The Old Lion
A lion, worn out with years, lay stretched upon the ground utterly helpless and drawing his last breath. A boar came up and, to satisfy an ancient grudge, drove at him with his tusks. Next a bull, determined to be revenged on an old enemy, gored him with his horns.
Upon this an ass, seeing that the old lion could thus be treated with impunity, thought that he would show his spite also. He came and threw his heels in the lion's face, whereupon the dying beast exclaimed; "The insults of the powerful were bad enough; those I could have managed to bear. But to be spurned by so base a creature as thou, the disgrace of nature, is to die a double death."