The Frog and The Ox

The Frog and the Ox appears among Aesop's Fables. The story concerns a frog that tries to inflate itself to the size of an ox, but bursts in the attempt. In some Classical sources the fable concludes with the moral: 'Not all creatures can become as great as they think.' There are various versions of the story. In some, the frog sees the ox and tries to equal him in size; in others it is only told of an enormous beast by another and keeps swelling, asking at intervals, 'Was it as big as this?' The story has usually been applied to socio-economic relations.