A little boy wearied with a long journey, lay down overcome with
fatigue on the very brink1 of a deep well. Being within an inch of
falling into the water, Dame2 Fortune, it is said, appeared to him, and
waking him from his slumber3, thus addressed him: "Little boy, pray
wake up: for had you fallen into the well, the blame will be thrown on
me, and I shall get an ill name among mortals; for I find that men are
sure to blame their calamities4 to me, however much by their own
folly they have really brought them on themselves."
"Every one is more or less master of his own fate."
