"What are you boasting about?" said the sow. "You go into labor only once per year, and you have just one cub or maybe two. I am so much more fertile than you are, which also makes me useful to humans. Every two months I give birth to fourteen piglets."
"True enough," replied the lioness, "but you give birth to piglets, and I give birth to a lion."
People who talk too much are like that sow: they use many words, but their words are pointless. The wise need only a few words.
Inspired by: Mille Fabulae et Una, a collection of Latin fables that I've edited, free to read online. I am not translating the Latin here; instead, I am just telling a 100-word version of the fable.
Notes: This is fable 9 in the book, which is Perry 257. The story is usually told about a lioness and a fox, but this version with the lioness and the sow comes from the medieval fables of Odo of Cheriton.
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