<< Home Page | Perry Index

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE DONKEY AND THE FROGS

A donkey was carrying a load of wood across a swamp when he slipped and fell into the water. Unable to get up, the donkey began to weep and moan. When the frogs who lived in the swamp heard the donkey complaining, they said, 'Hey you! What would you do if you had to spend as much time here as we do, given that you make such a fuss about having fallen in for just a few minutes?'
A person who easily endures great hardships can use this fable to reproach a lazy person who is put out by the least inconvenience.

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 189: Gibbs (Oxford) 377 [English]
Perry 189: L'Estrange 192 [English]
Perry 189: Townsend 164 [English]
Perry 189: Chambry 271 [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.