Aesop's Fables

A man had a Wife who made herself hated by all the members of his household. Wishing to find out whether she had the same effect on the people in her father’s house, he made up some excuse to send her home on a visit to her father. After a short time she returned, and when he asked how she had gotten along and how the servants had treated her, she replied, “The herdsmen and shepherds cast looks of aversion at me.” He said, “Oh, Wife, if you were disliked by those who go out early in the morning with their flocks and return late in the evening, what must those with whom you spent the whole day have felt toward you?”

Straws show how the wind blows.

The Man, the Horse, the Ox, and the Dog

A Horse, an Ox, and a Dog, driven to desperate straits by the cold, sought shelter and protection from Man. He received them kindly, lit a fire, and warmed them. He let the Horse help himself freely to his oats, gave the Ox an abundance of hay, and fed the Dog with meat from his own table. Grateful for these favors, the animals determined to repay him to the best of their ability. For this purpose, they divided the span of his life among them, and each endowed one portion of it with his own chief qualities. The Horse chose his earliest years and gave them his own attributes; that is why every man in his youth is impetuous, headstrong, and obstinate in maintaining his own opinion. The Ox took the next stage of life under his patronage, and therefore man in middle age is fond of work, devoted to labor, and determined to amass wealth and to conserve his resources. The end of life was reserved for the Dog, and that is why the old man is often snappish, irritable, hard to please, and selfish, tolerant only of his own household but averse to strangers and to all who do not attend to his comfort or to his needs.