Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
100. THE WOLF AND THE GOAT ON THE CLIFF
Perry 157 (Syntipas
44)
There was a goat grazing up high on a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff
there was a wolf who wanted to catch the goat and eat her. Since it was
impossible for the wolf to climb up the cliff, he stood down below and
said to the goat, 'You poor creature! Why have you left the level plains
and meadows in order to graze upon the cliff? Are you trying to tempt
death from that height?' The goat said to the wolf in response, 'I know
how often I have managed to frustrate you! What makes you think that you
can now get me to come down off this cliff so that you can eat me for
dinner?'
The fable shows that sometimes people give you advice that is to their
advantage but which is dangerous for you.
Note: In another version of this fable (Avianus
26), the goat is besieged by a lion, not a wolf.
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.
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