Dipping into a very old damaged copy of Aesops fables last night the little book fell open at this fable which seems to me to say everything…. wisdom of the distant past sadly laying bare (in)human nature.
FABLE: THE WOLF AND THE LAMB
“One day, a Wolf and a Lamb happened to come just at the same time to quench their thirst in the stream of a clear silver brook. The Wolf stood upon higher ground and the Lamb at some distance from him down the current. However the Wolf, having a mind to pick a quarrel with him, asked him, What he meant by disturbing the water and making it so muddy that he could not drink, and at the same time demanded satisfaction. The Lamb, frightened at this threatening charge, told him, in a tone as mild as possible, That, with humble submission, he could not conceive how that could be; since the water which he drank ran down from the Wolf to him, and therefore it could not be disturbed so far up the stream. Be that as it will, replies the Wolf, you are a rascal and I have been told that you treated me with ill language behind my back, about half a year ago. Upon my word, says the Lamb, the time you mention was before I was born. The Wolf, finding it to no purpose to argue any longer against truth, fell into a great passion, snarling and foaming at the mouth, as if he had been mad; and drawing nearer to the Lamb, Sirrah, says he, if it was not you, it was your father, and that’s all one. So he seized one poor, innocent, helpless thing, tore it to pieces, and made a meal of it.”
THE APPLICATION
“The thing which is pointed at in this fable is so obvious, that it will be impertinent to multiply words about it.When a cruel, ill-natured man, has a mind to abuse one inferior to himself, either in power or courage, though he has not given the least occasion for it, how does he resemble the wolf! whose envious rapacious temper could not bear to see innocence live quietly in its neighbourhood. In short, wherever ill people are in power, innocence and integrity are sure to be persecuted; the more vicious the community is the better countenance they have for their own villanous measures: to practise honesty in bad times, is being liable to suspicion enough; but if anyone should dare to prescribe it, it is ten to one but he would be impeached of high crimes and misdemeamours; for, to stand up for justice in a degenerate and corrupt state, is tacitly to upbraid the government; and seldom fails of pulling down vengeance upon the head of him that offers to stir in its defence. Where cruelty and malice are in combination with power, nothing is so easy as for them to find a pretence to tyrannise over innocence, and exercise all manner of injustice.”
- Tags: Aesop, fable, human nature, playbook, ukraine
