<< Home Page | Oxford (Gibbs) Index

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

257. THE HUNTER AND THE HORSEMAN
Perry 402 (Syntipas 49)

There was a hunter who had caught a hare and was carrying it home. As he went along his way, he met a man on horseback who asked him for the hare, pretending that he wanted to buy it. As soon as he got the hare from the hunter, the horseman immediately took off at a gallop. The hunter began to pursue the horseman thinking that he might catch up with him. When the horseman finally disappeared into the distance, the hunter reluctantly said, 'Go ahead then! That hare is my gift to you.'
This fable shows that people who involuntarily have their property taken from them often pretend that they made a gift of it voluntarily.

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.