Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE BALD MAN AND THE GARDENER
A bald man asked his neighbour, a gardener, to give him some of his pumpkins.
The gardener laughed at him and said, 'Go away, baldy, go away! I'm not giving
any of my pumpkins to riffraff like you. Damn you and your baldness, in winter
and summer -- I hope flies and bugs land all over your bald head and bite you
and drink your blood and poop on your head!' The bald man got angry and drew
his sword. He seized the gardener by the hair, intending to kill him, but the
gardener grabbed one of his pumpkins and hit the bald man on the head. In the
end, the bald man was too strong for him and he cut off the gardener's head.
For people who do not offer to share their goods when asked, and instead
offer only rude words and rebukes. |
 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 560: Gibbs (Oxford) 583 [English]
Perry 560: Ademar 24 [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.
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