Misadventures in the Land of Fables, #3
The phrase ‘the lion’s share’, meaning the largest portion, comes from Aesop. A number of fables describe an unequal dividing of spoils implemented by the most powerful member of a hunting party, a lion.
It goes something like this: the lion teams up with either two or three weaker animals (a cow, a goat, a fox, an ass, a sheep), they hunt as a team, then the lion asserts himself and sends the others on their way with a small part of the haul, if anything. He provides spurious legal reasons for claiming the first portions, while the last is sometimes retained with threats of violence or ‘misfortune’.
Here’s an example (by Laura Gibbs, 2002)
A cow and a she-goat and a long-suffering sheep decided to become the lion’s companions. They went into the forest together and there they caught an extremely large stag which they divided into four portions. Then the lion said, ‘I claim the first portion by right of my title, since I am called the king; the second portion you will give me as your partner; then, because I am strongest, the third portion is mine … and woe betide anyone who dares to touch the fourth!’ In this way the wicked lion carried off all the spoils for himself.¹
A Lesson for Business
Many writers construed the story as a caution against partnerships with those who wield more power and influence. You will lose in the end. This relates to another group of fables in which an outside party is brought to resolve a dispute over spoils, seeing that it is the stronger than the plaintiffs, the outside party, a lion, or a wolf, or a jackal (as found in an ancient Indian version), settles in its own favour.
An Exercise of Power
The version that stuck with me is more cynical than all of these. And more brutal. You can find my version here [coming soon]. Below is the Townsend version.
The Lion, the Fox and the Ass entered into an agreement to assist each other in the chase. Having secured a large booty, the Lion on their return from the forest asked the Ass to allot his due portion to each of the three partners in the treaty. The Ass carefully divided the spoil into three equal shares and modestly requested the two others to make the first choice. The Lion, bursting out into a great rage, devoured the Ass. Then he requested the Fox to do him the favor to make a division. The Fox accumulated all that they had killed into one large heap and left to himself the smallest possible morsel. The Lion said, ‘Who has taught you, my very excellent fellow, the art of division? You are perfect to a fraction.’ He replied, ‘I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate.’¹
Townsend derived this lesson from this version: “Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.” That’s not quite how I would put it.
The lion carries out the threat which, in the other versions, is merely implicit. Addes to the injustice of unequal shares, we have the outrage of the murder and, more significantly, the intimidation the act performs on the witness. The lion shows contempt for those he considers inferior. He turns his theft into an obscene lesson (obscene in the sense of ‘tending to corrupt’) by forcing the others to divide the spoils in his favour.
I wouldn’t call the fox who emerges from these events ‘happy’. I’d call him ‘traumatised’ or ‘crushed’. I wonder how you would articulate the meaning of this fable?
¹ I found both these version in the Aesopica section of Laura Gibbs’ valuable on-line resource: http://mythlore.net