The lion's share

The lion’s share is the expression for a disproportionately large portion claimed by the powerful, especially when a nominal agreement does not protect the weaker party. In “The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass,” the Lion’s response to an equal division of their hunting spoils makes the expression a compact emblem of predatory power: the Ass is punished for fairness, while the Fox survives by learning from that punishment.

The Ass’s Equal Division

The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass agree to assist one another in the chase. After they secure a large booty and return from the forest, the Lion asks the Ass to allot each of the three partners a due portion. The Ass divides the spoil into three equal shares and modestly invites the other two to choose first. The arrangement appears to honor the partnership, but it leaves the Lion’s power unchallenged only in name.

Power Replaces Agreement

The Lion bursts into a great rage and devours the Ass. He then asks the Fox to make a division. The Fox gathers the entire catch into one large heap and leaves himself the smallest possible morsel. The contrast between the two divisions supplies the expression’s force: the Ass treats the agreement as a basis for equal shares, whereas the Fox recognizes that the Lion will determine what counts as a due portion. The largest share is not allocated by a fair rule; it is secured by the strongest participant.

The Lion approves the Fox’s calculation and asks who taught him the art of division. The Fox says he learned from the Ass by witnessing his fate. The answer turns the Ass’s death into an immediate lesson in prudence: the Fox survives not by invoking fairness, but by adapting his conduct to the consequences of the earlier division. The fable closes with the maxim, “Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.”

A Recurrent Pattern of Tyranny

The same structure appears in “The Wolf and the Lamb.” The Wolf first resolves to find a plea that will justify eating the Lamb, then accuses him of past insult, feeding in the Wolf’s pasture, and drinking from the Wolf’s well. The Lamb refutes each charge with circumstances that make the accusations impossible, but the Wolf seizes and eats him anyway, declaring that he will not remain supper-less. The closing moral states that a tyrant will always find a pretext for tyranny. Like the Lion’s response to the equal shares, the episode shows how a powerful figure can treat an alleged right or grievance as cover for a decision already made.

“The Kingdom of the Lion” offers a pointed contrast. There the Lion is described as just and gentle, and proclaims a universal league in which traditionally opposed pairs—including the Wolf and the Lamb, and the Dog and the Hare—are to live in peace. The Hare welcomes the prospect of the weak standing safely beside the strong, but runs for his life after saying so. The promised equality and the Hare’s continued fear coexist in the same scene, exposing the distance between a ruler’s proclamation and the security that the weak actually experience.

Meaning and Limits of the Fable

In the preface, George Fyler Townsend defines the fable as a short narrative that conveys instruction through fictional characters, often animals speaking and acting as figures for human motives and conduct. Its lesson is meant to emerge from the action rather than depend on an added explanation. The account of the Lion and his partners exemplifies this design: the two contrasting divisions, and the consequences each brings, make unequal power legible before the closing maxim states what the Fox’s example teaches.

The preface also stresses that a successful fable depends on a simple, coherent action, a moral closely connected to that action, and characters whose established qualities remain consistent. Townsend acknowledges that not every fable in the collection meets those standards equally, citing weaknesses in unity, the connection between narrative and moral, or the choice of animal characters. The lion’s share therefore rests on a particularly clear episode in the collection, while the preface’s broader account warns against assuming that every fable bearing Aesop’s name has the same degree of formal unity.