Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE MAN, THE MARE AND THE FOAL
A man was riding a pregnant mare and she gave birth to her foal while they were
still on the road. The new-born foal followed directly behind his mother but
soon became unsteady on his feet. The foal then said to the man, 'Look, you
can see that I am very small and not strong enough to travel. If you leave me
here, I am sure to die. But if you carry me away from here back to your home
and bring me up, then later on, when I am grown, I shall let you ride me.'
The fable shows that we should do favours for someone who can do us a good
deed in return. |
 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 401: Gibbs (Oxford) 84 [English]
Perry 401: Syntipas 45 [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.
|
