'Two Travellers and the Axe', an illustration by John Vernon Lord
in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 95.
The Text:
The Two Travellers and the Axe
TWO MEN were journeying
together in each other’s company. One of
them picked up an axe that lay upon the path, and said, “I have found an
axe.” “Nay, my friend,” replied the
other, “do not say ‘I,’ but ‘We’ have found an axe.” They had not gone far before they saw the
owner of the axe pursuing them, and he who had picked up the axe said, “We are
undone.” “Nay,” replied the other, “keep
to your first mode of speech, my friend; what you thought right then, think
right now. Say ‘I,’ not ‘We’ are undone.”
Moral: Real friends are those who share things in
good and bad times.
Text: George Fyler Townsend (p84, 1868).
Selected parallels: L’Estrange 1/164. Chambry
256. Perry 67.
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