Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/27

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1


THE

LIFE

OF

ÆSOP.


Cap. I.

Of Æſop's Countrey, Condition, and Perſon.


ÆSOP (according to Planudes, Camerarius and Others) was by birth, of Ammorius a Towne in the Greater Phrygia; (though ſome will have him to be a Thracian, others a Samian) of a mean Condition, and in his perſon deformed, to the higheſt degree: Flat-Nos'd Hunch-Back'd, Blobber-Lipp'd; a Long Miſs-ſhapen Head; His Body Crooked all over, Big-Belly'd, Baker-Legg'd, and his Complexion ſo ſwarthy, that he took his very Name from't; for Æſop is the ſame with Æthiop. And he was not only Unhappy in the moſt ſcandalous Figure of a Man that ever was heard of; but he was in a manner Tongue-Ty'd too, by ſuch an Impediment in his ſpeech, that People could very hardly underſtand what he ſaid. This Imperfection is ſaid, to have been the moſt ſenſible part of his Misfortune; for the Excellency of his Mind might otherwiſe have Attoned in ſome Meaſure, for the Un-

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