Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
99. THE BULL, THE LION AND THE DINNER INVITATION
Perry 143 (Babrius
97)
There was once a lion who wanted to set a trap for a wild bull. He pretended
to be making a sacrifice to the mother of the gods and asked the bull
to come share the feast. The bull said that he would come, suspecting
nothing. But when he arrived and stood in the lion's door, he looked and
saw many bronze cooking pots filled with boiling water, along with cleavers
and knives for skinning, all newly polished. Yet the bull didn't see anything
that could be offered for sacrifice except a single trussed-up rooster.
The bull then turned tail and ran back to the mountains. Later on the
lion happened to run into the bull and criticized his behaviour. The bull
said, 'I came to your house, and here's the proof that I was there: you
had no sacrificial victim on hand that was equal to the scale of your
butcher shop.'
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.
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