The Miller and His Son Try to Please Everyone

The Miller and His Son Try to Please Everyone is a fable about the cost of surrendering one’s judgment to passing opinion. On the way to a fair to sell their Ass, a Miller and his son keep changing who rides and who walks in response to criticism. Their final attempt to appease a citizen’s advice turns the animal into a burden they carry themselves—and ends with its fall into a river.

Journey to the Fair

The Miller and his son set out with their Ass for a neighboring fair, intending to sell him. At first, both walk beside the animal. A group of women gathered at a well laughs at them for traveling on foot when they could ride. Taking their judgment to heart, the Miller puts his son on the Ass and continues on foot beside him.

The next criticism reverses the arrangement. A group of old men argues that it shows disrespect for old age to make the father walk while the young man rides. The Miller tells his son to dismount and takes his place on the Ass. Neither choice lasts: at the next encounter, women and children object that the Miller rides while the boy struggles to keep pace. The accommodating father then lifts his son onto the Ass behind him, so that both ride.

Advice Without a Stable Standard

As the pair near the town, a citizen asks whether the Ass belongs to the Miller. When the Miller confirms that it does, the citizen judges their arrangement by a different standard: the two men, he suggests, are better able to carry the Ass than the Ass is able to carry them. The Miller answers that they can try, and he and his son both get down.

The repeated changes expose the instability of the advice. Each observer sees one arrangement and objects to it, but their proposed corrections conflict: first the son should ride, then the father, then both. The Miller does not hold to an independent decision about how to make the journey; each new judgment sets the direction of the next change.

The Ass Falls

To follow the citizen’s suggestion, the Miller and his son tie the Ass’s legs together, attach him to a pole, and attempt to carry him on their shoulders across a bridge near the town entrance. The spectacle draws a crowd, which laughs at them. Amid the noise and unfamiliar handling, the Ass breaks the cords binding him, tumbles off the pole, and falls into the river.

The practical loss completes the reversal: a journey undertaken to sell the Ass ends with the animal lost before the pair can reach the fair. The Miller is vexed and ashamed, and makes his way home again. His compliance has pleased none of the onlookers and has cost him the very animal he set out to sell.

Outcome and Moral

The Miller’s conclusion is grounded in the sequence of consequences: by trying to please everybody, he has pleased nobody and lost his Ass. The fable turns a succession of ordinary comments into a test of judgment. Each change seems like a small accommodation, but together they carry the travelers from walking beside their animal to tying and carrying it—and finally to losing it in the river.

The ending makes the lesson concrete rather than abstract. Public opinion offers no single consistent standard, and following every new demand does not ensure approval. In the Miller’s case, the effort to satisfy successive critics replaces his own practical purpose with a string of contradictory adjustments, until the attempt itself defeats the journey.