一个园丁养了一头驴，它的日子过得很艰难，不仅吃得少、干得多，还经常挨主人的鞭打。于是，驴请求朱庇特让他离开园丁，换另外一个主人。于是朱庇特派墨丘利去找园丁，让他把驴卖给一个陶艺工人，园丁照做了。但是驴子还是一如既往地不满，因为他现在过得比以前还辛苦。于是，他又请求朱庇特让自己离开第二个主人，再换另外一个。朱庇特又非常客气地安排第二个主人把他卖给一个皮匠。可是，当驴一看到新主人的生意，就绝望地哭起来了：“为什么我总对以前的主人不满意呀？尽管我必须努力工作，尽管我受到了恶劣的待遇？因为我本可以体面地劳累至死，而现在，我就要在制皮桶里结束性命了。”
到了更坏的主人那里，才知道前主人的好。
（翻译：泥泥）
A gardener had an ass which had a very hard time of it, what with scanty food, heavy loads, and constant beating. The ass therefore begged Jupiter to take him away from the gardener and hand him over to another master. So Jupiter sent Mercury to the gardener to bid him sell the ass to a potter, which he did. But the ass was as discontented as ever, for he had to work harder than before; so he begged Jupiter for relief a second time, and Jupiter very obligingly arranged that he should be sold to a tanner. But when the ass saw what his new master's trade was, he cried in despair, "Why wasn't I content to serve either of my former masters, hard as I had to work and badly as I was treated? For they would have buried me decently, but now I shall come in the end to the tanning vat."
Servants don't know a good master till they have served a worse.
( Aesop's Fables )
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