The Wolf and the Lamb

[4] In his 1692 retelling of the fable, Roger L'Estrange used the English proverb "'Tis an easy Matter to find a Staff to beat a Dog" to sum up the sentiment that any arbitrary excuse will suit the powerful.

The second idiomatic usage is provided by the wolf's final reply to the lamb's reasoning, "My need of food is guilt enough of yours" ("Ты виноват уж тем, что хочется мне кушать"), and is used ironically of someone casting around to find blame, no matter what justice demands.

[12] Underlying both these fables is a Latin proverb, variously expressed,[13] 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).

Then Henryson in his own person comments that there are three kinds of contemporary wolves who oppress the poor: dishonest lawyers; landowners intent on extending their estates; and aristocrats who exploit their tenants.

[17] A political application of the fable to international relations is an 1893 Punch cartoon published when Britain and France were both thinking of extending their colonial influence into Thailand and were looking for excuses to do so.

Much earlier, the fable's presence in the borders of the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry (see above) has suggested a similar political comment being made by the English embroiderers to express their dissent and horror at the 1066 Norman invasion of Britain.

[28] But it was Martin Luther's German translation, Fabel Vom Wolf und Lämmlein that Hans Poser set for male choir and accompaniment in his Die Fabeln des Äsop (Op.

[29] The fable was also the subject of several paintings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, including one over the door in the Grand Cabinet du Dauphin in the Palace of Versailles (1747) and a canvas currently held in the Museums of Metz.