Hercules and the Wagoner

It tells of a man who is shipwrecked and calls on the goddess Athena for help; he is advised by another to try swimming ('moving his arms') as well (Greek: "σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ σὺ χεῖρας κίνει").

"[6] When the theme was taken up in the Renaissance, it was the variant of the laden ass that slips in the mire that appeared earlier on in Guillaume La Perrière's emblem book, Le theatre des bons engins (1544) .

[8] Then in England Francis Barlow provided versions in English verse and Latin prose to accompany the illustration in his 1666 collection of the fables under the title "The Clown and the Cart".

The first translation of this version was made by Charles Denis in 1754, and there he follows La Fontaine in incorporating the Classical proverb as the moral on which it ends: "First help thyself, and Heaven will do the rest.

"[10] The English idiomatic expression 'to set (or put) one's shoulder to the wheel' derived at an earlier date from the condition given the carter before he could expect divine help.