A fox was prowling outside a vineyard — one of those walled vineyards common in Judean farming villages — and saw grapes so ripe his mouth watered. But the palings of the fence were set close together. He was too stout to squeeze between them.
So he fasted. For three days he ate nothing. His ribs rose. His belly shrank. On the fourth day he slid easily between the palings and fell on the grapes.
The Feast That Trapped Him
For days he gorged. Cluster after cluster. He forgot the palings, he forgot tomorrow, he forgot anything but the sweetness in his mouth. And he grew — plump, full, shining — back to the size he had been before.
When at last he tried to leave, he could not. The same palings that had blocked his entry blocked his exit. He was trapped by his own satisfaction.
So he fasted again. Three more days of no food, his belly shrinking back, his ribs rising. And when he was once more as thin as the day he had first seen the vineyard, he slipped out between the palings and stood on the road — meagre as when he entered.
What Man Carries Out of This World
The Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah 5:14) adds the moral that Solomon had already set into Ecclesiastes 5:15 — "As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came."
The vineyard is the world. A person arrives with nothing and departs with nothing. Whatever they gorged on in between — honors, possessions, even their own reputation — stays inside the palings. The fast of a fox is the fate of a man.
What you bring with you at the end is not the grapes. It is the record of how you ate them.