THE MAN AND THE LION

 


76. THE FROGS ASKING FOR A KING   Time was when the frogs were discontented because they had no one to rule over them, so they sent a deputation to Jupiter to ask him to give them a king. Jupiter, despising the folly of their request, cast a log into the pool where they lived, and said that that should be their king. The frogs were terrified at first by the splash and scuttled away into the deepest parts of the pool. But by and by, when they saw that the log remained motionless, one by one they ventured to the surface again, and before long, growing bolder, they began to feel such contempt for it that they even took to sitting upon it. Thinking that a king of that sort was an insult to their dignity, they sent to Jupiter a second time and begged him to take away the sluggish king he had given them and to give them another and a better one. Jupiter, annoyed at being pestered in this way, sent a stork to rule over them, who no sooner arrived among them than he began to catch and eat the frogs as fast as he could.


77. THE OLIVE TREE AND THE FIG TREE  An olive tree taunted a fig tree with the loss of her leaves at a certain season of the year. “You,” she said, “lose your leaves every autumn and are bare till the spring; whereas I, as you see, remain green and flourishing all the year round.” Soon afterwards there came a heavy fall of snow, which settled on the leaves of the olive so that she bent and broke under the weight. But the flakes fell harmlessly through the bare branches of the fig, which survived to bear many another crop.


78. THE LION AND THE BOAR  One hot and thirsty day in the height of summer a lion and a boar came down to a little spring at the same moment to drink. In a trice they were quarreling as to who should drink first. The quarrel soon became a fight, and they attacked one another with utmost fury. Presently, stopping for a moment to take breath, they saw some vultures seated on a rock above, evidently waiting for one of them to be killed, when they would fly down and feed upon the carcass. The sight sobered them at once, and they made up their quarrel, saying, “We had much better be friends than fight and be eaten by vultures.”


79. THE WALNUT TREE  A walnut tree which grew by the roadside bore every year a plentiful crop of nuts. Everyone who passed by pelted its A branches with sticks and stones in order to bring down the fruit, and the tree suffered severely. “It is hard,” it cried, “that the very persons who enjoy my fruit should thus reward me with insults and blows.”




80. THE MAN AND THE LION  A man and a lion were companions on a journey, and in the course of conversation they began to boast about their prowess, and each claimed to be superior to the other in strength and courage. They were still arguing with some heat when they came to a crossroad where there was a statue of a man strangling a lion. “There!” said the man triumphantly. “Look at that! Doesn’t that prove to you that we are stronger than you?” “Not so fast, my friend,” said the lion. “That is only your view of the case. If we lions could make statues, you may be sure that in most of them you would see the man underneath.” There are two sides to every question.

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