Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE CRAB ON DRY LAND
A crab came up from out of the sea and was looking for food on the land. A hungry
fox saw the crab, ran up, and grabbed him. As he was about to be eaten, the
crab exclaimed, 'It serves me right! I am a creature of the sea but I wanted
to live on dry land.'
The fable shows that people are bound to fail when they abandon their familiar
pursuits and take up a business they know nothing about. |
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.
Perry 116: Gibbs (Oxford) 333 [English]
Perry 116: L'Estrange 175 [English]
Perry 116: Townsend 167 [English]
Perry 116: Chambry 150 [Greek]
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.
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