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

532. PLEASURE AND PAIN
Perry 445 (Plato, Phaedo 60b)

Socrates said, 'If Aesop had thought about pleasure and pain, he would have composed a fable about how when Pleasure and Pain were at war with one another, the god wanted to reconcile them. But as he was not able to do that, he joined them together at the head, which is why when you meet with either pleasure or pain, the other one soon follows.'

Note: As recounted in Plato's Phaedo, Socrates is supposed to have composed Aesopic fables in verse while he was in prison, awaiting execution.


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.