The Lion and the Rat

"The Lion and the Rat" is a fable by Jean de La Fontaine that emphasizes the importance of kindness and the potential for reciprocity. The story tells of a rat who inadvertently wakes a lion from sleep. The lion spares the rat's life when he pleads for mercy and later, the rat comes to the lion's aid when he is entrapped in a net, gnawing through the ropes to free him. The main message of the book is that no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

• Fable

								
It's well to please all people when you can;
    There's none so small but one his aid may need.
    Here are two fables, if you give good heed,
Will prove the truth to any honest man.

A Rat, in quite a foolish way,
    Crept from his hole between a Lion's paws;
The king of animals showed on that day
    His royalty, and never snapped his jaws.
The kindness was not unrepaid;
Yet, who'd have thought a Lion would need aid

From a poor Rat?
    Soon after that
The Lion in the forest brake,
In their strong toils the hunters take;
    In vain his roars, his frenzy, and his rage.
But Mr. Rat runs up; a mesh or two
Nibbles, and lets the Lion through

    Patience and length of time may sever,
    What strength and empty wrath could never.
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