The Lion, the Bear, and the Fox (George Fyler Townsend's Version)
A Lion and a Bear seized a Kid at the same moment, and fought fiercely for its possession. When they had fearfully lacerated each other and were faint from the long combat, they lay down exhausted with fatigue. A Fox, who had gone round them at a distance several times, saw them both stretched on the ground with the Kid lying untouched in the middle. He ran in between them, and seizing the Kid scampered off as fast as he could. The Lion and the Bear saw him, but not being able to get up, said, “Woe be to us, that we should have fought and belabored ourselves only to serve the turn of a Fox.”
It sometimes happens that one man has all the toil, and another all the profit.
(From the book Three Hundred Æsop’s Fables Literally Translated from the Greek by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, M.A. — Public Domain)
Title Here (V. S. Vernon Jones's Version)
(From the book Aesop's Fables: A New Translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, with an introduction by G. K. Chesterton and illustrations by Arthur Rackham — Public Domain)
The Lion, the Bear, and the Fox (Milo Winter's Version)
Just as a great Bear rushed to seize a stray kid, a Lion leaped from another direction upon the same prey. The two fought furiously for the prize until they had received so many wounds that both sank down unable to continue the battle.
Just then a Fox dashed up, and seizing the kid, made off with it as fast as he could go, while the Lion and the Bear looked on in helpless rage.
"How much better it would have been," they said, "to have shared in a friendly spirit."
Those who have all the toil do not always get the profit.
(From the book The Æsop for Children, with pictures by Milo Winter — Public Domain)
Title Here (J. H. Stickney's Version)
(From the book Æsop’s Fables: A Version for Young Readers by J. H. Stickney, illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull — Public Domain)
Title Here (Samuel Croxall's Version)
(From the book Æsop's Fables, Embellished with One Hundred and Eleven Emblematical Devices. Translator: Samuel Croxall — Public Domain)
Title Here (Thomas Bewick's Version)
(From the book The Fables of Æsop, and Others, with designs on wood by Thomas Bewick — Public Domain)
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