A wolf and a lamb had come to the same stream
compelled by thirst. The wolf was standing higher,
the lamb much lower. Then, with his vicious maw,
the angry outlaw started an argument.
"Why," he said, "have you made the water muddy
where I’m drinking?” The lamb, afraid, replied,
“How, I ask, wolf, can I do what you are claiming?
The liquid runs down from you to where I drink.”
The other, rebuked by the power of the truth,
said, “Six months ago, you cursed me out.”
The lamb replied, “I wasn’t even born.”
The wolf said, “Damn it, then, your father cursed me.”
And he snatched the lamb and unjustly tore it apart.
This is my translation of a Latin fable by Phaedrus (15 BCE - 30 AD), following Aesop. Does it remind you of currently ascendant political actors in America?
About the Creator
William Alfred
A retired college teacher who has turned to poetry in his old age.
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