The North wind and the Sun - Babrius

Betwixt the North wind and the Sun arose

A contest, which would soonest of his clothes

Strip a wayfaring clown, so runs the tale.

First, Boreas blows an almost Thracian gale,

Thinking, perforce, to steal the man's capote:

He loosed it not; but as the cold wind smote

More sharply, tighter round him drew the folds,

And sheltered by a crag his station holds.

But now the Sun at first peered gently forth,

And thawed the chills of the uncanny North;

Then in their turn his beams more amply plied,

Till sudden heat the clown's endurance tried;

Stripping himself, away his cloak he flung:

The Sun from Boreas thus a triumph wrung.

The fable means, "My son, at mildness aim:

Persuasion more results than force may claim."

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Babrius [Babrias or Gabrias, aka Aesop] (2nd century) Syria

Translated by James Davies

Source: Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 3, Editor: Charles Dudley Warner, 1887 [Project Gutenberg]