Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
173. THE MAN BITTEN BY THE DOG
Perry 64 (Syntipas
56)
A man who had just been badly bitten by a dog was looking for someone
who could heal his wound. He ran into someone who told him, 'Here is what
you need to do: let the blood from your wound drip onto a piece of bread
and then feed the bread to the dog who bit you. If you do that, your wound
will be cured.' The man who had been bitten by the dog replied, 'But if
I do that, every single dog in the city will want to bite me!'
This fable shows that if someone respects and honours a wicked man,
the wicked man will not return the favour, since his only friends are
other wicked men like himself.
Note: In another version of this fable (Phaedrus
2.3), the man actually gives the blood-soaked bread to the dog who
bit him, provoking Aesop to remark that if the other dogs find out,
they will all want to bite him.
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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