A HORSE SOLDIER took the utmost pains with his charger. As long as the war lasted, he looked upon him as his fellow-helper in all emergencies and fed him carefully with hay and corn. But when the war was over, he only allowed him chaff to eat and made him carry heavy loads of wood, subjecting him to much slavish drudgery and ill-treatment. War was again proclaimed, however, and when the trumpet summoned him to his standard, the Soldier put on his charger its military trappings, and mounted, being clad in his heavy coat of mail. The Horse fell down straightway under the weight, no longer equal to the burden, and said to his master, “You must now go to the war on foot, for you have transformed me from a Horse into an Ass; and how can you expect that I can again turn in a moment from an Ass to a Horse?”
騎兵が、自分の軍馬をこの上なく大事に世話していた。戦争が続いているあいだは、どんな非常のときにも力を合わせる仲間と考えて、干し草や穀物を念入りに食べさせていた。ところが戦争が終わると、騎兵は馬にもみがらしか食べさせず、重いたきぎを運ばせ、奴隷のようなつらい仕事やひどい扱いをさんざん受けさせた。しかし、また戦争が布告され、ラッパが彼を軍旗のもとに呼び集めると、騎兵は軍馬に戦のための馬具をつけ、重いくさりかたびらを着こんで馬にまたがった。馬はもうその重さにたえきれず、すぐにその場にたおれてしまい、主人に言った。「これからは歩いて戦争に行ってください。あなたはわたしを馬からロバに変えてしまったのです。それなのに、どうしてわたしがあっという間にロバからまた馬にもどれると思うのですか？」