The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
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The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs is one of many fables attributed to Aesop. It is very popular, as are many of his fables, which also include The Fox and the Grapes, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and The Tortoise and the Hare.
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[edit] Story
A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it. Then, they thought, they could obtain the whole store of precious metal at once; however, upon cutting the goose open, they found its innards to be like that of any other goose
[edit] Morals
- Greed destroys the source of good.
- Think before you act.
- Those who want too much lose everything.
The moral of wanting more and losing everything is similar to that of another Aesop fable called The Dog and the Bone. In the English language, "Killing the golden goose" has become a metaphor for any short-sighted action that may bring an immediate reward, but will ultimately prove disastrous.
[edit] Sources of the golden goose symbol
A hen or goose that lays golden eggs is a mystical creature encountered in fairy tales including Aesop's fable of the Goose that laid golden eggs, and others such as Jack and the Beanstalk , the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Golden Goose.
In the later period of Egyptian history, a cult of Thoth gained prominence, thus giving rise to the adjustment of mythology in order to give Thoth a greater role. This included varying the Ogdoad cosmogony myth so that it was Thoth who gives birth to Ra/Atum/Nefertum/Khepri, as a result of laying, as an ibis, an egg containing them. Later it was said that this was done in the form of a goose - literally as a goose laying a golden egg.
[edit] In popular culture
An 18th century magic text The Black Pullet teaches how to produce a hen that lays golden eggs.
In the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, proprietor Willy Wonka keeps geese that lay chocolate eggs covered in gold.
In the 1971 film The Million Dollar Duck, laboratory irradiation produces a duck that lays eggs of gold, but golden eggs are the only similarity between the film and this fable.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Aesop's Fables, a new translation by V. S. Vernon Jones (London: W. Heinemann, 1912), p. 2.
