|
A GOATHERD,
driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found some Wild
Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own for
the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not
take the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to keep
them in the fold. He gave his own goats just sufficient food to keep
them alive, but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of
enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own. When the
thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats
scampered away as fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd
scolded them for their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the
storm he had taken more care of them than of his own herd. One of
them, turning about, said to him: "That is the very reason why we
are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the
Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came
after us, you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves."
Moral:
Old friends cannot with
impunity be sacrificed for new ones
The Goatherd and the Wild Goats
Fable
A Fable
by
Aesop |
