The Wolf and the Lamb

The fable and its variants

A wolf comes upon a lamb and, in order to justify taking its life, accuses it of various misdemeanours, all of which the lamb proves to be impossible. Losing patience, the wolf says the offences must have been committed by someone else in the family and that it does not propose to delay its meal by enquiring any further. The morals drawn are that the tyrant can always find an excuse for his tyranny, and that the unjust will not listen to the reasoning of the innocent. The tale was included with scarcely any changes in the fable collections of Jean de la Fontaine (I.10) and Ivan Krylov.

A variant story attributed to Aesop exists in Greek sources. This is the fable of the cock and the cat, which is separately numbered 16 in the Perry Index. Seeking a reasonable pretext to kill the cock, the cat accuses it of waking people early in the morning and then of incest with its sisters and daughters. In both cases the cock answers that humanity benefits by its activities. But the cat ends the argument by remarking that it is now her breakfast time and "Cats don't live on dialogues". Underlying both these fables is a Latin proverb, variously expressed, that "an empty belly has no ears" or, as the Spanish equivalent has it, "Lobo hambriento no tiene asiento" (a hungry wolf doesn't hang about).

The fable also has Eastern analogues. One of these is the Buddhist Dipi Jataka in which the protagonists are a panther and a goat. The goat has strayed into the presence of a panther and tries to avert its fate by greeting the predator politely. It is accused of treading on his tail and then of scaring off his prey, for which crime it is made to substitute. A similar story involving birds is found among Bidpai's Persian fables as "The Partridge and the Hawk". The unjust accusation there is that the partridge is taking up all the shade, leaving the hawk out in the hot sun. When the partridge points out that it is midnight, it is killed by the hawk for contradicting.

Moral applications

Down the centuries, interpreters of the fable have applied it to injustices prevalent in their own times. The 15th-century Moral Fables by Scottish poet Robert Henryson depict widespread social breakdown. The Lamb appeals to natural law, to Scripture, and to statutory law, and is answered by the Wolf with perversions of all these. Then Henryson in his own person comments that there are three kinds of contemporary wolves who oppress the poor: dishonest lawyers; landowners intent on extending their estates; and aristocrats who exploit their tenants.

A political application of the fable to international relations is an 1893 Punch cartoon published when Britain and France were both thinking of extending their colonial influence into Thailand and were looking for excuses to do so. A wolf in French Army uniform eyes the Thai lamb across the Mekong River. Much earlier, the fable's presence in the borders of the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry (see above) has suggested a similar political comment being made by the English embroiderers to express their dissent and horror at the 1066 Norman invasion of Britain.

Artistic applications

The story was among those included in La Fontaine's Fables (I.10) and was set to music by several French composers, including

La Fontaine's fable in Catalan translation is part of Xavier Benguerel i Godó’s Siete Fabulas de La Fontaine for recitation with orchestral accompaniment. But it was Martin Luther's German translation, Fabel Vom Wolf und Lämmlein that Hans Poser set for male choir and accompaniment in his Die Fabeln des Äsop (0p.28, 1956). A ballet based upon the fable was choreographed in 2004 by Béatrice Massin for the composite presentation of Annie Sellem, Les Fables à La Fontaine. This was interpreted to the Baroque music of Marin Marais.

The fable was also the subject of several paintings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, including one over the door in the Grand Cabinet du Dauphin in the Palace of Versailles (1747) and a canvas currently held in the Museums of Metz. It later figured on two French stamps. First was a 1938 portrait of La Fontaine with the tale illustrated in a panel below it. There was also a six-stamp strip issued in 1995 to commemorate the third centenary of La Fontaine's death; here the lamb is shown as startled by the wolf's reflection in the water. In 1977 Burundi issued a four-stamp block of fables where the designs are based on Gustave Doré's illustrations, of which this fable is one.