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

42. THE PINE TREE AND THE WEDGES
Perry 303 (Babrius 38)

Some woodcutters splitting a wild pine tree drove wedges into the trunk, prying it apart and thus making their work easier. The pine tree groaned and said, 'I cannot blame the axe, who had no connection with my root, but these utterly despicable wedges are my own children. Pounded into me this way and that, they are going to tear me apart!'
This fable reminds everyone that the bad things that strangers do to you are never as terrible as the things done to you by the members of your own family.

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.