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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE OLD LION AND THE DONKEY

When someone no longer commands the same respect he once did, his abject condition exposes him to the ridicule of even the most contemptible riffraff.
A lion, enfeebled by old age and having lost his former strength, was stretched out on the ground, about to take his last breath. A boar then approached him, foaming with rage. With his flashing tusks, the boar stabbed and wounded the lion, avenging a previous injury. Next came a bull, who likewise gored the lion's hated body with his deadly horns. When a donkey saw that the savage beast could be attacked with impunity, he struck the lion in the head with his hooves. Gasping his last breath, the lion exclaimed, 'I was loathe to suffer the attacks of those brave creatures but when I am compelled to suffer you as well -- you disgrace to the natural world! -- I seem to die a second 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 481: Caxton 1.16 [English]
Perry 481: Gibbs (Oxford) 422 [English]
Perry 481: Jacobs 9 [English]
Perry 481: L'Estrange 15 [English]
Perry 481: Townsend 119 [English]
Perry 481: Steinhowel 1.16 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim University Library
Perry 481: Ademar 16 [Latin]
Perry 481: Phaedrus 1.21 [Latin]
Perry 481: Rom. Nil. (rhythmica) 1.15 [Latin]
Perry 481: Walter of England 16 [Latin]


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.