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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE DOG AND THE SHELLFISH

There was a certain dog who liked to swallow eggs. When he happened to come across a shellfish, he thought it was an egg. The dog opened his mouth, took a great big gulp, and swallowed the shellfish whole. When his stomach grew heavy and began to ache, the dog remarked, 'Well, that's what I get for thinking that anything round must be an egg!'
The story teaches us that there are unexpected consequences in store for people who attempt to do something that is beyond their comprehension.

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 253: Gibbs (Oxford) 430 [English]
Perry 253: Townsend 287 [English]
Perry 253: Chambry 181 [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.