benefit of preachers, who were to use them to 

 point and illustrate their sermons. 



The following fable is of Eastern origin, but the 

 application is Odo's own. 



The fox and the cat meet. The former boasts of 

 the number of artifices by which he has escaped the 

 hounds. The cat confesses he has but one. ' Come 

 with me,' says the fox, ' and I will teach you mine.' 

 But when the hounds came on their line, ' I will go 

 no further,' exclaimed the cat, ' I wish to use my own 

 artifice,' and with that he scrambled up a tree. 

 Reynard went on and was killed after running a ring. 

 The death of the fox is described in such a way that 

 we might imagine Master Odo himself a foxhunter. 

 The cat exclaims, ' Oh, Reynard, Reynard, all your 

 artifices were not equal to my simple one.' By the 

 cat we are to understand the simple souls who know 

 but one way — the right one. Reynard symbolises 

 barristers, attorneys, tricksters, full of dodges. But 



