Aesop's Fables: Townsend (1867)
236. The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox (Perry
258)
A LION, growing old, lay sick in his cave. All the beasts came to visit
their king, except the Fox. The Wolf therefore, thinking that he had a
capital opportunity, accused the Fox to the Lion of not paying any respect
to him who had the rule over them all and of not coming to visit him.
At that very moment the Fox came in and heard these last words of the
Wolf. The Lion roaring out in a rage against him, the Fox sought an opportunity
to defend himself and said, 'And who of all those who have come to you
have benefited you so much as I, who have traveled from place to place
in every direction, and have sought and learnt from the physicians the
means of healing you?' The Lion commanded him immediately to tell him
the cure, when he replied, 'You must flay a wolf alive and wrap his skin
yet warm around you.' The Wolf was at once taken and flayed; whereon the
Fox, turning to him, said with a smile, 'You should have moved your master
not to ill, but to good, will.'
George Fyler Townsend's translation of the fables, first published in 1867, is
in the public domain and can be found at many websites, including Project
Gutenberg.
Illustrations come from: Aesop's Fables, by George Fyler Townsend, with
illustrations by Harrison Weir, 1867, at Google
Books. |