An Ass with an open sore had a Raven pick at the sore. The groom laughed. A passing Wolf noted if he had done that, he would be killed. Injustice!!!
Not everyone is treated alike.
L’Estrange version
As an ass with a gall‘d back was feeding in a meadow, a raven pitch’d upon him, and there sate, jobbing of the sore. The ass fell a frisking and braying upon’t, which set a groom that saw it at a distance, a laughing at it. Well! (says a wolfe that was passing by) to see the injustice of the world now! A poor wolfe in that ravens place, would have been persecuted, and hunted to death presently; and ’tis made only a laughing-matter, for a raven to do the same thing would have cost a wolfe his life.
Moral
One man may better steal a horse, then another look over the hedge.
Gherardo Image from 1480
Corvus Asinum Feriens
Asinus, cuius in dorso ulcus inerat, in prato quodam pascebatur. Corvus autem cum supra ipsum constitisset ac rostro ulcus feriret, asinus prae cruciatu vehementer rudebat atque saltabat. Procul interim stante agasone deque illo ridente, lupus, forte praeteriens, ubi fieri id vidit, “Heu nos miseros,” secum ait, “nos enim homines si tantum viderint, statim persequuntur; hos vero etiam accedentes cum risu libenter excipiunt.”
Perry #190
