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

375. THE BEAR AND THE FOX
Perry 288 (Babrius 14)

The bear boasted that he was exceptionally fond of mankind since, as he explained, bears don't pull dead people's bodies to pieces. The fox remarked, 'I'd prefer that you mangled the dead ones, if you'd leave the living alone!'

Note: An epimythium probably added by a later editor reads: 'If someone injures me while I am alive, do not let him weep over me when I am dead.'

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.