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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE DONKEY WHO CARRIED THE GOD

A man had placed a carved image on his donkey and was leading him along. Many people bowed down when they met them along the way. The donkey grew arrogant, thinking that the country folk were bowing down before him, so he began to leap and prance. As he did so, the donkey almost threw the image of the god from his back. The donkey's master beat him with a stick and said, 'You are a donkey carrying a god on your back, but that does not mean you deserve to be worshipped as a god!'
This fable can be used for vulgar people who attribute to themselves the honour that is paid to others.

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 182: Gibbs (Oxford) 278 [English]
Perry 182: Townsend 2 [English]
Perry 182: Townsend 117 [English]
Perry 182: Chambry 266 [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.