Chapter 41
A lion, worn out with age, lay stretched out on the ground, utterly helpless and gasping its last breath. A boar, who wanted to satisfy an old grudge, approached him and attacked him with his tusks. Next a bull decided to seek his revenge and gored him with his horns. Realizing that the lion could now be treated with impunity, an ass thought he would show his spite, too, and kicked his heels in the lion’s face. Thereupon the dying beast told the ass, “The insults of the powerful were bad enough, and somehow I’ve managed to bear them. But to be spurned by such a base creature as you, who I feel, are a disgrace to nature, is to die a double death,” and felled the foolish attacker with one single whack.
‘Making merry while the going is good’ does not mean that you join the wrong company.
