The Farmer and his Sons

[6] Croxall prefaces his long application with, "Labour and Industry, well applied, seldom fail of finding a Treasure",[7] while Thomas Bewick's edition contains the verse "Assiduous pains the swelling coffers fill".

[10] However, magic-realist painter Lukáš Kándl prefers to point towards the fable's moral in depicting plants breaking out of the ground, each sheathing a gold-coloured pearl.

They include the four-part song by the Belgian harpist Felix Godefroid (1818–1897)[12] and other French examples by Théodore Schloesser (1866), Paul Blanquière (1892) and E. Levasseur (1906).

Dansez maintenant (2006) by Vladimir Cosma, in which the fable is the final piece in a light-hearted interpretation for narrator and orchestra, in this case in the style of a pavane.

[15] There have also been French dramatic treatments, including the three-act comédie rustique of 1935 by H. Frederic Pottecher (1905–2001)[16] and the 1936 one-act version by painter-playwright Henri Brochet (1898–1952).