A Gardener had an Ass which had a very hard time of it, what with scanty food, heavy loads, and constant beating. The Ass therefore begged Jupiter to take him away from the Gardener and hand him over to another master. So Jupiter sent Mercury to the Gardener to bid him sell the Ass to a Potter, which he did. But the Ass was as discontented as ever, for he had to work harder than before: so he begged Jupiter for relief a second time, and Jupiter very obligingly arranged that he should be sold to a Tanner. But when the Ass saw what his new master's trade was, he cried in despair, “Why wasn't I content to serve either of my former masters, hard as I had to work and badly as I was treated? for they would have buried me decently, but now I shall come in the end to the tanning-vat.”
Servants don't know a good master till they have served a worse.
有一个园丁有一只驴，他对驴非常不好，食物不足，负担沉重，还经常殴打他。因此，驴恳求朱庇特能让他离开园丁，换一个主人。于是朱庇特派墨丘利去见园丁，说服他将驴卖掉，园丁照办了。但是驴依然不满，因为他现在要干的活儿比过去更多了，所以他又去求朱庇特，朱庇特欣然同意，驴被卖给了一个制革工人。但是当驴看到新主人的行当后，绝望地哭了。“为什么我要对过去的主人不满呢？尽管我需要干活，受到的待遇也不好，但等我死了他们会将我体面地埋了，而现在呢，我却会变成皮瓮了。”
训诫：仆人在遇到更坏的主人前，不知道自己的主人是好的。