A GOATHERD, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found
some Wild Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own
for the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not take
the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to keep them in
the fold. He gave his own goats just sufficient food to keep them alive,
but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of enticing them to stay
with him and of making them his own. When the thaw set in, he led them all
out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as they could to
the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them for their ingratitude in leaving
him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than of his own
herd. One of them, turning about, said to him: "That is the very reason
why we are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the
Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came after us,
you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves."
Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones.
