Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE LION AND THE BEAR
A lion and a bear had found a fawn and were fighting to see who would keep it.
In the protracted violence of the battle, they had both grown faint from fighting
so they called a truce in order to rest. Meanwhile, there was a fox who had
been pacing around them in circles. When she saw that they had fallen to the
ground with the fawn lying between them, she dashed up, grabbed the fawn and
took off at a run. The lion and the bear were not even able to get to their
feet, so they sat there watching the fox disappear. 'What fools we are,' they
said, 'for having gone to so much trouble on that fox's behalf!'
The fable shows that while some people do all the work, others make off
with the profit. |
 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 147: Gibbs (Oxford) 62 [English]
Perry 147: L'Estrange 5 [English]
Perry 147: Townsend 141 [English]
Perry 147: Chambry 200 [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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