Might makes right
Aesop's Fables“Might makes right” is the closing moral of “The Wild Ass and the Lion,” where cooperation wins the hunt but superior force determines who receives its rewards. The maxim exposes the gap between partnership and justice: the Lion turns his strength into a claim of entitlement, then backs that claim with a threat.
Meaning and Context
The saying expresses a world in which power, rather than fairness or mutual agreement, decides what is treated as right. Its accompanying fable makes that principle concrete through a division of prey. The two partners have contributed different advantages, but only one controls the settlement—and the outcome follows his strength.
The Alliance and Its Unequal Terms
The Wild Ass and the Lion enter an alliance to capture the forest’s beasts more easily. The Lion offers his strength; the Wild Ass contributes greater speed. Their partnership is presented as reciprocal, with each bringing a distinct capacity to the hunt. They take as many beasts as their needs require, so the division that follows concerns the fruits of a successful joint effort.
The Division and the Threat
The Lion undertakes to distribute the prey and divides it into three shares. He claims the first because he is king, and the second because he was the Wild Ass’s partner in the chase. For the third, he abandons any appearance of equal bargaining: he warns that it will bring the Wild Ass great harm unless he willingly gives it up and runs away as fast as he can. The threat turns a nominal division into a demonstration of dominance. The Wild Ass’s speed helped make the hunt possible, but it cannot secure him a share against the Lion’s force.
The Fable’s Rule
The moral, “Might makes right,” compresses the fable’s reversal into a blunt rule. The alliance begins with complementary contributions; its conclusion reveals that cooperation does not guarantee an equitable outcome when one partner has the power to dictate terms. The Lion’s royal status supplies a stated reason for one share and partnership a reason for another, but the threatened violence decides the final claim. The maxim thus names not a just settlement but the principle by which the stronger party imposes one.
