Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE GOOSE AND THE SWAN
A story about a goose and a swan, exhorting young people
to study.
A wealthy man wanted to raise a goose and a swan together but for different purposes:
the swan was for singing and the goose was for eating. The time came for the
goose to meet his appointed fate and have his throat cut. Yet the darkness of
nighttime prevented the man from knowing which bird was which. As a result, he
grabbed the swan instead of the goose. The swan then declared his true nature
by bursting into a swan-song, and thus narrowly escaped from death.
The fable shows that music is so powerful that it can even avert death. |
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 399: Gibbs (Oxford) 303 [English]
Perry 399: L'Estrange 158 [English]
Perry 399: Townsend 133 [English]
Perry 399: Aphthonius 2 [Greek]
Perry 399: Chambry 173 [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.
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