A Farmer sows his field; Starlings take advantage. The Farmer tells is son to give him a sling when he calls for bread. Starlings gone.
Judge others by their actions, not by the words they speak.
Babarius Translation (The Farmer and The Starlings)
The Pleiads set, ’twas time to cast the seed:
A farmer sow’d his fallow : then took heed
To watch and guard it; for a countless host
Of black and croaking daws had o’er it cross’d,
And starlings, bent the tillage to destroy.
With empty sling there follow’d him a boy.
Now with the starlings ’twas the usual thing,
To list the farmer calling for his sling;
And fly ere he discharged it. Hence he sought
A new device, and thus the stripling taught
To act. “My lad, since we must needs outwit
“This clever race of birds, a plan I’ve hit.
“So when they come, and I for bread shall ask,
“To hand the sling, not bread, will be your task.”
The starlings came, and on the tillage fed;
And he, as was agreed on, ask’d for bread.
They did not fly. The lad supplied the stones
And sling. The old man aim’d and brake the bones
Of many a starling: shoulders, crowns, and shins:
Till from his land the remnant flight begins.
Some cranes that met them ask’d them “how they
fare ?”
Then said a daw: “Of base mankind beware!
“Each speaks to other, words unlike his deeds.”
Dread is the race that but by guile succeeds.
How do you think an AI might simplify this fable? Here is one answer, and the illustration above was made from this simplification:
A Farmer, a Boy, and the Crafty Starlings
A farmer sowed his field and stood guard, for hungry starlings arrived each day to steal the seed. Whenever the farmer shouted, “Bring the sling!” the birds fled before a stone could fly. So the farmer whispered to his young helper, “Hand me the sling only when I ask for bread.”
Next morning the starlings settled, thinking all was safe. The farmer called, “Boy, fetch me some bread!” The lad quietly passed the sling instead, and the farmer’s stones scattered the flock. As the surviving birds limped away they warned the cranes: “Beware of people, sweet words can hide sharp deeds.”
Moral
Judge others by their actions, not by the words they speak.
Perry. #298