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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE EAGLE AND THE FOX

The eagle befriended the fox but he later devoured the fox's pups. Since she had no power over the eagle, the fox prayed to the gods for justice. Then one day when a sacrifice was burning upon an altar, the eagle flew down and grabbed the sizzling meat to carry it off to his chicks. The meat was so hot that as soon as the chicks ate it, they died.
This fable shows that even if the victims of powerful and wicked people cannot get revenge directly, the gods will nevertheless inflict a punishment on them in response to their victims' prayers.

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.


The endings of the stories varies. Sometimes the fox retrieves her pups, as in Phaedrus and stories derived from Phaedrus (including Caxton, In other versions, the fox loses her pups but gets her revenge by destroying the eagle's chicks, as in the Greek tradition represented by Chambry and Syntipas. The ending in L'Estrange is especially gruesome: "The Birds were not as yet fledged enough to shift for themselves, but upon sprawling and struggling to get clear of the Flame, down they tumbled, half-roasted, into the very Mouth of the Fox."

Perry 1: Caxton 1.13 [English]
Perry 1: Gibbs (Oxford) 155 [English]
Perry 1: Gibbs (Oxford) 154 [English]
Perry 1: L'Estrange 72 [English]
Perry 1: Townsend 253 [English]
Perry 1: Steinhowel 1.13 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim University Library
Perry 1: Chambry 3 [Greek]
Perry 1: Syntipas [Greek]
Perry 1: Ademar 14 [Latin]
Perry 1: Phaedrus 1.28 [Latin]
Perry 1: Rom. Anglicus 12 [Latin]
Perry 1: Rom. Nil. (metrica) 10 [Latin]
Perry 1: Rom. Nil. (rhythmica) 1.12 [Latin]
Perry 1: Walter of England 13 [Latin]


You can find a compilation of Perry's index to the Aesopica in the gigantic appendix to his edition of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965). This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the Aesopic fable tradition. Invaluable.