An Old Man was employed in cutting wood in the forest. Carrying the faggots to the city for sale one day, he became wearied with his long journey. He threw down his load, sat by the wayside, and besought Death to come. Death immediately appeared in answer to his summons and asked for what reason he had called him. The Old Man hurriedly replied: “That, lifting up the load, you may place it again upon my shoulders.”

From Aesop’s Fables, translated by George Fyler Townsend, Collins Classics, London: Harper Press, 2011, p. 86.