A jackdaw, on spotting some well-fed pigeons in a dovecote, whitened its plumage and presented itself to share their food. As long as it kept silent, the pigeons, taking it for one of themselves, admitted it among them; but at one point it forgot itself and let out a cry. Then, not knowing its voice, they drove it away. And it, seeing the pigeons' good fare slip from its grasp, went back to the jackdaws. But the jackdaws, no longer recognising it because of its colour, cast it out of their society, so that, for wanting both larders, it got neither one nor the other.
We should be content with what is ours, for covetousness often makes us lose what we already possess.
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