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

550. THE FOX AND THE MASK
Perry 27 (Phaedrus 1.7)

A fox happened to find a mask used for performing tragedies and, after turning it this way and that several times, she remarked, 'So full of beauty, so lacking in brains!'
This is a saying for people to whom Fortune has granted honour and glory, while depriving them of common sense.

Note: In the medieval Latin tradition, this story is told of a wolf, not a fox.


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.