Three Hundred Æsop's Fables/The Oak and the Wood-cutters
THE OAK AND THE WOOD-CUTTERS.
The Wood-cutters cut down a Mountain Oak, split it in pieces, making wedges of its own branches for dividing the trunk, and for saving their labour. The Oak said with a sigh, "I do not care about the blows of the axe aimed at my roots, but I do grieve at being torn in pieces by these wedges made from my own branches."
Misfortunes springing from ourselves are the hardest to bear.