Chapter 63
A stag whose joints had become stiff with old age fell sick and decided to lie down on the rich grass of a meadow close to some woods so that he might be able to graze more easily. Since he had always been a friendly and good neighbor, many beasts came to visit him and wish him farewell. Little by little, however, they began eating up all the grass until nothing was left. So, though the stag recovered from the disease, he had nothing to eat, and in the end, he died not so much from sickness or of old age as for sheer want of the food that his friends had eaten for him.
Fragile friendship; untold hardship.