A Troublesome Crow seated herself on the back of a Sheep. The Sheep, much against his will, carried her backward and forward for a long time, and at last said, “If you had treated a dog in this way, you would have had your deserts from his sharp teeth.” To this the Crow replied, “I despise the weak and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bully and whom I must flatter; and I thus prolong my life to a good old age.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around 620–564 BCE, whose fables have been retold across cultures for over two millennia. "The Crow and the Sheep" is a particularly lean example of his craft — stripping a complex social truth about power and exploitation down to a single exchange between two animals.
