The Donkey and His Shadow

In hot weather a man hired a donkey for a journey. The owner walked behind to drive the beast. At midday they stopped to rest. The traveler wanted to lie in the donkey’s shadow. The owner wanted that cool patch himself.

The owner said that the traveller had hired only the donkey, not its shadow. The traveller said hiring the animal meant full use of it for the trip. Words turned to blows. While they struck each other, the donkey bolted and was soon gone from sight.

About this fable

In Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation (1912), V. S. Vernon Jones calls this “The Ass and His Shadow.” His version is a single paragraph that stops the moment the animal runs off, with no moral line added.

This retelling keeps the plain ending: the two men are left with neither the shade nor the donkey. The shade matters to both men in the heat, but fighting over it makes them lose the very thing that provides it.

Read the original: V. S. Vernon Jones, Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation (Project Gutenberg #11339)

Reading guidance: Ages 6–8; the men briefly fight, without described injuries, and the donkey escapes.

A closer reading

The men have different expectations about the same agreement. Neither explains those expectations until a shared need for shade becomes urgent. Their dispute concerns something temporary: the shadow depends on an animal that can move.

The donkey’s departure makes the argument pointless without deciding who had the better claim. Both men focus on winning against each other and overlook the creature carrying them. The ending exposes the cost of the fight rather than proving that rest or shade is worthless.

Try this with the story

Use a toy or paper donkey and a paper patch for its shadow. Give each man a turn to explain his expectation, then move the donkey away. Propose a sharing arrangement before the argument reaches blows, including rest for the animal.

Talk about it

• What does each man think the hiring agreement includes?
• Why does the donkey’s movement end the dispute without settling it?
• How could they meet their need for shade without fighting?

More stories like this

• The Dog and His Reflection — another fable where wanting more ends with losing everything
• The Bundle of Sticks — Aesop on why quarrelling leaves everyone weaker than before
• The Donkey and the Mule — another Vernon Jones fable about a donkey on a hard journey