<< Home Page | Oxford (Gibbs) Index

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

595. THE EUNUCH AND HIS ACCUSER
Perry 502 (Phaedrus 3.11)

A eunuch was involved in a legal dispute with an extremely unpleasant person who made rude and cutting remarks, and even insulted the eunuch for the loss he had suffered in his bodily parts. The eunuch responded: 'I admit that this is the one thing that puts me in considerable difficulty: I don't have testi-mony, so to speak, in support of my good character. But you are a fool to denounce me for something that is merely a matter of fate!'
The only thing that can really bring shame on a man is a punishment that he has justly deserved.

Note: The Latin depends on a very explicit pun between testes meaning 'witnesses' (the same root as in the English word 'testify') and testes meaning testicles.

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.