Answer:
A Wolf seeing a Lamb drinking at a brook, took it into his head that he would find some plausible excuse for eating him. So he drew near, and, standing higher up the stream, began to accuse him of disturbing the water and preventing him from drinking.
The Lamb replied that he was only touching the water with the tips of his lips; and that, besides, seeing that he was standing down stream, he could not possibly be disturbing the water higher up. So the Wolf, having done no good by that accusation, said: “Well, but last year you insulted my Father.” The Lamb replying that at that time he was not born, the Wolf wound up by saying: “However ready you may be with your answers, I shall none the less make a meal of you.”
Tyrants need no excuse. A Wolf catches a Lamb by a river and argues to justify killing it. Doesn’t matter as the Wolf needs no excuse.
Tyrants need no excuse.
Eliot-Jacobs
Eliot/Jacobs Version
A Wolf was drinking at a spring on a hillside. On looking up he saw a Lamb just beginning to drink lower down. “There’s my supper,” thought he, “if only I can find some excuse to seize it.” He called out to the Lamb, “How dare you muddle my drinking water?”
“No,” said the Lamb; “if the water is muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.”
