Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE OLD MAN AND HIS DONKEYS
There was a farmer who had grown old living in the countryside and who had never
seen the city so he asked his children to let him see the city at least once
before he died. His children yoked the donkeys to the wagon for him and said,
'Just drive, and they will take you to the city.' When they were halfway there,
a storm blew up and the sky grew dark. The donkeys went astray and wandered
to the edge of a cliff. When the old man saw the danger he was in, he said,
'O Zeus, what crime have I committed against you that I must die this way? My
killers are not even horses, but only these abominable donkeys!' |
 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 381: Gibbs (Oxford) 423 [English]
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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