The Astrologer who Fell into a Well

[3] The Roman poet Ennius summed up the lesson to be learned from the story in the line Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat, caeli scrutantur plagas ("No one regards what is before his feet when searching out the regions of the sky") and was twice quoted by Cicero to this effect.

Wherefore an olde woman that he kepte in his house laughed and sayde to him in derision: O Thales, how shuldest thou have knowlege in hevenly thinges above, and knowest nat what is here benethe under thy feet?

[9] At much the same time, John Lyly's play, Gallathea (first performed in 1588) features a sub-plot involving a phony alchemist and a sham astronomer who, in gazing up at the stars, falls backward into a pond.

The Neo-Latin poet Gabriele Faerno also included the story of the stumbling astrologer in his collection Centum Fabulae (1554), but concluded with the more philosophical point, 'How can you understand the world without knowing yourself first?

His conclusion is that speculation about the future is idle; how many folk, he asks, Let, for want of due repair, A real house fall down, To build a castle in the air?