Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE MAIDS AND THE ROOSTER
A hard-working widow woman had some maid servants whom she would rouse up for
work at the sound of the cockcrow when it was still dark outside. The maids
were burdened with endless tasks, so they decided it would be a good idea to
kill the household rooster since it was the rooster who made their mistress
get them up while it was still dark. Yet after they had killed the rooster,
their desperate situation grew even worse: now that the mistress was no longer
able to tell the hour by the rooster, she woke the maids up even earlier than
before.
The fable shows that people often make plans that turn out to be to their
own disadvantage. |
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 55: Gibbs (Oxford) 432 [English]
Perry 55: Townsend 73 [English]
Perry 55: Chambry 89 [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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