AESOP'S FABLE: THE FOUR OXEN AND THE LION

-----------ooOoo-----------

Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media. The fables originally belonged to the oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him.

-----------ooOoo-----------

The Four Oxen and the Lion

-----------ooOoo-----------

A Lion used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.

Moral:

United we stand, divided we fall.

-----------ooOoo-----------

Alternative version:

FOUR Bulls, which had entered into a very strict friendship, kept always near one another, and fed together. The Lion often saw them, and as often had a mind to make one of them his prey; but though he could easily have subdued any of them singly, yet he was afraid to attack the whole alliance, as knowing they would have been too hard for him, and therefore contented himself for the present with keeping at a distance. At last, perceiving no attempt was to be made upon them as long as this combination held, he took occasion, by whispers and hints, to foment jealousies and raise divisions among them. This stratagem succeeded so well, that the Bulls grew cold and reserved towards one another, which soon after ripened into a downright hatred and aversion, and, at last, ended in a total separation. The Lion had now obtained his ends; and, as impossible as it was for him to hurt them while it they were united, he found no difficulty, now they were parted, to seize and devour every Bull of them, one after another.

-----------ooOoo-----------

Application:

A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Since friendships and alliances are of so great importance, we cannot be too often cautioned not to let them be broken by tale-bearers and whisperers, or any other contrivance of our enemies.

The tale of the Four Oxen and the Lion serves as a timeless reminder of the strength and resilience that can be found in unity. This powerful parable highlights the importance of collaboration, mutual support, and the dangers of allowing internal conflicts to divide us.

-----------ooOoo-----------

“We must indeed all hang together, or assuredl, we shall all hang separately.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin's statement, which uses a pun on the word ‘hang’, underscored the importance of unity among the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Made in the context of signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the phrase highlighted that without mutual support and cooperation, the signatories, and by extension, the colonies, risked defeat and execution by the British.

There is doubt whether he said it or whether he was the first to say it.

The above quote and attribution appears as an anecdote in The Works of Benjamin Franklin by Jared Sparks (1840).

However, this had earlier been attributed to Richard Penn in Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years (1811, p. 116).

In 1801, "If we don't hang together, by Heavens we shall hang separately" appears in the English play Life by Frederick Reynolds (Life, Frederick Reynolds, in a collection by Mrs Inchbald, 1811, Google Books first published in 1801), and the remark was later attributed to 'An American General' by Reynolds in his 1826 memoir p.358.

A comparable pun on "hang alone … hang together" appears in Dryden's 1717 The Spanish Fryar Google Books. The pun also appears in an April 14, 1776 letter from Carter Braxton to Landon Carter, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Vol.1 (1921), p.421, as "a true saying of a Wit — We must hang together or separately."

-----------ooOoo-----------

In 1792, during the first year of Kentucky's membership in the Union, the phrase "United we stand, divided we fall" became a part of the state's history. The state's first General Assembly decided to include the motto on the official seal of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and it remains the state motto of Kentucky.

-----------ooOoo-----------

During his unsuccessful campaign against Stephen Douglas in 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech centered on the House divided analogy to illustrate the need for a universal decision on slavery across all states.

"United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”

-----------ooOoo-----------

The phrase "United we stand, divided we fall, can be found on the Missouri state flag. The flag displays two grizzly bears around a shield which has "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" written around it.

-----------ooOoo-----------

J.K. Rowling uses a variation of the phrase in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when Albus Dumbledore says, "We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided."

-----------ooOoo-----------

Brotherhood of Man uses the phrase in their song United We Stand as seen in these lyrics:

For united we stand, divided we fall,

And if our backs should ever be against the wall

We'll be together, together, you and I.

-----------ooOoo-----------

A similar phrase appears in the biblical "New Testament":

Mark 3:25 : "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand".

Matthew 12:25: "And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand"

Luke 11:17: "But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth."