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

570. THE MAN AND HIS ILL-TEMPERED WIFE
Perry 95 (Chambry 49 *)

A man had a wife who was hostile towards all the members of their household. He wondered if she treated the members of her father's household the same way, so he found a plausible excuse to send her away to her father's house. When she returned a few days later, he asked her how she had been received. His wife replied, 'The cowherds and the shepherds gave me dirty looks!' The husband then remarked, 'My wife, if you have hostile relations with those men who drive their flocks out at dawn and don't come back until late in the evening, then what kind of treatment can you expect from people who must spend the entire day in your company?'
The fable shows that great things can be detected in small things, and invisible things can be seen in what is visible.


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.