[Reader-list] Fables of Easop, no 31

[pratap pandey]

Dear Readers,

Please enjoy Easop's Fable no 31:

A wolf which had been made leader of the other wolves
established a law that each of them should put into a
pool everything he caught in the chase and share it
equally with all the rest, so that they should not be
driven by hunger to eat one another. But an ass came
forward and, shaking his mane, said, "Out of the mind
of the wolf has come a noble thought. But how is it,
wolf, that you yourself laid up in your den the quarry
you took yesterday? Put it in the common store and
share it." This exposure shamed the wolf into annuling
his laws.
Moral: The very men who pretend to legislate justly do
not themselves abide by the laws which they enact and
administer.

This is the text of fable no 31, copied verbatim from
"Fables of Easop", translated by S A Handford. The
book is part of "The Penguin Classics" edited by E V
Rieu (L34). It was first published in 1954, reprinted
1956, 1961. The particular edition I have is the 1961
edition. I know that because someone has penned, in
ink, the figures 1961 on the first page of the book.

The interesting thing is that the Title of this fable
is "A Communist Dictator". [Certainly, a title not
given by Easop]

I read this fable today. It strikes me that the fable
should be re-named: