A MAN came into a forest and asked the Trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The Trees consented to his request and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted a new handle to his axe from it, than he began to use it and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest. An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighboring cedar, “The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages.”
ある男が森にやって来て、おのの柄にするものをくれないかと木々に頼んだ。木々はその頼みを聞き入れ、若いトネリコの木を一本あたえた。男はそれでおのに新しい柄をつけるやいなや、そのおのを使いはじめ、森でいちばんりっぱな大木たちを、次々と打ちたおしてしまった。年老いたカシの木は、手おくれになってから仲間たちがほろぼされたのをなげき、となりのスギの木に言った。「最初の一歩が、われわれみんなをほろぼしたのだ。もしトネリコの権利をゆずりわたしたりしなければ、われわれは今でも自分たちの特権を守り、何百年も立っていられたかもしれないのに」