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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE STAG, THE HORSE AND THE MAN

There was a horse who was the sole owner of a meadow. Then a stag came and wreaked havoc in the meadow. The horse wanted to get revenge, so he asked a certain man if he would help him carry out a vendetta against the stag. The man agreed, provided that the horse took the bit in his mouth so that the man could ride him, wielding his javelin. The horse consented, and the man climbed on his back but instead of getting his revenge, the horse simply became a slave to the man.

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.


In some versions the rivalry is between a stag and a horse; in other versions (Chambry, Phaedrus), it is between a boar and a horse (Aristotle). L'Estrange has both versions: the boar and the stag.

Perry 269: Caxton 4.9 [English]
Perry 269: Gibbs (Oxford) 47 [English]
Perry 269: Jacobs 32 [English]
Perry 269: L'Estrange 56 [English]
Perry 269: L'Estrange 57 [English]
Perry 269: Townsend 193 [English]
Perry 269: Steinhowel 4.9 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim University Library
Perry 269: Chambry 328 [Greek]
Perry 269: Phaedrus 4.4 [Latin]
Perry 269: Rom. Anglicus 105 [Latin]


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.