The Wolves and the Sheep by Jean de La Fontaine
After a thousand years of war, the sheep and wolves make peace, benefiting from an end to killings and fear. To secure the agreement, the sheep exchange their dogs for wolf pups as hostages. When the pups grow hungry and find the sheepfold unattended, they seize and carry off the fattest lambs. Their fathers then attack the sheep’s hostage guardians and kill them while they sleep, leaving no survivor to report the treachery. The fable concludes that peace is dangerous when made with faithless enemies.
By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1668 · Genre: Fable, Moral Literature, Allegory · 363 words
First lines
By-gone a thousand years of war, / The wearers of the fleece / And wolves at last made peace; / Which both appear'd the better for; / For if the wolves had now and then / Eat up a straggling ewe or wether, / As often had the shepherd men / Turn'd wolf-skins into leather. / Fear always spoil'd the verdant herbage, / And so it did the bloody carnage. / Hence peace was sweet; and, lest it should be riven, / On both sides hostages were given. / The sheep, as by the terms arranged, / For pups of wolves their dogs exchanged; / Which being done above suspicion, / Confirm'd and seal'd by high commission, / What time the pups were fully grown, / And felt an appetite for prey, / And saw the sheepfold left alone, / The shepherds all away, / They seized the fattest lambs they could, / And, choking, dragg'd them to the wood; / Of which, by secret means apprised, / Their sires, as is surmised, / Fell on the hostage guardians of the sheep, / And slew them all asleep. / So quick the deed of perfidy was done, / There fled to tell the tale not one!
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Genres
- Fable — The work uses speaking animals in an allegorical conflict and ends with an explicit moral lesson about the danger of making peace with faithless enemies.
- Moral Literature — Its central purpose is didactic: the concluding verses directly instruct readers that peace with villains will ultimately be regretted.
- Allegory — Wolves, sheep, dogs, and shepherds represent opposing human groups, with the broken treaty dramatizing treachery, vulnerability, and political distrust.
- Animal Tale — Animal characters drive the action, behaving according to both animal appetites and human political motives.
Tags
French fable · verse narrative · animal allegory · Aesopian tradition · wolves · sheep · shepherds · sheepdogs · wolf pups · hostages · peace treaty · war and peace
What this Textopian page supports
The Wolves and the Sheep is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1668 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Fable
- Author: Jean de La Fontaine
- Date: 1668 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Fable, Moral Literature, Allegory, Animal Tale, Verse Narrative
- Length: 363 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Wolves and the Sheep by Jean de La Fontaine
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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More by Jean de La Fontaine
- To Monseigneur the Dauphin (1668)
- The Grasshopper and the Ant (1668)
- The Raven and the Fox (1668)
- The Frog that Wished to be as Big as the Ox (1668)
- The Two Mules (1668)
- The Wolf and the Dog (1668)
- The Heifer, the Goat, and the Sheep, in Company with the Lion (1668)
- The Wallet (1668)
- All works by Jean de La Fontaine