A Man committed a murder, and was pursued by the relations of the man whom he murdered. On his reaching the river Nile he saw a Lion on its bank and being fearfully afraid, climbed up a tree. He found a serpent in the upper branches of the tree, and again being greatly alarmed, he threw himself into the river, where a crocodile caught him and ate him. Thus the earth, the air, and the water alike refused shelter to a murderer.
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. "The Manslayer" is a notably stark example of his work, using vivid natural imagery — lion, serpent, and crocodile — to deliver a single, uncompromising moral about guilt and justice.
