The Wolf and the Lamb

The Wolf and the Lamb is a well-known fable of Aesop and is numbered 155 in the Perry Index. There are several variant stories of tyrannical injustice in which a victim is falsely accused and killed despite a reasonable defence. The fable and its variants A wolf comes upon a lamb while both are drinking from a stream and, in order to justify taking its life, accuses it of various misdemeanours, all of which the lamb proves to be impossible. Losing patience, the wolf replies that the offences must have been committed by some other member of the lamb's family and that it does not propose to delay its meal by enquiring any further. There are versions of the fable in both the Greek of Babrius and the Latin of Phaedrus, and it was retold in Latin throughout the Middle Ages. The morals drawn there are that the tyrant can always find an excuse for his tyranny and that the unjust will not listen to the reasoning of the innocent. In his 1692 retelling of the fable, Roger L'Estrange used the English proverb "'Tis an easy Matter to find a Staff to beat a Dog" to sum up the sentiment that any arbitrary excuse will suit the powerful. At a slightly earlier date, Jean de la Fontaine began his very similar version of the story with the moral summary of its meaning, La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure (The strongest side always carries the argument). The line eventually became proverbial in French and was glossed with the alternative English proverb, "Might makes right", as its equivalent. Ivan Krylov's translation of the French was likewise close and has given the Russian language two proverbs. The first, "The stronger always blames the weaker" ("У сильного всегда бессильный виноват"), is taken from the poem's first line. The second idiomatic usage is provided by the wolf's final reply to the lamb's reasoning, "My need of food is guilt enough of yours" ("Ты виноват уж тем, что хочется мне кушать"), and is used ironically of someone casting around to find blame, no matter what justice demands. A variant story attributed to Aesop exists in Greek sources. This is the fable of the cock and the cat, which is separately numbered 16 in the Perry Index. Seeking a reasonable pretext to kill the cock, the cat accuses it of waking people early in the morning and then of incest with its sisters and daughters. In both cases, the cock answers that humanity benefits by its activities.