A Swallow Suffers Injustice at Court¹

Aesop on Suffering Injustice in the Courts

(From Aesop’s Fables)

A SWALLOW WHO HAD NESTED inside a court of justice had flown off for a while. A serpent crept up and gobbled up her little ones. Finding the nest empty upon her return, she wailed, beside herself with grief. To console her, another swallow told her she wasn’t the only one to have had the misfortune to lose her babies. “Ah!” she replied, “I am less distressed to have lost my young than that I should be a victim of a crime in a place where victims of violence should find help.”

(Moral: This fable shows that ill luck or calamity is often more difficult to bear when it comes from those from whom one least expects it.)

Endnotes

¹ Aesop, The Complete Fables (Temble, Robert and Olivia, trans.) (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 254 ⇑