A goatherd, driving his flock from their pasture at eventide, found some Wild Goats mingled among them, and shut them up together with his own for the night. The next day it snowed very hard, so that he could not take the herd to their usual feeding places, but was obliged to keep them in the fold. He gave his own goats just sufficient food to keep them alive, but fed the strangers more abundantly in the hope of enticing them to stay with him and of making them his own. When the thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd scolded them for their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than of his own herd. One of them, turning about, said to him: That is the very reason why we are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came after us, you would in the same manner prefer them to ourselves.
——Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones.

黃昏時分，牧羊人趕著他的羊群放牧歸來時，發現有幾只野山羊也夾雜在其中。他把它們和我們的羊關在一塊，過了一夜。

第二天，下起了大雪，牧羊人不可以攜帶羊群去它們以往吃草的地方了，只得讓它們呆在羊欄里。他給我們的樣的食物剛好能填飽它們的肚子，而喂那幾只野山羊的食物要豐盛得多，想以此來引誘它們留下來，歸他一個人所有。

冰雪剛一融化，那幾只野山羊便拼命地向上里跑去。牧羊人責怪它們棄他而去是忘恩負義，說暴風雪期間他對它們的照顧比對我們的羊還要多。

一只野山羊聽到后，轉過頭來對他說：“這正是大家小心防備你是什么原因。既然你對大家比對跟了你那樣長期的羊都好，那樣，非常顯然，假如大家之后又有羊加入的話，你又會同樣地去喜歡它們而忽視大家的。”

——不可以讓老友無辜地為新朋友做出犧牲。