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

245. THE LION AND THE MOUSE ON HIS MANE
Perry 146 (Babrius 82)

While a lion was sleeping, a mouse ran over his shaggy mane. This angered the lion and he leaped up from his den, all the hairs of his mane standing on end. A fox made fun of the fact that a lion, king of all the animals, had been startled by a mouse. The lion answered the fox, 'You insolent creature! I was not afraid of the mouse scratching me and running away; I was just worried that he might make a mess on my mane.'

Note: An epimythium probably added by a later editor reads: 'Check the bold advances of insolent people at the very outset, no matter how small, and do not allow trivial persons to treat you with disrespect.'


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.