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The Wolf and the Lamb is a well known fable of Aesop and is numbered 155 in the Perry Index.〔(Aesopica site )〕 There are several variant stories of tyrannical injustice in which a victim is falsely accused and killed despite a reasonable defence. ==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, it 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 about the matter. 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 Aesop for Children, Chicago 1919, (p. 42 )〕 A variant story attributed to Aesop also exists in Greek sources. This is the fable of the cock and the cat, which is separately numbered 16 in the Perry Index.〔(Aesopica site )〕 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 upon Dialogues'.〔Roger L'Estrange's (wording )〕 Underlying both these fables there is the Latin proverb, variously expressed,〔Latin via Proverbs (example 2092 )〕 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).〔''Refranero Latino'', Madrid 2005, proverb 672 (p.62) and proverb 3161 (p.236)(available on Google Books )〕 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.〔Jataka tales, edited by H.T. Francis and E.J. Thomas, Cambridge 1916 (pp.289-91 )〕 A similar story involving birds is found among Bidpai's Persian fables as "The Partridge and the Hawk".〔Maude Barrows Dutton, The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai, Boston and New York 1908, (p.56 )〕 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Wolf and the Lamb」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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