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Updated: May 20, 2025
Androcles found that the beast, far from resenting this familiarity, received it with the greatest gentleness, and seemed to invite him by his blandishments to proceed. He therefore extracted the thorn, and, pressing the swelling, discharged a considerable quantity of matter, which had been the cause of so much pain and uneasiness.
As he advanced in years, Richard of the Lion-heart became his chief historical hero; Androcles and the lion stirred up all the enthusiasm of his nature. Indeed it might have been said that the lion-rampant was stamped indelibly on his heart, while the British lion became to him the most attractive myth on record.
Androcles pulled out the thorn carefully; then he squeezed down the swelling. That relieved the lion's pain. Immediately the lion showed his gratitude. He wagged his tail, fawned on Androcles, and gambolled around him playfully like a dog. He could not do more to show his feelings. After a time the lion went away to the jungle. A year passed. Androcles still lived in hiding.
Everyone thought that now the lion would kill Androcles. But a still more wonderful thing happened. Instead of killing Androcles, the lion gambolled around him, and fawned on him as if he were glad to meet again an old friend. Then Androcles understood. He had forgotten all about the lion he had met in the jungle the year before, whose pain he had relieved. But the lion had not forgotten him.
It was greatly swollen and inflamed, and was causing him much pain. Androcles went up to the suffering beast. He drew out the rankling thorn and thus relieved him of his pain. His nature, savage as it was, felt the power of the kindness thus shown to him. He became attached to the lonely slave, and shared his prey with him while they remained together.
It happened in the old days at Rome that a slave named Androcles escaped from his master and fled into the forest, and he wandered there for a long time till he was weary and well nigh spent with hunger and despair. Just then he heard a lion near him moaning and groaning and at times roaring terribly.
But one day a number of soldiers came marching through the forest and found Androcles, and as he could not explain what he was doing they took him prisoner and brought him back to the town from which he had fled. Here his master soon found him and brought him before the authorities, and he was condemned to death because he had fled from his master.
The Roman captain was a writer, the centurion a manufacturer, Androcles a teacher of some sort, the call-boy for the fights in the arena a cabin-boy from a British merchant ship, and the tender-hearted lion some genius from the "halls."
And they were enforced by parables which represented good as done in turn to men by all sorts of creatures, even the wildest and the most savage. Stories of grateful beasts, of the type familiar to us in Androcles and the Lion, became favourites among the disciples of the Light of Asia.
"I dare say you have all heard the story of 'Androcles and the Lion, which is recorded in that most delightful book, 'Sandford and Merton. It is so captivating a tale, that I must repeat it to you as much for my own gratification as for yours.
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