The Olive-Tree ridiculed the Fig-Tree because, while she was green all the year round, the Fig-Tree changed its leaves with the seasons. A shower of snow fell upon them, and, finding the Olive full of foliage, it settled upon its branches and broke them down with its weight, at once despoiling it of its beauty and killing the tree. But finding the Fig-Tree denuded of leaves, the snow fell through to the ground, and did not injure it at all.
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around the 6th century BCE, whose fables have shaped moral literature across the world for over two millennia. "The Olive-Tree and the Fig-Tree" is a particularly concise example of his craft — using two familiar Mediterranean trees to illustrate a universal truth about the dangers of pride with almost mathematical economy.
