Click here for a SLIDESHOW of all the Crane images. In this illustration, we can see why the poor lion has fallen in love: Cupid has struck him with one of love's arrows!
M0012 = Perry140. Source: Barlow’s Aesop 109. This is Perry 140. For another misbegotten love match, see the story of the mouse and the lion, #209.
The Lion in Love and the Forester. The lion fell desperately in love with the daughter of a certain forester, and he asked the father of the girl that he would give her to the lion as his bride. The forester replied that his daughter was a very tender and most delicate girl who would never be able to bear the lion's hooked claws and teeth. The lion therefore underwent the extraction of his teeth and claws in order to get the girl. When his father saw the lion had done this, he attacked the lion beating him with a cudgel and driving the defenseless creature far away. The story shows the insanity of pointless love, on account of which we suffer bondage and lose the things most dear to us.
