‘Thus tyrants boast,’ the Sage replied,
‘Whose murders spring from power and pride.
Own then this man-like kite is slain
Thy greater luxury to sustain—
For petty rogues submit to fate
That great ones may enjoy their state.’”[138]
This is not the only apologue in which the rhyming moralist exposes at once the inconsistency and the injustice of the human animal who, himself choosing to live by slaughter, yet hypocritically stigmatises with the epithets “cruel” and “bloodthirsty” those animals whom Nature has evidently designed to be predaceous. In The Shepherd’s Dog and the Wolf he represents the former upbraiding the ravisher of the sheepfolds for attacking “a weak, defenceless kind”:—
“‘Friend,’ says the Wolf, ‘the matter weigh:
Nature designed us beasts of prey.