Aesop

The One-Eyed Doe

Summary

This narrative tells the tale of a one-eyed doe who, in an attempt to safeguard herself, grazes close to the edge of a cliff. She relies on her healthy eye to watch for threats from the land while assuming that the sea poses no danger. Unfortunately, some passing boatmen notice her and fatally wound her from the direction she least expected an attack. In her dying moments, the doe laments her misguided sense of safety, realizing that the shore, which she thought was a refuge, turned out to be more perilous. The story underscores the theme that perceived safety may be deceptive, highlighting the importance of awareness in all directions to avoid unexpected threats.

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A Doe blind in one eye was accustomed to graze as near to the edge of the cliff as she possibly could, in the hope of securing her greater safety. She turned her sound eye towards the land that she might get the earliest tidings of the approach of hunter or hound, and her injured eye towards the sea, from whence she entertained no anticipation of danger. Some boatmen sailing by saw her, and taking a successful aim, mortally wounded her. Yielding up her last breath, she gasped forth this lament: “O wretched creature that I am! to take such precaution against the land, and after all to find this seashore, to which I had come for safety, so much more perilous.”

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