The Dogs and the Lion's Skin

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The Dogs and the Lion's Skin is an old fable attributed to Aesop, numbered 406 in the Perry Index. It survives in a medieval Greek manuscript claiming to be a Syriac translation. In the story, some dogs find a lion's skin and begin to tear it to pieces. A passing fox remarks, "If this lion were alive, you would soon find out that his claws were stronger than your teeth." The original moral warns against attacking a man of renown after he has fallen from power. When George Fyler Townsend retranslated it in 1867, he shortened the saying to the familiar, "It is easy to kick a man that is down." Laura Gibbs notes a parallel with the Biblical proverb "A living dog is better than a dead lion" (Ecclesiastes 9:4).