the moral in the original commented that "the fable is for people who attack a man of renown when he has fallen from his position of power and glory". when the fable was retranslated by george fyler townsend in 1867, he shortened this to the statement generally connected with it now, "it is easy to kick a man that is down". in her collection of the fables, laura gibbs compares the moral with the biblical proverb "a living dog is better than a dead lion" (ecclesiastes 9:4).