Aesop's Fables
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."