A Lion, fatigued by the heat of a summer’s day, fell fast asleep in his den. A Mouse ran over his mane and ears and woke him from his slumbers. He rose up and shook himself in great wrath, and searched every corner of his den to find the Mouse. A Fox seeing him said: “A fine Lion you are, to be frightened of a Mouse.” “‘Tis not the Mouse I fear,” said the Lion; “I resent his familiarity and ill-breeding.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, thought to have lived around the 6th century BCE, whose fables have shaped moral literature across the world for over two millennia. This particular fable is notably brief even by Aesop's standards, delivering its punchline in a single pointed exchange between the lion and the fox — a hallmark of his sharpest wit.
