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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

PLEASURE AND PAIN

Socrates said, 'If Aesop had thought about pleasure and pain, he would have composed a fable about how when Pleasure and Pain were at war with one another, the god wanted to reconcile them. But as he was not able to do that, he joined them together at the head, which is why when you meet with either pleasure or pain, the other one soon follows.'

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 445: Gibbs (Oxford) 532 [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.