fourth part. A Latin reference to Aesop's fable is found at the start of the Common Era, where the phrase societas leonina (a leonine company) was used by one Roman lawyer to describe the kind of unequal business partnership described by Aesop. The early 19th century writer Jefferys Taylor also retold the fable in terms of a commercial enterprise in his poem "The Beasts in Partnership": This firm once existed, I'd have you to know, Messrs Lion, Wolf, Tiger, Fox, Leopard & Co; These in business were join'd, and of course 'twas implied, They their stocks should unite, and the profits divide. The Babrius version In the extended Greek telling of Babrius it is a lion and a wild donkey who go hunting together, the first outstanding for strength, the second for speed. The lion divides their take into three, awarding himself the first because he is king of the beasts, the second because they are 'equal' partners, and suggesting that the ass runs away quickly rather than dare to touch the third. The moral Babrius draws is, "Measure yourself! Do not engage in any business or partnership with a man more powerful!" Another version that first appeared in the Middle Ages is more cynical still. A fox joins the lion and donkey in hunting. When the donkey divides their catch into three equal portions, the angry lion kills the donkey and eats him. The fox then puts everything into one pile, leaving just a tiny bit for herself, and tells the lion to choose. When the lion asks her how she learned to share things this way, the fox replies, "From the donkey’s misfortune." This variation is given a separate number (149) in the Perry Index and is the one followed by such Neo-Latin writers as Gabriele Faerno and Hieronymus Osius and in English by Geoffrey Whitney. This alternative fable was given a different reading by the 13th century Persian poet Rumi in his Masnavi. He began by orienting the reader to interpret the fable in a spiritual sense: Melt away your existence, as copper in the elixir, in the being of Him who fosters existence. You have fastened both your hands tight on 'I' and 'we': all this ruin is caused by dualism. In Rumi's telling, the lion had a wolf and a fox as hunting companions. The lion ordered the wolf to divide the catch and when