The Oak and the Woodcutters
THE WOODCUTTER cut down a Mountain Oak and split it in pieces, making wedges of its own branches for dividing the trunk. 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.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21/21-h/21-h.htm
(DeepL) The lumberjack cut down a mountain oak and made a wedge with his own branches to divide the trunk. The oak sighed and said. I don't mind the blow of an axe aimed at the root, but to be torn to pieces by this wedge made of my own branches is deplorable.
Calamities caused by ourselves are the most unbearable.
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