牧羊人和野山羊 The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

牧羊人和野山羊 The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

 

A goatherd, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found some Wild Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own for the night.  The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not take the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to keep them in the fold.  He gave his own goats just sufficient food to keep them alive, but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own.  When the thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as they could to the mountains.  The Goatherd scolded them for their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than of his own herd.  One of them, turning about, said to him:  "That is the very reason why we are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came after us, you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves."
  ——Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones. 

黃昏時(shí)分，牧羊人趕著他的羊群放牧歸來時(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)有幾只野山羊也夾雜在其中。他把它們和自己的羊關(guān)在一起，過了一夜。

第二天，下起了大雪，牧羊人不能帶著羊群去它們以往吃草的地方了，只得讓它們呆在羊欄里。他給自己的樣的食物剛好能填飽它們的肚子，而喂那幾只野山羊的食物要豐盛得多，想以此來引誘它們留下來，歸他自己所有。

冰雪剛一融化，那幾只野山羊便拼命地向上里跑去。牧羊人責(zé)怪它們棄他而去是忘恩負(fù)義，說暴風(fēng)雪期間他對它們的照顧比對自己的羊還要多。

一只野山羊聽到后，轉(zhuǎn)過頭來對他說：“這正是我們小心提防你的原因。既然你對我們比對跟了你那么長時(shí)間的羊都好，那么，很顯然，如果我們之后又有羊加入的話，你又會(huì)同樣地去喜歡它們而忽略我們的。”

——不能讓老朋友無辜地為新朋友做出犧牲。