A FABLE.
An oyster being turned out together with other fish in the house of a fisherman near the sea, he entreated a rat to take him to the sea. The rat purposing to eat him bid him open; but as he bit him the oyster squeezed his head and closed; and the cat came and killed him.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.