Aesop’s “ZEUS AND THE DONKEYS”*

The donkeys were tired of being burdened with burdens and labouring all the days of their lives, so they sent ambassadors to Zeus, asking him to release them from their toil. Zeus, wanting to show them that they had asked for something impossible, said that their suffering would come to an end on the day when they pissed a river. The donkeys took him seriously and to this day whenever donkeys see where another donkey has pissed, they come to a halt and piss in the same place.

The fable shows that a person cannot escape his allotted fate.

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It was back in 2016 when I first wrote about this fable. Here it is again with a new illustration and a few revisions:

Like the bare-arse’d Ape in this same collection of fables for children**, imagine the giggles emanating from the nurseries of the early 1900s as the little ones read of the pissing donkeys.

But, this fable claims man’s lot is forecast; there’s to be no questioning one’s place or destiny. To do so is the “uttermost degree of Madness and Folly, to Appeal from Providence and Nature” as Sir Roger L’Estrange put it in 1692. In other words, there’s no such concept as “free will”.

A century later came the American Revolution which posited a different fate for humans: We are equal and we have “unalienable rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

If a peasant wants to be a landowner, the opportunity is there. It is not given, but it can be earned.

If the dealt hand is not what you want, well, shuffle the cards again. And, it is your business – government butt out – in how you keep or not your Faith.

Imperfect? Yes.

A superior alternative? If you subscribe to Socialism keep in mind what Winston Churchill reportedly said, (1945?), “Capitalism is the uneven distribution of happiness; Socialism is the even distribution of misery.” I’d guess, not being a political theorist, that socialists cannot abide the notion of free will. Self determination is anathema.

Since Aesop’s telling of the fable of the Pissing Donkeys (a great name for a garage rock band) he may have inspired others. There’s Wailing Willie Nelson’s, “Whiskey River” (don’t run dry), Patti Smith’s hard rock “Pissing in the River” and not to be outdone, Julie London’s smoky “Cry Me a River”.

*Source: Aesop’s Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World’s Classics): Oxford, 2002.

**Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics.

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And for my book of fables (cover above) tied to leadership and the workplace, a 25% discount to celebrate the blog’s move to a new platform: Link HERE to BUY

And, my book (cover above) on democratic workplaces and what leaders can do with limited resources and unlimited imagination, Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.</a>

N.B. For other essays on numerous other topics go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.

© Copyright all text John Lubans 2016 & 2020 & 2025