AESOP'S FABLE

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The King's Son and the Painted Lion

A KING who had one only son, fond of hunting, had a dream in which he was warned that his son would be killed by a lion. Afraid lest the dream should prove true, he built for his son a pleasant palace, and adorned its walls for his amusement with all kinds of animals of the size of life, among which was the picture of a lion.

When the young Prince saw this, his grief at being thus confined burst out afresh, and standing near the lion, he said: O you most detestable of animals! through a lying dream of my father's, which he saw in his sleep, I am shut up on your account in this palace as if I had been a girl. What shall I now do to you?

With these words he stretched out his hands toward a thorn-tree, meaning to cut a stick from its branches that he might beat the lion, when one of its sharp prickles pierced his finger and caused great pain and inflammation, so that the young Prince fell down in a fainting fit. A violent fever suddenly set in, from which he died not many days after.

Moral:

We had better bear our troubles bravely than try to escape them.

A further moral:

Do not be fooled by, and do not trust, dreams.

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Another version:

The Young Man and Lion

An rich Old Man, who believed in omens and dreams, had an only Son, of whom he was dotingly fond.

One night he dreamt that he saw the Young Man, while he was eagerly engaged in the chase, seized upon and torn in pieces by a Lion. This operated upon his fears to such a degree, that he instantly determined upon breaking off his Son’s strong propensity to hunting, that he might be kept out of harm’s way. For this purpose, he spared neither pains nor expense to make home agreeable to him. He had the rooms decorated with the finest paintings of forest scenery, and the hunting of wild beasts, with the reality of which the youth had been so much delighted; but the Young Man, debarred from his favourite pleasures, considered the palace a prison, and his father as the keeper. One day, when looking at the pictures, he cast his eye upon that of a Lion, and, enraged that he was confined for a dream about such a beast, he struck at the painting with his fist, with all his might. There happened to be a nail in the wall behind the canvas, which lacerated the hand terribly. The wound festered, and threw the Young Man into a fever, of which he died; so that the Father’s dream was fulfilled by the very step he took to prevent it.