shame Xanthus forbears whipping him.

One morning Xanthus gives a breakfast, for which Esop is sent to buy
"the best and most useful." He buys tongues, and the guests
(philosophers all) have nothing else. "What could be better for man than
tongue?" quoth Esop. Another time he is ordered to get "the worst and
most worthless"; again he brings tongues, and again is ready with a
similar defence.[132] A guest reviles him, and Esop retorts that he is
"malicious and a busybody." On hearing this Xanthus commands him to find
some one who is not a busybody. In the road Esop finds a simple soul and
brings him home to his master, who persuades his wife to bear with him
in anything he should pretend to do to her; if the guest is a busybody
(or one who meddles) Esop will get a beating. The plan fails; for the
good man continues eating and takes no notice of the wife-cuffing going
on, and when his host seems about to burn her, he only asks leave to
bring his own wife to be also placed on the pile.

[132] This story is also found in the _Liber de Donis_ of
Etienne de Bourbon (No. 246), a Dominican monk of the
14th century; in the _Summa Praedicantium_ of John
Bromyard, and several other medieval monkish collections
of _exempla_, or stories designed for the use of
preachers: in these the explanation is that nothing can
be better and nothing worse than _tongue_.

At a symposium Xanthus takes too much wine, and in bravado wagers his
house and all that it contains that he will drink up the waters of the
sea. Out of this scrape Esop rescues him by suggesting that he should
demand that all the rivers be stopped from flowing into the sea, for he
did not undertake to drink them too, and the other party is