Two Men, deadly enemies to each other, were sailing in the same vessel. Determined to keep as far apart as possible, the one seated himself in the stem, and the other in the prow of the ship. A violent storm arose, and with the vessel in great danger of sinking, the one in the stern inquired of the pilot which of the two ends of the ship would go down first. On his replying that he supposed it would be the prow, the Man said, “Death would not be grievous to me, if I could only see my Enemy die before me.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around 620–564 BCE, whose fables have been retold across centuries for their sharp moral observations. This fable is one of his shortest, using a single dramatic scenario — a sinking ship — to expose the destructive absurdity of unchecked enmity.
