The cedar, being desirous of producing a fine and noble fruit at its summit, set to work to form it with all the strength of its sap. But this fruit, when grown, was the cause of the tall and upright tree-top being bent over.
The peach, being envious of the vast quantity of fruit which she saw borne on the nut-tree, her neighbour, determined to do the same, and loaded herself with her own in such a way that the weight of the fruit pulled her up by the roots and broke her down to the ground.
The nut-tree stood always by a road side displaying the wealth of its fruit to the passers by, and every one cast stones at it.
The fig-tree, having no fruit, no one looked at it; then, wishing to produce fruits that it might be praised by men, it was bent and broken down by them.
The fig-tree, standing by the side of the elm and seeing that its boughs were bare of fruit, yet that it had the audacity to keep the Sun from its own unripe figs with its branches, said to it: “Oh elm! art thou not ashamed to stand in front of me. But wait till my offspring are fully grown and you will see where you are!” But when her offspring were mature, a troop of soldiers coming by fell upon the fig-tree and her figs were all torn off her, and her boughs cut away and broken. Then, when she was thus maimed in all her limbs, the elm asked her, saying: “O fig-tree! which was best, to be without offspring, or to be brought by them into so miserable a plight!”
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.