Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
ZEUS AND THE DONKEYS
The donkeys were tired of being burdened with burdens and labouring all the
days of their lives, so they sent ambassadors to Zeus, asking him to release
them from their toil. Zeus, wanting to show them that they had asked for something
impossible, said that their suffering would come to an end on the day when they
pissed a river. The donkeys took him seriously and to this day whenever donkeys
see where another donkey has pissed, they come to a halt and piss in the same
place.
The fable shows that a person cannot escape his allotted fate. |
 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 185: Gibbs (Oxford) 568 [English]
Perry 185: L'Estrange 191 [English]
Perry 185: Chambry 262 [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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