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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

233. THE BULL AND THE GOATS
Perry 217 (Syntipas 40)

A bull who was running away from a lion sought refuge in a cave. He found that there were already some wild goats in the cave, and the goats actually started to butt at the bull with their horns. The bull said to them, 'I am not afraid of you! It is the one outside the cave who scares me.'
The fable shows that when you are besieged by powerful people, you are subject to vicious attacks by anyone and everyone.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.