Aesop

“ He noticed that the great beast cocked up his ears all the time, as if he were listening for something, and he asked him why he did so. Just then a gnat came humming by, and the Elephant said, “Do you see that wretched little buzzing insect? I’m terribly afraid of its getting into my ear: if it once gets in, I’m dead and done for.” The Lion’s spirits rose at once when he heard this: “For,” he said to himself, “if the Elephant, huge as he is, is afraid of a gnat, I needn’t be so much ashamed of being afraid of a cock, who is ten thousand times bigger than a gnat.” ”

“ THE Lion, for all his size and strength, and his sharp teeth and claws, is a coward in one thing: he can’t bear the sound of a cock crowing, and runs away whenever he hears it. He complained bitterly to Jupiter for making him like that ”