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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE SHEEP, THE SHEPHERD AND HIS CLOAK

A shepherd had driven his sheep into a stand of oaks. He then spread his cloak under an oak tree and climbed up into the tree in order to shake the acorns down. As the sheep ate the acorns, they also ate the shepherd's cloak, unbeknownst to the shepherd. The shepherd then climbed down from the tree and when he saw what had happened, he said, 'Oh you wicked creatures! You give wool to other people so that they can make clothes but you take my clothes and ruin them, even though I am the one who feeds you!'
The fable shows that people frequently do favours for someone who has nothing to do with them, while treating their own family members unkindly.

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 208: Gibbs (Oxford) 78 [English]
Perry 208: L'Estrange 199 [English]
Perry 208: Townsend 263 [English]
Perry 208: Chambry 316 [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.