Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE DEER AND HIS MOTHER
A story about a deer, urging that advice should be given
by a person who is also capable of action.
The deer was being lectured by his mother, 'Why do you act this way, my child?
You have been naturally endowed with horns, and you are powerfully built, so
I cannot understand why you run away at the approach of the dogs.' That is what
the mother said. Then, when she heard the sound of the hunting dogs in the distance,
she again urged her child to stand firm while she herself took off at a run.
It is easy to advise action which cannot be carried out. |
 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 351: Gibbs (Oxford) 249 [English]
Perry 351: L'Estrange 124 [English]
Perry 351: Townsend 22 [English]
Perry 351: Aphthonius 17 [Greek]
Perry 351: Chambry 247 [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.
|
