The Lion and the Mouse (Aesop’s Fables)

The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop’s most famous fables. This version comes from the medieval French monk Adémar de Chabannes. He was likely translating a much earlier version recorded by Phaedrus, a former Roman slave from the first century BCE.

The fable is usually used to preach kindness to the weak, but it goes a bit deeper than that, especially when considered in the context of other fables. I’ll explain that at the end.

As is tradition with fables, this is a retelling in my own words.

The Fable

A lion was taking a nap under the shade of a large tree when a mouse accidentally ran over his tail. The Lion woke with a start and pounced upon the pitiful mouse.

The tiny Mouse, quivering in terror, begged the lion for mercy. The lion was hungry, be he saw no honour in killing such a wretched little creature, so he forgave the mouse and let him go.

Sometime later, the lion fell into a hunter’s trap. The net was strong and the Lion was unable to break free. The mighty lion, trembling with fury, asked the hunters for mercy. The hunters were amused by the idea of setting such a ferocious creature free. They laughed and did not let him go.

The mouse heard the lion’s roar and rushed over and found the lion trapped. That night, he scurried quietly beneath the net and gnawed at the ropes with his sharp teeth, freeing the lion.

The lion leapt into the hunters’ camp, making a feast of them.

The Moral

The Lion and the Mouse has a few moral lessons you could pin to it. The first is that we should never harm the small or the weak. The second is that kindness is never wasted.

Aesop has another fable about animals helping each other escape hunters, giving us another moral: even simple creatures consider each other’s plights and come to one another’s aid. I’m not sure that happens very often, but so it was said.

These are optimistic fables. Kindness is repaid, cruelty is punished, and all is right in the world. It feels just and satisfying. You might even get the impression that all fables are this way. But many are far more cynical, such as The Snake, the Farmer, and the Heron and The Mongoose and the Farmer’s Wife.

In fact, Aesop has another fable about a mouse and a lion (first recorded by Babrius): The Mouse and the Lion’s Mane. In this other story, a mouse scurries over the lion’s mane, and the lion leaps up, all the hairs on his body standing on end, and devours the mouse. A fox sees this and laughs at the lion for being startled by a harmless mouse. The lion explains that he wasn’t worried that the mouse would hurt him, but he had to check the bold advances of the insolent creature, lest the other animals learn to treat him with disrespect.

The lion is a recurring character in these fables. I recommend reading some of the lesser-known ones, like The Monkey and the Lion’s Breath. Or, for a more modern fable, try The Fox, the Duck, and the Lion.

Thoughts? Questions? Drop a comment below.

Juan Artola Miranda

I am Juan Artola Miranda, a fabulist living in the Mexican Caribbean. My friends know me by the name of my father's father, but that name grew into something bigger, my writing reaching tens of millions of readers. It was too strong for me to control. Artola Miranda is the name of my mother's mother. It's a better name for a fabulist.