<< Home Page | Oxford (Gibbs) Index

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

494. THE FARMER AND HIS SONS
Perry 42 (Chambry 83 *)

A farmer who was about to die wanted his sons to be knowledgeable about the farm, so he summoned them and said, 'My children, there is a treasure buried in one of my vineyards.' After he died, his sons took plows and mattocks and dug up the entire farm. They did not find any treasure, but the vineyard paid them back with a greatly increased harvest.
Thus they learned that man's greatest treasure consists in work.


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.