An Ass, carrying a load of wood, passed through a pond. As he was crossing through the water he lost his footing, stumbled and fell, and not being able to rise on account of his load, groaned heavily. Some Frogs frequenting the pool heard his lamentation, and said, “What would you do if you had to live here always as we do, when you make such a fuss about a mere fall into the water?”
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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. His short moral tales, featuring animals as stand-ins for human behaviour, remain some of the most widely read stories in the world. "The Ass and the Frogs" is a particularly compact example of his style, delivering its pointed commentary on self-pity in just a handful of lines.
