The wolf said to the fox, "I admire your cunning, fox!"
"And I admire your ferocity, wolf!" replied the fox. "Let's direct our prayers to Zeus on Mount Olympus so that he can give each of us the qualities that we lack."
So the wolf and the fox both prayed to Zeus. "Hear our prayer, O King of the Gods!" they said.
Zeus, however, rejected their petition. "From the beginning of the world's creation," he proclaimed, "each animal has possessed its own attributes in abundance, but not the other attributes. To each of the animals their own attributes must suffice."
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 62 in the book, and it is not found in the Perry catalog; the Latin version is from the Florilegium Fabularum of Irenaeus.
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