<< Home Page | Oxford (Gibbs) Index

Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

193. THE CRANE AND THE PEACOCK
Perry 294 (Babrius 65)

The peacock kept waving his golden feathers back and forth while he argued with the grey-winged crane. The crane finally exclaimed, 'You may make fun of the colour of my wings, but I can rise on them up to the stars and high into the sky. You, on the other hand, can only flap those gilded feathers of yours down there on the ground, just like a rooster. You are never seen soaring up high in the sky!'
I would prefer to be admired while dressed in my well-worn clothes than to live without honour, no matter how fine my clothes might be.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.