'The Lion's Share'

'The Lion's Share', an illustration by John Vernon Lord 

in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 11.

The text:

The Lion’s Share

THE Lion and other beasts formed an alliance to go out a-hunting. When they had taken a fat stag, the Lion proposed himself as commissioner, and dividing it into three parts, thus proceeded: “The first,” said he, "I shall take officially as king; the second I shall take for my own personal share in the chase; and as for the third part, - let him take it who dares.”

Moral: Think before you enter into a partnership with selfish people who have too great an appetite for power.

Text: Thomas James (95, 1848).

Selected Parallels: Phaedrus 1/5. Babrius 67. Caxton, Romulus 1/6. La Fontaine 1/6. L’Estrange 1/7. Chambry 207. Perry 339. TMI J811.1.1.