Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE DONKEY, THE ONAGER AND THE LION
An onager saw a donkey labouring under a heavy load and he
made fun of the donkey's enslavement. 'Lucky me!' said the onager.
'I am free from bondage and do not have to work for anyone else,
since I have grass near at hand on the hillsides, while you rely
on someone else to feed you, forever oppressed by slavery and
its blows!' At that very moment a lion happened to appear on
the scene. He did not come near the donkey since the donkey's
driver was standing beside him. The onager, however, was all
alone, so the lion attacked and devoured him.
The story shows that people who are obstinate and insubordinate come to
a bad end because they get carried away by their own sense of stubbornness
and refuse to ask others for assistance. |
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 411: Gibbs (Oxford) 5 [English]
Perry 411: Syntipas 30 [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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