Читать книгу Bewick's Select Fables of Æsop and others - Aesop - Страница 37

Table of Contents

They who do not feel the sentiments of humanity will seldom listen to the pleas of reason.

When cruelty and injustice are armed with power, and determined on oppression, the strongest pleas of innocence are preferred in vain.

A Wolf and a Lamb were accidentally quenching their thirst together at the same rivulet. The Wolf stood towards the head of the stream, and the Lamb at some distance below. The injurious beast, resolved on a quarrel, fiercely demands—How dare you disturb the water which I am drinking? The poor Lamb, all trembling, replies, How, I beseech you, can that possibly be the case, since the current sets from you to me? Disconcerted by the force of truth, he changes the accusation. Six months ago, says he, you vilely slandered me. Impossible, returns the Lamb, for I was not then born. No matter, it was your father, then, or some of your relations; and immediately seizing the innocent Lamb, he tore him to pieces.