Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE DOG AND THE BLACKSMITHS
There was a dog living in the house of some blacksmiths. When the blacksmiths
were working, the dog would go to sleep, but when they sat down to a meal he
would wake up and approach his masters in a friendly fashion. The blacksmiths
said to the dog, 'How is that you sleep undisturbed when our heaviest hammers
are clanging away, but you are immediately awakened by the slightest sound of
our teeth chewing?'
This fable shows that even inattentive people quickly notice anything that
they think will benefit them, while they are completely unaware of things which
are not their immediate concern. |
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 415: Gibbs (Oxford) 380 [English]
Perry 415: L'Estrange 117 [English]
Perry 415: Townsend 124 [English]
Perry 415: Chambry 345 [Greek]
Perry 415: Syntipas 16 [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.
|