Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE BALD MAN AND HIS TWO MISTRESSES
There are all kinds of stories showing us how women habitually
strip a man of his possessions, regardless of whether they are
in love with him or he with them.
There was a woman who had a middle-aged man as her lover and although she was
no spring chicken herself, she concealed her age with exquisite grace. There
was also a beautiful young girl who had caught the man's fancy. Both women wanted
to seem a suitable partner for him, so they began plucking out his hair in turn.
The man imagined that his looks were being improved by their attentions but in
the end he went bald, since the young girl plucked out every one of his gray
hairs, while the older woman plucked out all the black ones. |
 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 31: Gibbs (Oxford) 584 [English]
Perry 31: Jacobs 45 [English]
Perry 31: L'Estrange 141 [English]
Perry 31: Townsend 62 [English]
Perry 31: Babrius 22 [Greek]
Perry 31: Chambry 52 [Greek]
Perry 31: Phaedrus 2.2 [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.
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