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

436. THE FROGS AND THE SUN
Perry 314 (Phaedrus 1.6)

When Aesop saw crowds of people thronging to the wedding party of his neighbour, a thief, he immediately told them the following story: 'Once upon a time, the Sun wanted to get married but the frogs raised a cry of protest up to the heavens. Jupiter, disturbed by their shouting, asked the reason for their complaint, and one of the swamp's inhabitants explained, "Already one Sun is enough to burn up all the ponds, condemning us to a miserable death in our parched abode. What is going to happen to us when he will have sons of his own?"'

Note: In this case, English offers a fortuitous pun -- sun/son -- that is not possible in Latin or Greek.


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.